Springtime has ever been the symbol of promise, hope, and fulfillment to mankind. When the long winter's rigor is past, and the cold hardness of things begins to soften, earth's mundane drabness changes into newness and growth, freshness, color, and flower. As in nature the warming, lengthening days bring blossom and fruitage, so in Christian Science the glorious sunshine of Truth melts away the adamant of sickness and sin, and ensures spiritual accomplishment. Through the study of Christian Science, the regenerating law and spiritual power of divine Love unfold to the waiting consciousness, separated only by false belief from the blessings of spiritual sense. To mortal sense, God, good, seems far removed and the hope of experiencing His beneficence peculiarly remote. But in Christian Science the light of divine revelation which comes through prayerful humility reveals the true nature of God as Soul, the source of all perfection, and brings into human experience the healing assurance of ever-present harmony, security, and progress.
Ever at one with God's precious purpose, our inspired Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, demonstrated the affluence of infinite Life and rejoiced in mankind's response to the redemptive, healing effects of Christian Science. In June of 1898 she wrote to her beloved Church (Christian Science versus Pantheism, p. 1), "In unctuous unison with nature, mortals are hoping and working, putting off outgrown, wornout, or soiled garments—the pleasures and pains of sensation and the sackcloth of waiting—for the springtide of Soul." And she added, "The night is far spent, and day is not distant in the horizon of Truth—even the day when all people shall know and acknowledge one God and one Christianity."
True Christianity is the infinite alterative, the power of divine Love which, when understandingly applied, exchanges the soiled, outgrown garments of selfishness, small-mindedness, criticism, and hate for the royal robes of benevolence, bigness of heart, conciliation, and love. The divine corrective, the law of Spirit as taught by Christ Jesus, intelligently utilized, eliminates the false beliefs of worn-out creeds, dogma, ritualism, and pantheism, promoting in their stead spiritual understanding, Christ-likeness, and wisdom. Manifestly, the establishment of spiritual understanding through fidelity and singleness of thought gives increasing strength to the expectancy of good. Thus, material-mindedness, sensuousness, appetite, and greed are laid aside for the higher, holier senses of Soul, wherein true satisfaction is found. How great is the measure of joy when we come to see in Christian Science that, if we pray intelligently and work wisely, "the sackcloth of waiting" removes itself and "the springtide of Soul" appears, to brighten, heal, and save!
