"To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is big with blessings." What a world of promise is conveyed in these opening words of the Preface to "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy!
The promise is universal and impartial. It proclaims the infinite, ever-present, eternal nature of God's love. It is an expression of divine law, embracing all people of every nationality and race. It applies in all circumstances and conditions, regardless of place, time, environment, or relationship. It reverts to no past history. It bows to no complications or entanglements. It knows no barriers of youth or age. The learned and the unlearned, the beginner in Christian Science and the student of experience, alike are eligible. The promise of blessings bountiful and immediate is to all who lean on God.
The babe feels the parent's arms about it in full confidence of loving support. So may we all, as children of our loving Father-Mother God, lean on Him in full expectation of good. Truly, if one's days are not filled with blessings, one may well ask, On what am I leaning? It is obvious that we lean on that which we trust; and we trust only that which we believe to be real. To the materialist matter appears to be real. The materialist looks to matter and material means for health, wealth, pleasure, even for life itself. He therefore leans on the finite, the fallible. Christian Science declares Spirit to be real, and matter, the opposite of Spirit, to be unreal. Consequently the student of Christian Science learns to look away from matter to Spirit as the source of all good. With every advance toward Spirit, he finds a fuller unfoldment of divine goodness, and a corresponding loss of faith in matter and in material ways and means.
