"To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is big with blessings." This is the merciful message that Christian Science brings to humanity on the first page of the Preface to its textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. Immediate hope, wise counsel, upward lifting of thought permeate these words, bringing to the weary and war-worn of earth a way of escape from despair. With divine tenderness and powerful persuasion they turn men's gaze from the barrenness of materiality to behold the benisons of eternal good.
As men are led by inspired utterance to forsake troubled beliefs of existence for understanding of the universe of God's creating, unforeseen opportunities of progress appear, undreamed-of views of Life unfold. As thought is turned from the finite toward the infinite, new courage rises to lay hold upon the priceless verities of ever-present good. Then evil's waning night yields to the rising sun of righteousness, within whose radiance appears the heaven of our prayers.
The word "sustaining" before the term "infinite" in the sentence already quoted, signifies that the transition of human consciousness from belief in the finite to trust in the infinite is divinely supported. The aviator in a disabled plane, the parachutist jumping into space, the individual adrift on the sea, anyone seemingly at the end of his resources, must lean upon the infinite. In so doing he is not defying laws of Life, but is discovering divine omnipresence as able to sustain him out of exhaustless stores of Life's essentials.
