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THE IMPULSION TO SERVICE

From the April 1945 issue of The Christian Science Journal


Deep rooted in us all there is a desire to serve our brother man, to lift the burdens from the race, to bring it surcease from sorrow. Sometimes this impulse remains dormant until fired by the words of a great teacher. Sometimes it burns brightly for a season, and again it illumines the pages of history for generations by the force of its example, by the cumulative values of its benevolence.

History, religious and secular, is filled with the figures of those who have consecrated their lives to the welfare of others. Some have been motivated by the vision of reward or of a favored place in the sun. Others have carried on with a supreme unselfishness, finding an ample reward, a complete content, in the task at hand well done. But be it active or dormant, be it in the lives of the great and near great, or be it in the humbler walks of those that history has long since forgotten, this impulse has its basis in a profound truth, namely, that all creation is related because the universe, including man, is the offspring, the emanation, of the one infinite Mind, God.

Sometimes people move to the solution of their problems as a group and attempt through the passage of laws to alleviate suffering or to bring a higher standard to their daily living. Such legislation may achieve a measure of success, but the ultimate answer will never be reached through legalistic improvisation, but rather must come through the increased spiritual perception of the individual and the enlightenment which always accompanies such perception. Christian Science works primarily with the individual, promoting the spiritual unity of God's kingdom upon earth. Christian Science focuses the desire and effort of the forward-looking to lift up. and opens the way for the flowering of their greatest opportunity.

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