A College student was awarded a scholarship large enough to pay the tuition fees for his freshman year. The scholarship had to be renewed each year, and the granting of the renewal depended upon the maintenance of good grades. To show his gratitude for the scholarship he studied hard, and each morning he arose early to work on his assignments before going to classes. He paid close attention in all of his classes, took an active part in class discussion, got out piles of books from the library, rushed around, and stayed up late at night working. Of course, to do all this he believed he had to sacrifice his study of Christian Science, and had little time in which to read the literature or attend church services. In fact, he drove himself hard in order to obtain the highest marks he could. But when the day came for the grades to be posted on the bulletin board, he was surprised to find how low his were. Instead of being higher than usual, as he expected, they were lower. Naturally he asked himself why. He had done what he felt was right. He had worked hard and had been grateful for the scholarship. But something was wrong.
One day he was lying on the grass on the campus during lunch hour reading his pocket copy of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. As he read it, the fact dawned on him that all this human effort was not in accord with seeking first the kingdom of God. He remembered Jesus' statement (Matt. 6:33), "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." "That certainly means me," he thought. "I have made all this effort in the wrong direction. I have not put God first." For some time he had felt sorry about putting his school subjects before Christian Science, but he did not see how he could have good grades if he gave more time to studying Science and going more regularly to the church services and lectures. He pondered the foregoing Bible reference for a few days, and then decided really to put God first and not the scholarship.
So each morning he arose early enough to read the entire Lesson-Sermon from the Christian Science Quarterly, and he pondered it as he read. His fear of possibly losing the scholarship lessened as he saw that his life and all its affairs were in God's hands. As he recognized his need of trusting more in God, he began to see that because God is Mind and man is God's reflection, he, in his true being, as God's reflection, naturally expressed divine intelligence in all activities. The realization that divine intelligence was directing him to study what he needed for each day eliminated the thought of how many hours and how many pages he must study. Part of his evenings he devoted to a study of authorized Christian Science literature. Church services and lectures were no longer sacrificed for the study of college subjects. The tension, fear, and sense of drive in his thought diminished. As his thought was spiritualized, he became calm, and found that he was able to grasp his subjects with less study. Not only did he retain what he read, but his written reports were more easily prepared, and he was able to speak with more accuracy and clarity in the classroom.
