A CHALLENGING promise of steady spiritual progress is held out to faithful students of Christian Science in the writings of the Discoverer and Founder of this religion, Mary Baker Eddy, wherein the spiritual fact is made plain that there are no declining years, nor even stationary ones, but only growth for those who live up to the demands of this Science. Mrs. Eddy says, for instance (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 330), "With each returning year, higher joys, holier aims, a purer peace and diviner energy, should freshen the fragrance of being." As loyal students of Christian Science we can expect, therefore, to be stronger, more serene, more consistently joyful, as the years of our human reckoning roll by.
But do we persistently claim our right to such progress? Do we look forward with confidence to spiritual advancement in ourselves and in our fellow workers? Or do we accept the false notion that this person or that one has gained as much understanding of Truth as he ever will have here, or that we ourselves are in a similar position? If we do, we are saying "yes" to the unreal material law which insists that everything must grow, mature, and then come to an end. Such a law is the opposite of spiritual law, in which there is no birth-growth-death cycle, but constant unfoldment of omnipresent good.
Many are the calls to progress we find in Mrs. Eddy's writings. A glowing light in darkness to countless students is her beautiful statement on page 233 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" where, after saying that proofs of Christian Science consist in the destruction of error as Jesus destroyed it, she adds: "This is an element of progress, and progress is the law of God, whose law demands of us only what we can certainly fulfil."
