Those who have gained a measure of the vision of divine reality as revealed in Christian Science are deeply grateful. They realize that to them has come the Christ, the understanding and revelation of Immanuel, or "God with us." The Christ, which is the truth of being, has unmistakably appeared in Christian Science. It is therefore inevitably Christian, and at the same time it is also Science and, as Science, presents the demand that it be understood and demonstrated. This involves a point which perhaps has not been fully understood and which requires added emphasis.
On page 26 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy, its author, writes, "While we adore Jesus, and the heart overflows with gratitude for what he did for mortals,—treading alone his loving pathway up to the throne of glory, in speechless agony exploring the way for us, —yet Jesus spares us not one individual experience, if we follow his commands faithfully; and all have the cup of sorrowful effort to drink in proportion to their demonstration of his love, till all are redeemed through divine Love." What is this "cup of sorrowful effort" which Christ Jesus himself asked might pass from him? Is it not the experience which every student of Christian Science, and in fact all, must have in facing and proving the powerlessness and unreality of evil? Can someone else face and prove this for us? No. Redemption is clearly individual. There is no vicarious salvation. Neither Jesus, nor our beloved Leader, nor a Christian Science teacher, nor a practitioner can in the last analysis do this for us.
"But," someone may ask, "why does Mrs. Eddy say 'the cup of sorrowful effort'? Does it have to be sorrowful?" No, it need not and should not. The sorrow appears only because of the claim of personal sense or material resistance in each individual human consciousness. The effort is sorrowful in proportion to the claim to reality that evil makes upon one. The process of proving may seem to human sense sorrowful, but the end is joyful. Let us not forget that.
