Recently, in commenting on present-day efforts to curb gambling, a supposedly intelligent individual said to the writer: "I cannot see why people should be so concerned about the matter. The tendency to gamble is in the thought of most everybody. Life itself is a gamble. We are all frail mortals born into a world of chance and change, in which luck plays an important part."
Had this individual understood even a little of the teachings of Christian Science he could not have made so unintelligent a statement. For the words luck and chance have no place in Christian Science; they belong in the so-called material realm, which Christian Science proves to be illusory. Christian Science interprets and demonstrates absolute spiritual law, for it is the Science of God, man, and the universe. It makes no concessions to error of any sort. It demands at all times right thinking and right acting and destroys the mortal tendency toward wrongdoing. In speaking of this in her "Miscellaneous Writings" Mary Baker Eddy says (p. 365): "If Christian Science lacked the proof of its goodness and utility, it would destroy itself; for it rests alone on demonstration. Its genius is right thinking and right acting, physical and moral harmony; and the secret of its success lies in supplying the universal need of better health and better men."
The purpose of Christian Science healings is not only to bring relief from suffering, but also to help those healed to see the necessity of changing their thinking from a material to a spiritual basis. This mental procedure awakens thought to the fact that indulgence in gambling, or in anything else that does not measure up to the high standard of thought set by the teachings of Christian Science, acts as a deterrent to spiritual growth and understanding.
