Mary Baker Eddy, the most intrepid of leaders and the deliverer of mankind in our time, says to us in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 419), "Meet every adverse circumstance as its master." And in "Retrospection and Introspection," referring specifically to the faithful teacher of Christian Science, though all faithful workers in Christian Science can learn their lesson from these words, she writes (pp. 70, 71): "Preeminent among men, he virtually stands at the head of all sanitary, civil, moral, and religious reform. Such a post of duty, unpierced by vanity, exalts a mortal beyond human praise, or monuments which weigh dust, and humbles him with the tax it raises on calamity to open the gates of heaven."
Much of Bible history is made up of accounts of courageous men and women who, putting their whole trust in God, have levied a tax on what seemed to be calamity and made the adverse circumstance a means for lifting them to greater spiritual heights, thus reversing evil with good. To illustrate, the children of Israel in Egypt had prospered and increased so much that Pharaoh feared that some day they would become strong enough to rise against him. Accordingly, he demanded that all boy babies born to the Hebrews be killed at birth, believing by this means to weaken them. One family, however, putting their trust in God, demonstrated the power of divine law to protect their child, who one day would be the deliverer of his people from Egyptian bondage.
It is noticeable that in human history when Truth is appearing most vividly or is about to appear upon earth, great upheavals seem to be simultaneously manifested. This is the attempt of the so-called carnal mind, at enmity with God, to destroy the divine idea and oppose its appearing. We see this in the cruel slaughter of the innocents at the time of Christ Jesus' birth. In our time we have witnessed almost continuous resistance to the divine idea revealed in Christian Science by Mrs. Eddy, our beloved Leader. The upheavals manifested in these latter days indicate the carnal mind's endeavor to prevent the establishment of Christ's kingdom on earth.
