The writer once heard a student of Christian Science casually say to her daughter, "Whenever you are faced with a problem, the first thing to do is to ask yourself, 'Is this the truth?'" Later the daughter confided that her mother had lovingly attributed to her a state of consciousness which she had not yet attained, but that the remark had awakened in her a desire to hold more steadfastly to the truth at all times.
In her Message to The Mother Church for 1902 Mary Baker Eddy writes (p. 2), "To live and let live, without clamor for distinction or recognition; to wait on divine Love; to write truth first on the tablet of one's own heart,—this is the sanity and perfection of living, and my human ideal." Human experience may be likened to a school where Christian Science, the second appearing of the Christ on earth, is present as the schoolmaster to point out the rules for gaining a better understanding of divine Principle. In this school the responsibility of each student for his own grades differs not from that in any other school. Each one is responsible for his own instant reversal of error, knowing "that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment" (Matt. 12: 36). Christian Science teaches that judgment comes hourly. Hourly, one may repent of idle words and wasted moments; he has fresh opportunity to change his ways, to "write truth first" in his thinking.
When one does this there is no clamoring for place, or power, no sense of unfair competition or mere selfish desire to exceed another's record, for here everything is done to the glory of God. Such a student wastes no time in looking about to see if others are living up to the high standard of Christian Science, indulges in no gossip or destructive criticism, and does not constitute himself a judge to penalize another student. He works diligently to increase his own individual spiritual understanding and demonstration of man's unity with Truth. He is satisfied "to live and let live;" to work out his own salvation and let others work out theirs, although always ready to give assistance if it is needed.
