Usefulness leads to effective living. To the student of Christian Science, this quality is essential to the demonstration of Life, Truth, and Love. Usefulness proves the activity of Life. It bears witness to the invariable goodness of Truth and the infinite provision of Love. It is the keystone to accomplishment and leads away from self and materiality. In her Message to The Mother Church for 1900 Mary Baker Eddy counsels us to remember that apathy or mental idleness is always egotism or animality. And she adds (p. 8), "Usefulness is doing rightly by yourself and others."
We can scarcely comprehend how our Leader accomplished all that she did in establishing the Cause of Christian Science. But with all the demands on her time and thought, she never overlooked an opportunity to express universal love for mankind, by performing a neighborly act or supporting a purposeful civic service. To mention only a few of her numerous benefactions recorded in authorized biographies of her, we read that she led a successful campaign for street improvement in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed generously to the police department, needy children and victims of earthquake, educational advancement, and even state fair ventures. That her vigorous desire to be useful to her environment was appreciated is confirmed by a tribute to her in a Concord paper, which appeared soon after she visited the Concord fair. As recorded in "Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy" by Irving C. Tomlinson, the tribute reads in part (p. 184), "The demands of her religious duties are exacting but she is concerned with all that makes for the public's highest welfare."
In our Leader's example, there was no place for aloofness, dreamy languishing, or inactivity. She vanquished mortal belief's self-satisfied complacency by demonstrating the unlabored and ceaseless activity of man as Life's idea. We can and must do the same. There is nothing burdensome in giving this essential proof of progress when we realize that God does not demand of us more than we can do. Furthermore, He supplies us with every spiritual idea necessary for the demonstration of usefulness.
