"Pilgrim on earth, thy home is heaven; stranger, thou art the guest of God." Mary Baker Eddy writes these illuminating words as the concluding lines of the chapter entitled "Footsteps of Truth" in the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 254). The perceptive thought of the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science made her well aware of the feeling of strangeness that besets humanity, wandering among the mists of false beliefs, and with these loving words she seeks to guide and welcome all to a higher sense of their true status.
Is someone feeling lonely, unsettled, suffering from a sense of bleakness and exclusion or from the cold and repelling aspects of a loveless world? It is possible, then, for one to turn to these tender words, "Stranger, thou art the guest of God," and to enter through the door of spiritual understanding into his true home, into a better sense of activity and fulfillment. In the household of God we are enfolded in the warmth of divine Love and tenderly cared for.
A guest has both privileges and responsibilities. He feels a duty to the one who has invited him and to the group in which he finds himself. He responds eagerly to the wishes of his host; he tries to find the good in others and to draw it out for the enjoyment of all. He submits to a certain discipline of thought and behavior which has as its goal the achievement of a happy and harmonious experience.
