The conflict which grips the world today could be described as a struggle between that which is permanent and that which is impermanent. On one side we see thought which treasures the things of Spirit, God: the moral and spiritual values that are indestructible, trustworthy, compassionate, intelligent. On the other side we see thought which treasures matter, admits nothing beyond matter, and arrives at a state of amorality that is shifty, untrustworthy, loveless, and anything but intelligent in the right sense of that word.
The world's conflict of ideals is having the effect of intensifying real values for those who acknowledge God and the qualities and ideas which He evolves. Followers of Christ Jesus know that he was constantly stressing the need for seeking the permanent and spiritual as opposed to the temporal and material. An example of this teaching is found in the thirteenth chapter of Matthew. Here the Master shows by his parables of the kingdom of heaven the need for seeking the realm of Spirit at whatever cost or sacrifice. One parable reads (verses 45, 46), "The kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it."
According to the interpretation of Christian Science, Christ Jesus gave "all that he had." His life was an example for everyone to follow in proof that God's kingdom is the only kingdom and that the material sense of life is a delusion and a fraud. Jesus was not deceived by matter and its claim to create and sustain life, to give existence and to take it away. He looked to God as the Father of all, the Giver of permanent existence, and the only source of activity and health and intelligence. His higher knowledge of reality canceled the seeming power of the material senses. His healings and other works pointed to the need for establishing an abiding sense of God's government, not merely a temporary sense of His beneficence.
