The young Christian Scientists of today are having to chart their course through life amid a new flood of materialism—evil's self-saving attempt to hold the line against the force of Spirit, which is compelling evil's destruction. For nearly a century Christian Science has been awakening many to the glory, freedom, and purpose of man's spiritual selfhood, instructing them in the use of God's laws in the demonstration of intelligence and direction, and holding them in the mighty discipline of the development of eternal Life, Truth, and Love. This glory, freedom, and purpose form the certain destiny of man.
Christian Science has laid irrevocable siege to evil and materialism and the destiny of suppression, drifting, and bondage they portend for the individual. The issue has become emphatic in the chronicle of our times. It is the struggle in individual consciousness as insubordination, mediocrity, indifference, and irresponsibility claim to challenge the rising of the Christly nature to its full stature. This struggle is reflected on the world scene as antagonistic ideologies, strife, erratic variableness, and lawlessness which resist the appearing through Science of the one government—that of the "I AM THAT I AM" (Ex. 3:14).
In its resistance to the force of Spirit revealed by Christian Science, evil could not plan a more effective strategy than to subvert young people who are on the threshold of taking the very steps that are in fulfillment of a God-given purpose. For materialism to dull their spiritual consciousness, annul their sense of purpose, dim their sense of direction, and absorb their spiritual vitality at this stage would be to impede effectively the appearance of divine order, purpose, and harmony in the affairs of men for years to come.
Through Christian Science, however, we can incisively detect the supposed presence of evil mental forces, for their influence in our thoughts is reflected in lack of direction in our lives and in the weakening of our characters. Detecting them, we can then dismiss them and bring our lives into full accord with Mind's directing.
If confronted with the suggestions that we have no purpose in life or that we cannot decide what it should be, that we have lost the urge to excel and are satisfied with a standard of mediocrity, or that we feel frustrated in view of the world's complexities and demands for experience and skill, then we must be instant and vigorous in rejecting these suggestions as lies imposed by false, mortal mind.
In Science we learn that as man we already are the compound idea of God and already include the right idea of all that is taking place in this human cosmos. Each one of us includes, for instance, the Christianly scientific right concept of force, substance, cohesion, attraction, activity, growth, justice, law, love, purity, beauty, form, harmony. Through God's love these concepts are present in their fullness, and through Spirit, Truth, the sum of them is brought into a focal point of expression and purpose as characterizing the true spiritual individuality of each of us.
No spiritual idea can be abstract or disembodied. It is individualized and includes within itself all that is requisite for its own fulfillment and purpose. One's individuality teems with the vitality of ideas, all evolving in one consistent, purposeful direction.
Jesus' first recorded words included these (Luke 2:49): "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" Does not his use of the word "must" indicate that our true selfhood must always be about our Father's business? Our purpose therefore always gathers force within and can always be demonstrated.
This demonstration is in accordance with God's law, and we include the activity of this law. Mrs. Eddy writes (No and Yes, p. 11), "Man has perpetual individuality; and God's laws, and their intelligent and harmonious action, constitute his individuality in the Science of Soul."
Spiritually we have no option but to be at one with Christly activity and purpose. Humanly we are either evolving in obedience to this divine fact, or through ignorance of it or through the influence of animal magnetism, or evil mind, we are missing the mark. How can we demonstrate true purpose? By living and loving the spirit of Truth, by Christly knowing, by being willing to leave the false for the true, by exercising spiritual energy in promptly denying the influence of animal magnetism.
Although it is necessary to affirm our true inclusiveness of all right ideas and their inherent completeness, it is not enough to stop there. It is equally necessary to detect and deny such aggressive mental suggestions as procrastination, idleness, apathy, resistance to the things of Spirit, selfish aims and motives, mad ambition, and to see these as the illusive, materialistic counterfeit activity of the very force and presence of the right ideas we actually include.
Considering the spiritual Science which supports one's true purpose, one realizes that one can never afford to trade the certainty and assurance of an unfolding purpose through spiritual means alone for the world's ways of reliance upon prestige, personality, personal influence, or adroit maneuvering to achieve a purpose. The world believes that one's purpose is found only through circumstances outside oneself. Its ways are the ways of chance.
The spiritual way is through demonstration of the fact that purpose is the activity of God's ideas individualized, thus operating perpetually from within and in obedience to God's laws. Mrs. Eddy describes this operation when she says on page 506 of Science and Health, "Spirit, God, gathers unformed thoughts into their proper channels, and unfolds these thoughts, even as He opens the petals of a holy purpose in order that the purpose may appear."
We need never outline the course of a right spiritual idea. Since it is in Mind, its activity is coincident with the intelligent and harmonious functioning of all God's ideas. There are no fragments in Mind's pattern.
During college years whenever friends speculated about what they or I would be doing five or ten years hence, I would silently affirm the allness of God's purpose, the indivisible order of Principle, and the unbroken activity of Love which each one of us already represented. This effectively dispelled the suggestion that we are in the medley of arbitrary forces, at the mercy of chance or of human prerogative. It enabled me to see that life is coincident with the one Mind and that the future had no more meaning than the present in terms of right activity and purpose. I was confident of these truths; but I could never have outlined then the order, directness, and purpose with which the various stages in my educational experience effortlessly fitted together into the whole of my first career experience.
In the only interview I ever had, and with an office which an hour before I had not known even existed, I was informed that some study in five fields was considered desirable. I had done special work in all five fields and extensive graduate work in two of them. As a result, I was assigned to a project which, being undertaken only once in every twenty years or more, was then in its initial stages. It turned out to be so comprehensive that I made constant use of every aspect of my formal education.
As was demonstrated through Christian Science in my case, the legitimate demands of our human society and the true purpose operating within our individuality fit together in the perfect harmony, order, and economy of the universe. Although the demonstration of our life purpose is always an individual blessing, it is also a factor in the elimination of evil's resistance to truth. When our spiritual purpose is actually demonstrated and seen to inhere in the indivisible order and universal expression of God, it is in fulfillment of true prophecy and redounds to the peace and order of our world.
Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the
glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is
in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all.
Both riches and honour come of thee, and thou reignest over all; and in thine hand is power and might; and
in thine hand it is to make great, and to give strength
unto all. Now therefore, our God, we thank thee, and
praise thy glorious name.—I Chronicles 29:11–13.
