"Spiritual observation and self examination." This was the theme for this year's Annual Meeting of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts. In a letter to a branch Church of Christ, Scientist, Mrs. Eddy speaks of this subject. She writes: "Pray without ceasing. Watch diligently; never desert the post of spiritual observation and self-examination." Miscellaneous Writings, p. 154.
How vitally necessary these words of loving guidance are to our continuous spiritual progress. If we approach the need to watch and examine our motives and actions from a truly spiritual standpoint, everyone our thought reaches will feel the effects of our increasing spirituality. And we ourselves will learn more about our true nature: that incorruptible purity and goodness which in reality are already ours as God's spiritual likeness—incorporeal man.
Christian Science approaches the question of self examination in a healing way that involves neither a blind disregard of mortal faults nor a psychological probing of human motives and feelings. Science does not teach one to say, "I'm God's perfect man, and therefore my faults are all to be ignored because they're not real anyway." But neither does it teach that errors are to be pinned on the individual as a part of his real nature. Rather Christian Science points out that faults in human character are to be overcome—overcome and denied through the perception of man's blameless identity in Christ. Only in this way can we demonstrate the character of the Christ, ideal manhood.
