Articles

AS commonly understood, opportunity signifies a combination of favorable conditions resulting in a suitable occasion. It implies the existence and activity of a power capable of controlling and producing a situation deemed favorable.

ONE of the many helpful and necessary steps in the experience of the Christian Scientist is met with when he has done all that is seemingly possible in the overcoming of a discordant condition, and is awaiting results. If he has worked conscientiously, and with true humility, the time of waiting need not be either tedious or cheerless, but may be a happy and joyous period.

FROM the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I. " The sixty-first psalm contains this call for help; but it conveys far more than a blind turning to an unknown, far-away God, with the vague hope that the prayer may possibly be answered; for it manifests the confident assurance of one passing through deep waters that the loving, listening ear of our Father-Mother God is ever present, and that resting in His strength and guidance can lift one out of what may seem to be overwhelming trouble.

THE great human necessity for correct reasoning has been recognized by the intelligent in every age, and much has been done through various systems of logic to meet this need. The counsels and admonitions of prophet and savant alike have ever been directed to the leading of thought into better habits of reasoning, wherein logic becomes the reliable servant of men; for sound logic causes men to leaven their meditation and conversation with wisdom, and to avoid dwelling upon unsupported theories and dogma as authority.

TO a large percentage of those entering upon the study of Christian Science, there appears, a great deal to be done by way of correcting wrong conditions in home, business, and social relations; for there certainly is much that is discordant and grievous in the human experience of many individuals. It is therefore with great joy that the young student learns, perhaps for the first time, or with new meaning, that God is Love and His purpose for mankind wholly beneficent.

HOW close God is seen to be when we learn that, as the Psalmist said, "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him," and when we read in Isaiah the assurance, "As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you"! This love of God, pitying, comforting, uplifting, is the precious tie which binds earth to heaven. It links the heart of humanity to the very fount of being, and shows forth man's unity with God in a manner appreciable to finite thought.

HOW often, when children choose a story, they ask us to tell them one of the old folk tales recounting the adventures of some gentle youth who leaves home and kindred and sets out into the world to seek fame and fortune! How they identify themselves with the young hero, whoever he may be, thrill with sympathy when he behaves himself wisely or suffers bravely some distressful stroke of fortune, and rejoice when he plays a valiant part! Is it that deep in their hearts they know that the story is an allegory; that the dark forest, the lions in the path, the fierce battles, are figures representing experiences which may await them in their journey through this world? One thing is certain: there was never yet a child who preferred those unsatisfactory brothers that adorn most fairy tales, to the brother that wins through to the goal, or who dreamed of admiring and imitating dark Ganelon, rather than noble Roland. No, we are certain, when we are children, who is the happy warrior.

"IF thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. " So said Jesus as he beheld Jerusalem and wept over it, conscious in the presence of human misery of its false nature and of the truth of being, which reveals man as forever God's perfect child.

CONSTANT expectancy implies a firm or steadfast waiting for something. Now the question as to what one is expecting determines, almost entirely, whether his human experiences are to be harmonious or discordant.

AMONG the questions that naturally arise when one reads the history of Daniel and his three friends are these: Why, with all the wisdom and spiritual understanding which these men possessed and were so well able to prove, were they found in a condition of captivity to a foreign power that had no sympathy whatever with their religious beliefs, but was decidedly heathen in its worship of idols? Why was it not possible for these men to exercise their spiritual insight and vision so that, instead of falling victims to the disaster that befell their nation as a whole, they might at least have saved themselves from the fate that befell those of less understanding? Or, again, why was it not possible that the understanding of these men should have saved the whole nation of Judah from captivity to an alien power? Surely they were possessed of a high degree of spiritual understanding when they could willingly submit their bodies to the lions or to the flames, and suffer no consequences such as would attach to a like course with human beings less spirituailly-minded. Could not absolute reliance upon their God, the one and only true God, have saved them from the necessity of passing through such tests of their faith and understanding? Could it not have shielded them from the shafts of malice and hatred, and have allowed them to dwell in safety in quiet habitations? Could not the wisdom vouchsafed to Daniel, which enabled him to tell the king his forgotten vision after all the Chaldean wise men had been sentenced to death because of their inability to answer the king's seemingly absurd demand—could not such wisdom have foreseen the disaster which was to befall Judah, and have warded it off? Many questions of this nature arise.