In the 11th chapter of Hebrews, Paul says, "By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.... For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.... These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off,... and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country.... They desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city."

Joseph Rotherham, in his translation of the New Testament, writes the fourteenth verse of this chapter, "For they who such things as these are saving, are making [it] plainly manifest that a paternal-home they are intently seeking."

In the Twentieth Century New Testament the same passage reads, "Those who speak thus show plainly that they are seeking their fatherland."

In all sacred literature, there is no clearer portrayal of the transitory nature of earthly experience and the inborn hunger for a secure and heavenly heritage, than this reference to Abraham's journey as a type of the mental pilgrimage undertaken by every man who abandons the selfish and unworthy, for the attainment of the highest ideal. Abraham "went out, not knowing whither he went." Over and over again, upright and earnest men and women are called upon to "go out" from sinful or outworn conditions of thought not knowing whither they go. They know only that they must leave behind them that which is inconsistent with the highest selflessness, and that they must walk in obedience to the best they know, whithersoever it may lead.

To all such expectant ones, the message of Christian Science is calling continually, "Come higher." And the responsive hearts, saying with the Prodigal's earnestness. "I will arise and go to my father," turn from the restless dwelling-places of selfishness, toward the Christly consciousness of which Isaiah has said, "My people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places."

Every student of Christian Science knows that this question of "seeking a fatherland" is, purely and primarily, a transformation of consciousness, and that only in the degree that right consciousness is attained, can he hope for improved conditions. Yet he is so prone to measure his happiness, his success or his failure, by external matters, that he often puts forth personal effort to effect an outward change, to the neglect of that inward growth which alone can accomplish it. The beginner is sometimes tempted to believe that if he could alter his surroundings immediately, he could make rapid growth in the knowledge and practice of Christian Science; whereas the scientific fact assures him that as he grows in understanding he will be able to alter his surroundings. Each man must begin just where Christian Science finds him. He cannot change places with any brother whose opportunities for growth may seem to be more favorable. But as his thought arises and goes to the Father, all his personal conditions will begin to change. Fears will be allayed, associations will be purified, obstacles will be removed, bonds of sin and disease will be loosened, and the habits of a lifetime will fade from thought and action. And all this because he is mentally rejecting evil and coming into the spiritual possession of a better quality of thinking.

It is a truism that mind thinks. Mind must, because of its very nature and existence, think continuously, and because of this ever-operative activity, mind cannot, by any possibility, stop thinking. The Christ Mind, then, must be perpetually manifested in Christly thinking, and he who entertains these God-like thoughts must, in the measure of his fidelity, be an inhabitant of God's "country." Material surroundings, however discordant, cannot hold one's thought from seeking and finding this better country, and one may dwell in it to-day, if the determination for righteousness governs the heart. Here, now, in the problem of this very hour, one may substitute a generous thought for a selfish one, a loving thought for an unkind one, a grateful thought for a complaining one, and a trusting thought for a doubting one. And in the measure that thought advances along these higher pathways, the bondage imposed by the conditions of the "old country," disappears.

The well-known illustration of the mist in the valleys can be remembered with profit. Dwelling in the valleys, one is subject to valley conditions, and must climb to a higher altitude to enjoy perpetually sunlit peaks. In like manner, a higher mental and moral standpoint will set one free from bondage which seemed hopeless when thought dwelt among the lower ranges. Tarrying in the realm of the valley-fogs, one may fight bravely, but in vain, to resist them; abandoning the lower land, one escapes all its conditions. So, a higher moral and spiritual altitude will lift one into a realm beyond the reach of error's suggestion or attack.

Again, one does not expect to live in arctic regions, and gather tropical fruit by the putting forth of one's hand. The fruit simply cannot and does not grow there, and no amount of wishing or struggling on the part of the inhabitant will cause it to grow there. Occasional fruits may find their way into the frozen land, telling the story of a sunnier clime, but to possess such fruit in its beauty and abundance, one must rise and journey to the place of its growth and there abide.

Paul speaks of the fruit of the flesh and the fruit of the spirit, well knowing that they are the differing fruits of two distinct "countries." And he says, "This I say then. Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh." The Christian Science text-book clearly sets forth the fact that spiritual understanding and material sense are two distinct and opposing states of consciousness which do not know each other. The adoption of the one, means the loss of the other. That the dweller in material sense comprehends not the existence of spiritual consciousness, argues no more for the unreality of the latter than does the ignorance of the valley dweller and the Laplander, for the non-existence of sunny peaks and tropical climes. In Science and Health, page 91, we find, "Absorbed in material selfhood we discern and reflect but faintly the substance of Life or Mind." And in "No and Yes," page 29, Mrs. Eddy also says, "Ever-present Love must seem ever absent to ever-present selfishness or material sense."

May it not be recognized that the fruits of Love, as well, "must seem ever absent to ever-present selfishness"? and is there not in the human heart a strong desire to transplant the fruits of Love into the realm of ever-present selfishness, and a complaint because this cannot be done? Yet so long as the Fatherland remains unknown or unsought its fruits must remain unappropriated. To enjoy the fruits of divine Love we must journey to Love's country and dwell therein. And to do this means to abide persistently in loving and lovable thinking. To enjoy the fruits of Truth, one must live truthfully. To possess the fruits of holiness and purity, thought must be holy and pure. To possess health, one must cherish the enlightened righteous thoughts which build for health. One must live with such thoughts, walk with them, talk with them, make them one's own, and all this to the exclusion of the opposing thoughts which would build for discord and disease. This may not reform, immediately, every other evil-doer, but it does lift one's own individual experience beyond the reach of evil doing. A Christian Scientist's line of travel is always in direct resistance to all the claims of the flesh, and it lifts him daily into higher and purer thought-associations.

This change of consciousness cannot be measured by the old sense of haste or delay, for the transformation is in thought, and is in many ways instantaneous. But whether slow or fast, the divine law of supply is such that one comes into possession of the fruit of this better country whensoever he may lodge there in sincerity and in truth. It is God's country,—this daily and hourly companionship with the best one knows of God,—and well should man heed the Scriptural admonition, "Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace: thereby good shall come unto thee.'