Article October 14, 1905 Issue

No Place for Discouragement

SAMUEL GREENWOOD

Human experience has made it a truism that heaven, the consciousness of harmony, "is not reached at a single bound;" and Jesus has admonished us that it cannot be taken by violence. It is well to keep this in mind, lest failure immediately to reach that perfect state tempt us into discouragement. As mortals journey from their material sense of being toward the spiritual, it seems a difficult and uphill road, no matter how strong their desire to attain to it may be. The thought that Christian Science has awakened to perceive somewhat of the falsity of material things would sometimes fain spread its wings and soar at once to the heights of spiritual consciousness, but their earthly affections, the love of the world and the things that are in it, seem to hold mortals down to materiality. These conditions cannot be left behind through mere will or desire, but must be overcome to lose them. As our thought becomes more spiritual we learn how this may be accomplished.

In the first flush of joy at finding in Christian Science the way out of suffering and sin, it may have seemed that we could not see evil any more; but we emerged from this heavenly glow to find ourselves still on the plain, and that looming up before us was the ascent of our own overcoming of evil, our own conquest of the flesh. Mortal mind has no wings to reach that summit. No one, however loving, however self-sacrificing, however desirous, can bear another up those heights. Our own feet must tread to its end that narrow "rugged way," before we can realize perfectly man's freedom from error and his likeness to God.

Those who find the way in Christian Science hard should remember that even Jesus did not find it easy. To him it was one of disappointment, desertion, sorrow, persecution, —the way of the cross; but it was one of triumph also, else he had not been the Wayshower for us. The Scriptures tell us that it was through his sufferings he learned perfect obedience; so that we, who are only his followers, need not complain that we find difficulties in the way or that it is sometimes slow progress. We must begin our individual work of overcoming evil just where we are, not where we would like to be or where we think others are. The way is waiting for each of us, just as Jesus walked in it; and those who would advance in it must encounter and overcome the same enmity and antagonism to good which ever makes up the nature of evil.

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