Article February 3, 1906 Issue

Present Opportunities

C. W. CHADWICK.

As students of a demonstrable Science we should strive to make the best use of present opportunities. It is the work of the present that concerns us and not the neglected opportunities of the past. We live in a present age, in an age of unlimited possibilities and achievements, in an age when the would-be followers of Christ are called upon to prove by their works of healing that they possess a practical understanding of the God whom they profess to love.

The grandest opportunity confronting humanity to-day is that of seeking "first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness." The absolute necessity of understanding the nature of the spiritual or heavenly kingdom here and now, is made so plain in Christian Science that this work is taken up cheerfully and joyfully, and with full assurance of ultimate victory. The man nearest right is always the one who knows the most about God, good, even though human sense argues to the contrary and insists that men shall know evil in order to be useful, practical, and successful. The one constant aim of the Christian Scientist is to get closer to God, and to understand and obey His spiritual law. To be good and to do good no longer seems to him unnatural or impractical, but becomes the natural and prime essential of existence. He knows that, in order to accomplish any real good in the world, he cannot revolve in any self-centered orbit of his own, but must understand spiritually man's true relationship to God and express this divine relationship in thought, word, and deed. It is this understanding that makes him pre-eminently practical and useful to his fellowman, in that he is able to heal him of both sin and disease, not through human will-power or suggestion, but through understanding man's inheritance as a child of God, through knowing that man is a partaker of the divine nature, and "not of the earth, earthy."

The prodigal son finally awakened from the mesmeric dream wherein it was suggested that he had a mind of his own to do as he pleased, to learn that there was only one thing needful, and that was to return to his true home in Mind, to seek "first the kingdom of God." So is it with all mortals; they must sooner or later see the great mistake of believing in an existence separate from or unlike God. We have the opportunity to-day in Christian Science of learning that the real man is Godlike, that he has not fallen into sin, and that his only duty is to reflect or express good, not evil. It is human thought that has strayed away from a correct understanding of man's unity with God, good, and it alone must retrace its steps and find refuge in the divine consciousness wherein entereth nothing that "worketh abomination, or maketh a lie."

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