Article December 11, 1909 Issue

RISING OUT OF ENVIRONMENT

H. T. KYLE.

The belief in environment is often a heavy clog upon individual progress; it hangs about the limbs of endeavor and impedes all advancement not circumscribed within its limits. It is as if one were placed at birth within a pliant circle of elastic circumstance, which expands or draws out in any direction in response to struggles, but which can never by any possibility be broken through. The one who accepts this belief may flee to the uttermost parts of the earth, may seek by the most desperate struggles to shake loose the persistent clinging of its folds; but always self drags heavy feet along the chosen plane and the prisoner struggles in vain, until that time when he first attains a glimmering realization of the fact that the way of progress points inexorably upward. Then he finds that environment has but two dimensions, and that the way up is the way out of its enfolding. He learns what it means to begin to demonstrate the truth of being, and to attain the realization that the fetters of mortal man's finite capacity are of his own forging.

Lofty aspiration is the fundamental demand of the Christian Scientist's creed—his daily task to achieve and manifest in ever-increasing degree the God-given dominion over mortal circumstance. Thus by daily, hourly attainment he rises superior to the claims of environment, and gains a constantly broadening spiritual horizon. All the promises in the book of Revelation are "to him that over-cometh;" and throughout the Christian Science text-book the admonition to "rise" and "overcome" is insistent. Mrs. Eddy says, "Rise in the conscious strength of the spirit of Truth;" and again, "Rise in the strength of Spirit to resist all that is unlike good;" and we are assured that "we can, and ultimately shall, so rise as to avail ourselves in every direction of the supremacy of Truth over error, Life over death, and good over evil, and this growth will go on until we arrive at the fulness of God's idea, and no more fear that we shall be sick and die" (Science and Health, pp. 390, 393, 406).

The daily life of the Christian Scientist should be a constant, conscious endeavor to emulate, in ever-increasing degree, the spiritual achievements of Jesus the Christ; and as often as we rise up higher, trampling the limitations of environment beneath the footsteps of spiritual advancement, we do show forth and exemplify the truth of being which found such wonderful expression in the ascension of Jesus. Each spiritual achievement is an ascension. Each time, when a higher spiritual basis is permanently attained, a broader horizon appears; and always, as the Christian Scientist presses forward, rising superior to mortal circumstance and environment, he reaffirms, as did Paul, with reason-founded optimism, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me."

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