A Gentle cuckoo that had built her nest in the pine tree in the front yard, was sitting quietly upon her eggs one morning when suddenly a four-footed visitor appeared upon the scene. His visit was not a friendly one, and the seemingly helpless bird lay prostrated beside her nest while the robber red squirrel regaled himself with the contents of her freshly laid eggs. Human intervention came too late, so that the poor helpless cuckoo, paralyzed with fear through her lack of conscious ability to cope with her adversary, deserted her nest never to return.

The experience brings a lesson to us all. How often have we given way to the enemy in just the same way, because unconscious of our God-given power of resistance! How often have we allowed fear to control, and lost sight of the fact that divine Love is ever present to cast out all fear! A few well-directed pecks by this cuckoo would have saved her this loss. She had the ability to dictate terms to her invader, but she was not conscious of this fact. Had a crow attempted to rob a king-bird's nest, he would have soon parted with some of his feathers and beaten a hasty retreat. The king-bird stands as a type of fearlessness and conscious power. He knows, he acts quickly, he conquers.

Illumined by the coming of Christ, Truth, many have realized and asserted their right and ability to resist evil. Enough of that "Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world," has been discerned by them to dispel fear and to cause them to "act as possessing all power" (Science and Health, p. 264). They thus ally themselves with the only power there is, which always means the sure defeat of fear whenever and wherever it would try to manifest itself. When the evil one would suggest loss or lack of power, they immediately disagree with sense-testimony and lay hold on the infinite, which is ever present and ever available. In this way their mental abode is protected, and there is never any occasion for deserting it. Error may boast itself in a thousand different forms, but they stand firm for what is real and right, and God is with them, a conscious power to defend and maintain their divine rights as children of God.

What a happy world this would be if all were conscious of their God-given power and always made it available in every hour of need! Why are they not conscious of God's presence? Because they are satisfied to judge according to an imperfect standard, a so-called blend of good and evil. They unwittingly place evil on a par with good, and the moment this is done, the all-power and presence of good is lost sight of. Like the unfortunate cuckoo, they see with their eyes, and believing what they see, fear becomes their master and God is forgotten. They of the king-bird type, however, think, speak, and act "as one having authority." What if the enemy boasts of his superior size and strength? This counts for nothing with those who are conscious of living, moving, and having their being in God. Every mental structure reared upon the dual foundation of good and evil, mind and matter, is a house built upon sand, and it will fall sooner or later. The haunting shadow of fear will be its inseparable accompaniment. The only mental structure which will endure will be reared upon the rock, the spiritual consciousness of the omnipotence and omnipresence of Spirit, the teachings of Christ Jesus as applied to our present needs in Christian Science.

Which is the strongest evidence of sanity and sound common sense,—a mental state which is conscious of a presence, power, and law which operates unseen to the outward gaze, which recognition enables one to be free fear and to conquer sin and disease, or that mental state which is unconscious of the working of any higher power and which yields willingly or unwillingly to suggestions of fear, sin, and disease? The one fairly describes a student of Christian Science; the other a dualist who has not yet learned to make a scientific or demonstrable separation of the wheat from the tares in his own consciousness. Which will soonest attain to that Mind which was in Christ Jesus,—the one who sees and thinks materially, or the one who sees and thinks spiritually, in opposition to sense-testimony? The great Teacher gave no uncertain word as to man's divinely bestowed ability to resist successfully every attempt of error. These are his words: "Behold I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you."

To make our point clear, let us suppose that the argument of mumps obtains in human consciousness. The dualist, not having learned to place health on any higher plane than he does disease, agrees with the testimony of his senses, admits that there is every evidence of the trouble mentioned, and confidently looks for it to develop and run its prescribed course, which it is very likely to do under such conditions. Any one will admit that this state of mortal consciousness as described was certainly seeing and thinking materially, and even Christian Scientists will admit that it actually had what it believed it had. The Christian Scientist, seeing the manifestation as mental, disagrees with the argument as presented, looks beyond and above the outward evidence of disease, remains entirely quiet upon the subject, not caring to talk about it to any one, clings to the perfection of being in God, wherein man is spiritual and as free from disease as God Himself, and behold the result,—all evidence of inflammation and swelling disappears, and in a few hours the subject is entirely forgotten. The trouble was not expected to develop, nor was there any law acknowledged by which it must run its so-called course.

Was the dualist honoring either God or man by submitting to the dictum of the so-called material senses and evolving the experience of mumps? Was the Christian Scientist dishonoring either God or man by letting that Mind, or consciousness, be in him which Jesus employed to destroy the evidence of sin, disease, and death? Let a thinking world decide quickly which is practical Christianity,—that which calls disease and sin real, and fails to overcome them in individual consciousness, or that which recognizes their unreality and then consistently masters them through the conscious understanding of the reality and power of good, the allness of God. "Oh that men would praise the Lord" by becoming conscious of God's power and presence, which denies positively, effectually, and eternally the supposition of any other power or presence!

Copyright, 1914, by The Christian Science Publishing Society