It is not an uncommon experience to come in contact with one who, having tried the recommendations and precautions of materia medica up to a point where both endurance and patience ceased to be a virtue, has reluctantly perchance, but determinedly, turned to Christian Science with a faint hope that the relief he has so far failed to obtain in the older and seemingly more pronounced school of healing might be forthcoming in the new, yet reserving to himself the alternative that in an emergency or an apparent crisis he could resort to a highly attenuated material remedy to further the work of metaphysical treatment. In the mental process leading up to the resolution to give Mind-science a trial, the mortal may have grown discouraged with much dosing, though not to the extent of having every least medicinal prop taken from under him. He is willing to know of something which seems to promise a speedier and more lasting benefit, though in a last analysis of his thought he holds to a threadbare belief that in a test case Mind could be helped and strengthened by the application inwardly or outwardly of some mild concoction.

The country tourist, luxuriating in the quiet pastoral beauty of the green meadows and rippling streams, wearies even of these scenes with their monotonous panorama, and turns regretfully perhaps, but longingly, to the hills and the wooded ravines for pastime and relief. Presently he comes upon a situation where to proceed farther would seem to his limited sense gravely hazardous. Then his thought reverts to the easy way of the gentle slope below (for the two have never parted company), and he would retrace his course by the path of least resistance back to the beaten road of clay, even though it lead to the quicksand and the mire, rather than risk his further going up to the broadening vision of the abrupt ascent.

So the mortal, in his checkered experience along the winsome and to material sense not unfascinating way of medical allurement, anon is buoyant, then tires of the lessening prospect, and finally reaches out for newer methods of gaining ease. Under Christian Science treatment he is in a somewhat similar position to the one who has left the apparently smooth surface of the moorland and is beginning the upward climb. While his steps are trending forward and he is measurably rejoicing in the changing view, his thought, and not infrequently his eye, is directed to the less stirring vista of materia medica below, and he realizes, mayhap suddenly, that he has reached a point in the journey when he is unable to go on trusting absolutely to Mind's occur power. In an unguarded moment, just as it might occur to the one on the hillside to reverse his steps or to make them less difficult, the patient thinks of some trivial remedy that had formerly been efficacious, and unknown to the practitioner he avails himself of it. It may be merely a simple thing, an occasional bracer; indeed the thought may have become so minutely diluted as to offer itself in the cloak of a subtle suggestion that certain kinds of food prepared under well-defined culinary regulations (which are always so appetizing) will assist nature perceptibly.

The more aggressive and obnoxious a discordant physical manifestation becomes, the more unreal it is and the riper for destruction, because it patterns more closely after the mortal substratum of matter; while the thinnest veiled nicety of thought, hooded in a wily suggestion that food might come from its so-called opposite, would enter "where angels fear to tread" and would deceive the very elect. Thus the temptation which would attempt to assist the case by the intricate by-path of deceit, would not only rob the purpose of its fruitage, but would effectually hinder the moral, physical, and spiritual progress of the patient. This partial weaning from materia medica would have taken unto itself one still more false therapeutic suggestion, and the last state of that mentality would be worse than the first.

Just as it is with the traveler who is part way up the incline and anxious to reach the top, yet desires to climb up some other way and would fain go down into the plain a while and then come on by easy stages, forgetting the long retracing and the loss of time and energy, so with the wouldbe patient who is seeking help in Christian Science and yet fancies he can push on the healing by the stealthy use of other means. Such a one will not only utterly fail of getting relief, but he will stultify his conscience to the rightness of wholesome action, and his vision will be blinded to the apprehension and acknowledgment of the truth. The Christian Scientist must be scrupulously and uncompromisingly honest; he must not temporize, dally, or waver. Both for himself and for those coming to him for help, he must know that what is "spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops." His one remedy is the divine Mind and its activities; and he knows that to deviate from the rule in the most infinitesimal degree would be to break the first commandment, and therefore to disobey the other nine.

Our Leader says : "A Christian Scientist's medicine is Mind, the divine Truth that makes man free. A Christian Scientist never recommends material hygiene, never manipulates. He does not trespass on the rights of mind nor can he practise animal magnetism or hypnotism" (Science and Health, p. 453). It may be added that a Christian Scientist should not mentally trespass on the rights of others by intimating a course of procedure otherwise than "as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise." In maintaining this radical but nevertheless consistent position, the Christian Scientist unqualifiedly realizes that even the taking of a spoonful of cold water, if motived by the thought that it might aid the healing, would not only defeat the end for which it was designed, but might positively nullify the metaphysical help, and in the measure that such means were either resorted to or recognized, would both practitioner and patient cease to give or to receive.

It behooves us, therefore, as earnest, prayerful followers of him who emphatically told us we could not serve two masters, to realize "the ability of mental might to offset human misconceptions and to replace them with the life which is spiritual, not material" (Science and Health, p. 428). Then when the needy wanderer comes to us for aid, his waiting thought may be so filled with the "beauty of holiness" that he will not hesitate or waver on the upward road, but with his eyes singled on the goal of spiritual ways and means (the quiet surface of error in the plain below having ceased to beckon or attract), he will go on and up the rugged but inspiring way of Truth and Love, until at last he can rest, "lie down in green pastures," and be led beside still waters, on the summit of consecration, no longer a doubting pilgrim, but a dweller in the Father's house.

Copyright, 1915, by The Christian Science Publishing Society