Little Things

To infinite Mind all activity is one harmonious whole, infinite in expression, with no sense of unimportance, no phase neglected by its cause, and no mistakes to require subsequent correction. It is the suppositional mortal mind that interprets some experiences as serious and some as insignificant, but fortunately this mortal mind with all its beliefs and classifications is sheer illusion, a hypothesis of what cannot exist. All the while the divine Mind is maintaining order in place of seeming human details, and all are entitled to prove the real unfoldment of this definitive concord of being because it is real. The expression of Principle is unconditional, irrevocable, and unlimited in breadth, depth, and quality, for it is the perfect idea of perfect cause. The practice of Christian Science is the demonstration of this Principle and its manifestation throughout the affairs of living, and because Christian Science is demonstrably true it is always absolutely reliable, regardless of how much mortals may seem to have fallen short of its standard in their thinking and doing. People may have to learn how to turn to Principle as well as to be willing to turn; but the readiness to give up old prejudices and to work simply and honestly leads to the understanding which replaces all sorts of falterings and blunderings.

Mrs. Eddy has, of course, stated and restated the truth as she discovered it fully, so that its meaning is bound to be clear to all who conscientiously study all of her works, comparing one passage with another with endless consecration. That the infinite, spiritual I am is the only real "I" or Ego, manifest as man through all the immortal living of the present, is for each one to learn and prove by understanding what she has given us. Thus she says on page 336 of Science and Health, "The divine Ego, or individuality, is reflected in all spiritual individuality from the infinitesimal to the infinite," and again, on page 32 of "No and Yes" she writes: "A lie is negation,—alias nothing, or the opposite of something. Good is great and real. Hence its opposite, named evil, must be small and unreal." One who understands the greatness, the all-inclusiveness, of good finds even the supposition of evil lessening to his thought, and rejoices increasingly that Mrs. Eddy's explanations, in all varieties of language, show to every state of human thought the way to yield to the presence of the infinite reality.

In his new book Mr. W. H. Hudson tells the story of a commercial traveler who called himself "a traveler in something very large" and who said to Mrs. Hudson, on the other hand, "You are a traveler in little things." It is just this that Mr. Hudson is glad to be; and it is this in a far broader sense that the student of Christian Science can be in proportion as he forges ahead with diligence and accuracy of thinking in whatever is for him to do. The belief in a mortal sense of importance or unimportance must be superseded by the orderly unfoldment of Mind and its idea. On page 123 of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" Mrs. Eddy declares: "Seeing that we have to attain to the ministry of righteousness in all things, we must not overlook small things in goodness or in badness, for 'trifles make perfection,' and 'the little foxes . . . spoil the vines.'" This sentiment is, of course, not new; but through Christian Science each one may find anew how vital it is and how to attain with scientific sureness the rightness of infinite, immortal existence here and now. Really, the righteousness of Principle is already the actuality for the real man, who is ever at the point of attainment, at the time and place of the possession of all good. Living in Mind, not in supposed matter, the immortal man, who is the only man there is, enjoys the effectiveness of divine intelligence throughout the boundless variety of truth.