WHAT a man rightly desires above all else, that he must work for until he proves that it is his. If, then, one has not seemed to find all the healing he had hoped for through Christian Science, his need is to set to work more than ever with the real spirit of prayer that shows itself in sincere desire and steadfast right living. Even when a man says to others that he does not see why he has not yet been healed, because he has done his best in Christian Science and is guilty of no serious faults, he knows within his heart that he could do still better if he were really to practice being perfect, even as the Father which is in heaven is perfect. Each one must be fully honest with himself in order to prove the fullness of healing in Christian Science. As Mrs. Eddy says on page 8 of Science and Health, "We confess to having a very wicked heart and ask that it may be laid bare before us, but do we not already know more of this heart than we are willing to have our neighbor see?"

"Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me," is the sincere prayer of many a man or woman who seems bound and depressed by some belief in matter. The very asking thus for cleanness of purpose and effort must be, at the same time, in order to succeed, a humble knowing that there is the one supreme Mind at hand to rely on. In Christian Science the student must seek simply the source of all real good, whether to himself he phrases the turning to God in the form of a prayer of asking or a prayer of knowing. The prayer of asking may well be a start, for it may be the only way of seeking that the troubled one is aware of. Yet he who asks rightly always receives rightly, and proceeds to find out how to know the truth with perfect sureness, for the sincere desire for the cleanness which is wholeness of Spirit, not matter, is what counts. A man could not even really ask goodness of God without knowing in some measure that there is indeed God to ask it of, and the instant one accepts this basic fact, and to the extent that he accepts it, he finds the goodness of the divine Mind and its idea taking the place of the evil of human beliefs.

A prayer of the Navajo Indians that has lately been published phrases something of the same sincere desire that we find expressed in the Psalms. "Lord of the Mountain," it begins, and then goes on,

The poetic figure of the rain, used to mean the cleansing action that comes from the divine source alone, appears likewise in many passages in the Bible. By rain or dew from heaven, the Scriptures often show how sure in effect is the actual baptism of Spirit, for the cleansing action of Truth can never be void but always succeeds in taking the place of any form of error. The right desire, which is pureness of heart, is the yearning for the wholeness of Spirit, divine Mind, with all the free order of true living, and in Mind, not matter, this yearning is fulfilled.

On page 185 of "Miscellaneous Writings" Mrs. Eddy says: "None but the pure in heart shall see God,—shall be able to discern fully and demonstrate fairly the divine Principle of Christian Science. The will of God, or power of Spirit, is made manifest as Truth, and through righteous ness,—not as or through matter,—and it strips matter of all claims, abilities or disabilities, pains or pleasures. Self-renunciation of all that constitutes a so-called material man, and the acknowledgment and achievement of his spiritual identity as the child of God, is Science that opens the very flood-gates of heaven; whence good flows into every avenue of being, cleansing mortals of all uncleanness, destroying all suffering, and demonstrating the true image and likeness." The cleansing process, which is the wholeness of the one Mind and its action taking the place of the seeming limits and defects of human living and doing, goes on for each one who seeks the true cause of being with all his heart.

For man to rely on God wholly is, of course, far more than for a person merely to seek Truth in any human sense. In fact the real man, quite apart from any human seeming, does rely on the one Mind with all his heart, and in all his living shows forth the motive power of Spirit, not matter. Really, the divine Mind always maintains right, whole, and clean action as the truth of man, and sooner or later every false sense of things, every false belief calling itself wrong desire, every claim of disease or mortal limits of any sort, must give way to this truth. Since this is so, there is no reason for delay; now is the time for healing. The cleanness of motive and effort which finds the true healing is God-given now, in that the one Mind, divine Love, is ever expressed as pure action. It is a joy for each one to prove in his daily practice that the idea in Mind is now, and always has been, untouched by any false desire, any sense of pretense and sham. No matter what may have seemed to suggest itself as real, whether disease or lack or any belief in matter, the turning now to the divine goodness avails to annul what really always has been nothing. Thus each one can learn and rejoice in the truth that God does indeed give cleanness of heart instead of any dream of pleasure or pain in matter, for to-day, as always, the Christ, the idea in Mind that is ever active to bless, is healing with the word of divine Love: "Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you." Gustavus S. Paine.