What are we expecting? This is an arresting question—one which causes us to turn a searchlight into our consciousness, to see exactly its contents. Is it a future sorrow, a sickness or suffering which it appears we cannot avoid? If the words of the Psalmist are true, and they assuredly are, that "in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore," we are, even at the moment when material sense sees only sorrow and suffering, in the presence of the loving Father, who in ceaseless activity is giving all creation of His good pleasure.

We receive what we expect! Then, as we habitually strive to see that there is but one intelligence, God, the false material sense, which we previously thought was ours, disappears, and we see that it is thinking from a material point of view which brings us the wrong conditions we are experiencing. We see, too, that often these outward conditions are the accumulation of material expectations, casting their shadow in mortal experience. But no shadow of sickness or fear has ever been sent by God, and none has ever entered the real man's consciousness.

To expect good, derived from God, Spirit, means to think about and reflect spiritual reality; in fact, to make use of it as being ours continually. In the first chapter of Genesis is an account of the spiritual creation. There, a complete, harmonious, and perfect universe is revealed, including man in the likeness of his Father, reflecting dominion over all. This chapter closes with the statement, "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." Therefore, as there is no record there that anything unlike good was created, the real man is not in any way linked to a material or finite sense of existence.

Christian Science makes it clear that man's rightful heritage is good. it also teaches us how to "look away from the body into Truth and Love, the Principle of all happiness, harmony, and immortality," as Mrs. Eddy has written in the textbook of Christian Science, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 261). By looking "away from the body into Truth and Love" the student of Christian Science proves for himself and others that nothing can disturb the "fulness of joy."

If Daniel had arrayed his thought in vestures of fear and anxiety, would he, after a night spent in the den of lions, have been able to answer the king's inquiry with the words, "My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths"? When a conspiracy was planned against him, he continued three times each day to go to his chamber, the windows of which were open towards Jerusalem, which in the Hebrew language means the city of peace, to give thanks. May not this chamber typify a pure consciousness which has been closed to everything unlike God, good, and into which no shadow of material sense can enter? May not Daniel have been giving thanks for the understanding that there is but one perfect and harmonious universe, where neither envy, hatred, nor revenge can enter, and for the knowledge that not only he himself, bu in reality everyone, dwells there; and that no so-called material law, not even that of the Medes and Persians, has any power? How confident he was! Had not three children of Judah proved that in God's universe, in which they dwelt mentally, there was no power to destroy? It was the faithfulness of Daniel which enabled him to abide in close companionship with God. He did not wait for Darius or anyone else to annul the unjust decree. Doubtless he gave thanks that it was always null and void, and ever would be! There is not a single record in the Bible of anyone's being delivered from sin, sickness, or death by foreshadowing it.

It is noticeable that those who came to Jesus for healing, as recorded in the Scriptures, expected to be healed. In their attitude there was no doubt or hesitation. His question to the two blind men and his command to the centurion, "Believe ye that I am able to do this?" and "Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee," and the replies he received, proved that these men had confidence in a divine power above the evidence of material sense, and that they believed one could be restored by this power.

On page 2 of our textbook our Leader asks, "Do we expect to change perfection?" Is not this what humanity has been presuming to do? The Christian Scientist rejoices that it cannot be done, and that nothing real has been changed from its primal state—perfection. He strives to live with the constant joyfulness and assurance which this understanding gives, so that in his contacts with his fellow men, instead of adding a condemnatory thought to their burden, he uplifts his thought to behold the real man. So the chains which seem to bind or imprision, break and are dispelled; the sick one rises, with the glad assurance that God knows naught of suffering or sorrow, for God is infinite good, and there is nothing to expect but good.

How often the suffering one quickly senses this joyful assurance! The door is opened, as it were, into a clean, bright room, into true consciousness, through which the sunlight of Truth and Love is streaming. Nothing unlike infinite good has ever entered there. Divine Principle alone is governing. It may be that he is able to enter this consciousness only gradually, since he is still clinging to a sense of corporeal existence. It may even be that he is deceived into expectiong some physical discord to return. Then it is that he needs to search his thought to see just what he is expecting. With his back towards the door of materiality, and without one backward look, he should gaze through the windows open towards Jerusalem and give thanks that he is in the presence of God, in whose presence "is fulness of joy," and at whose right hand there are "pleasures for evermore." The glimpse that he has of reality is the conscious reflection of the one presence, God; and as he holds steadfastly to Truth and Love he will see that his old fears and apprehensions were only illusions of mortal sense, which have never really had any existence. As he advances he will learn that unvarying love, spiritual joy, immortal life, and perfection alone exist, for God's voice is heard ringing down the ages, in the words from Isaiah, "I am the Lord: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images."