IN human life we have standards by which to gauge the relative value of all material things. In Christian Science, the Science of Mind, we have the one and only standard by which to classify thoughts and acts; and that standard is the truth, as taught and lived by Christ Jesus.

It is related that a young man attending college was visited by his parents. On entering his room the mother was shocked to find the walls covered by vivid and sensational pictures. However, she did not betray her disappointment, but afterwards sent to the boy a beautiful painting of Jesus. On a second visit the mother was delighted to find the painting hanging on the wall. All other pictures had been removed. After expressing her satisfaction and interest she asked her son why he had removed the other pictures. "Mother," the boy replied earnestly, "they just wouldn't go with him!" The earnest contemplation of the Christcharacter had enabled this young man courageously to set aside false standards of thought and hold before his thinking the ideal model for human life.

Fear of being classed as religious often keeps us from boldly departing from harmful social customs. Many of us at heart are not in sympathy with worldly standards of living, yet are seemingly unable to subdue pride and fear sufficiently to act upon our convictions. And it is here that Christian Science comes to our rescue. Mrs. Eddy, in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," has lovingly and patiently portrayed to us the great beauty and reality of holiness, as lived by Jesus; and as we hold before our gaze the practical, spiritual truth of being, the false world-standards, which he rejected, gradually lose their attractiveness and are replaced with true, divine ideals.

The process of exchanging old and false standards for new and true ones goes on naturally as Christian Science accurately classifies for us both the false thoughts which have been considered true, and the real spiritual qualities, which have been ignorantly set aside as impracticable. No one can do away with old habits of thought so long as he is deceived into believing them to be attractive and real. The habits of smoking tobacco and using intoxicating liquors, for instance, are sometimes cultivated because tremendous commercial interests hold before our gaze suggestions that such habits are socially correct. But when we discover that these and other habits are fostered in the so-called human mind to furnish and perpetuate a market for the products of financial interests, and Christian Science shows us that genuine happiness and freedom from care can be attained only by thinking and acting in accord with the rules of the Science of Life, we naturally set aside these and other false customs as a vielding to aggressive suggestions. Persistence in this undertaking is needed so much that the members of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, are required to give specific attention to defending themselves "daily against aggressive mental suggestion" (Church Manual, Art. VIII, Sect. 6). Obedience to this Rule will enable us to resist and blot out of consciousness the artificial thought-models that the world would hold before our thinking.

False health standards are also outgrown through the guidance of Christian Science. Human systems such as hygiene and physiology have set up material standards by which to gauge health, whereas the fact is that real health is scientifically independent of matter and can be discerned only from a spiritual basis. Jesus demonstrated his system to be the perfect one of attaining and maintaining health; hence his method is the model for all his followers. Any theory or method, then, which does not square with Christ Jesus' system cannot be accepted by enlightened Christians as a guide to health.

The world is apt to argue that a religious standard is a weak standard, and that one who conscientiously follows the dictates of his religion must lose in popularity. No one has ever risked so much the displeasure of the world as Jesus; yet he did not fear the loss of popularity, and no one showed greater strength of character. Did not Paul say, "When I am weak, then am I strong"? Could he not have meant, When I seem weak to the world, then am I strong in moral courage and spiritual power? These qualities Christian Science proves to be absolutely essential to real success.

On page 195 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy graphically calls our attention to the tendency towards false standards in literature. There she says: "Novels, remarkable only for their exaggerated pictures, impossible ideals, and specimens of depravity, fill our young readers with wrong tastes and sentiments. . . . Incorrect views lower the standard of truth." Commercialism, as she also makes plain in the same paragraph, injects elements into our literature and the drama which lower the standards of daily life. But through Christian Science we are enabled to select only those books, friends, and plays whose influence tends to educate thought spiritually and to elevate rather than lower our thought-models.

Are we willing to be the puppets in the world's spectacular play of deception? Or are we ready to take from the walls of our consciousness all false models, and keep in their place the only models for true success, the Christ-standards of truth so simply and accurately delineated in Christian Science?