Opening of Gates

CLAIRE COWGILL

A young lad, A, who had college friends of distinction, was graduated with honors. So eager were the fathers of his friends to have him identified with their organizations that he was able to choose from several invitations his place in the business world. In varying phrases those with whom he came into contact told him they needed his fresh, unbiased point of view.

Prior to this—indeed, at Commencement—his classmate, B, was made very unhappy by comparing A's situation with his own. What entry into a field of gratifying reward A already possessed! Popular, gifted, with men of influence and mature judgment already deeply interested in his career before he had stepped a foot out of college, his transition to the realm of congenial activity would be an easy adjustment! He would actually be needed, B thought bitterly, even in a time of so-called depression, when to most men like himself positions were at a premium. Surrounded as he was by kind and influential friends, A's problem of place would not even take on the proportions of a problem. What doors, thought B, will fly open for that fortunate lad!

And what of B himself? Financial reverses had occurred in his first year of college. Winning an education had been hard, uphill work. What powerful friends had he to ease his way into the business world? Not one. What was there of prestige or accomplishment to give him entrance into a promising berth? Nothing whatever.

And then B suddenly came to himself, and presented a right-about-face to this argument. Friend? Certainly he had a friend! Christian Science was his friend. Was not entry simply permission or right to enter? He would search the Concordances to the Bible and the writings of Mrs. Eddy, and enlighten himself on "entrance," "to enter," "open," "reopen," and "influence."

Almost the first citation to which he turned was: "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him." Then, to admit the Christ-idea, to let it unfold in his consciousness, was the opening of doors or gates that needed to be done. He was not existing as an isolated being, hedged in by tightly barred gates. No, the barred gates were in his own mentality. Envy and self-pity could seem to clamp terrible bars against the entrance of good. He excluded these from his thinking in a treatment so clear and vigorous that he expressed a great twofold sense of gratitude. He could now be sincerely and gratefully glad that A was soon to find his niche, for, to use our Leader's words (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 70), "Each individual must fill his own niche in time and eternity."

Secondly, there was a deep sense of gratitude that he had Christian Science for his friend and ally. Was not this the very contact he longed for, or the only contact he could in reality need? Was entrance into the kingdom of Mind, divine intelligence, dependent on human friends, and upon the weight their influence would have in helping one to a good place in this kingdom? No, for spiritual attainments alone do that: "Spiritual attainments open the door to a higher understanding of the divine Life" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, p. 10).

For several days B worked along these lines and felt assured that his progressive unfoldment must necessarily be fruitful. Before long, the offer of employment from an unexpected source came to him, and the work proved to be exactly the type for which he was most fitted, and which he most enjoyed.

Entrance through the gates into the city of opportunity is something every child feels he will find as a matter of course when he grows up. Over the doors leading from the hall to a certain Christian Science Sunday School is the inscription, "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." Learning how to keep the Commandments as he is taught in the Sunday school a child or youth will build on a firm foundation. "City" will take on a wider meaning than a place of opportunity. It will signify divine consciousness.

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