In her Message to The Mother Church for 1900 (p. 9), Mrs. Eddy writes, "The twentieth century in the ebb and flow of thought will challenge the thinkers, speakers, and workers to do their best." When we look back over the years gone by and realize something of the good that has been accomplished through Christian Science, it gives us courage and strength to meet and overcome the resistance that would deny or hinder our present-day activity in proof of man's sonship with God.

A right thought knows no limits of time or space; it reaches to the uttermost parts of the earth. So are we banded together as Christian Scientists to live the truth we profess and to prove the real universe to be God-created and God-governed. In order that we may accomplish this great undertaking, God's law must mean everything to us. In proportion to our understanding of God's law, we cannot but love it; and, loving it, step by step we shall prove it in its entirety.

Understanding and love have one Principle; hence they are at one in every human endeavor for good. When we understand any idea that is good and right, we love it. And when we really love any idea of good, it leads us to the demonstration of our understanding of it. The study of Christian Science inspires us, and the practice of Christian Science increasingly fructifies until our complete unity with God, good, is understood. As our thinking governs our living, so our daily living is as pure as our thinking—spiritual thought being at one with God in love and understanding. In the now of our turning to Him is made evident the now of His goodness to us.

It is necessary, of course, to be alert to any seeming claim of evil so that we may meet it with the authority of knowing its nothingness, and thus refuse it any abiding place in our consciousness. There is a persistent temptation to leave the correcting of evil to some more convenient time. This temptation towards apathy and lethargy lurks in the dark shadows of mortal mind and would entangle us in confusion and smother the better influences unveiled through Christian Science. Whenever and wherever evil presents itself, it must immediately be met with the truth, with the divine fact that God, Spirit, is All-in-all, and that evil is nothing. Our only real satisfaction and safety consist in the fulfillment of our obligation to divine law, the understanding of which sets us free. We are fetterless and happy in the kingdom of God's dominion, within God's law; and man, the real man, lives nowhere else.

In "No and Yes" our Leader tells us (p. 30), "God's law is in three words, 'I am All;' and this perfect law is ever present to rebuke any claim of another law." The Hebrew statement, "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord," bears out the same spiritual fact, that we cannot look to matter for our salvation, and must give to Spirit, God, our complete allegiance.

When we acknowledge and accept the following admonition of John, we shall know the truth, God's law, about everyone, and everything, everywhere: "Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." And how can we reflect universal Love unless we understand one another in Truth? It is our duty and privilege as Christian Scientists to help one another out of the lie of belief in a material origin into an understanding of true, spiritual life, in which we find no law but God's law.

As thought becomes spiritually pure, the sense of existence in time or space—in matter—will be destroyed, and we shall realize that, since life, reflecting Life, is continuous, without beginning or end, and man, the real man, the son of God, always has been in the bosom of the Father, truly the place upon which we stand is "holy ground." This most important question, as to what we regard as life, is ever before us demanding an answer. It is a question which has to do with every material concept that falsely lays claim to life. Where do we claim life to be—in matter or in Spirit? There is no dust creation, for only divine ideas are permanent and active in Truth. The false concept of materiality is but a counterfeit of the divine idea. In our work as Christian Scientists we have nothing to change but the false concept of the true creation. The devil, or the false concept of God's creation, is a liar and the father of it (of its own false concept), and Christ Jesus tells us distinctly that there is no truth in it.

Knowing, then, that there can be no other presence but that of God and His reflection, let us cast off all doubt as to the actual presence of Life eternal. Even physical scientists are glimpsing the fact that matter is not substance, though they have, as yet, been unable to give up the belief in a material or human ego. The experiments, acknowledgments, and achievements of the thinkers of today are advantageous in so far as they point to the Christianly scientific fact that there is and can be but one creator, one Mind and intelligence of the universe, and that Mind is Spirit, God. Should we not appreciate the great dignity and importance of our calling as Christian Scientists, enlisted to prove true God's complete control of the universe, as expounded in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures"? The belief in matter-thinking is a lie, for matter is not a creator. It is our privilege to prove God's creation to be complete spiritual being.

Man is made in God's image and likeness; he is the son of God, and cannot be anything else. He is alive forever more, the image and likeness of Spirit. Selfless, pure, beautiful, this man in the likeness of his Maker reflects Mind's universal presence, which fills all space. Man recognized and fulfills his obligation as the perfect idea of God, the representation of good; hence the admonition of Jesus, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." This is the demonstrable truth about each and every one.

"If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God," says Paul. So is Christian Science awakening us from the false concept of life and mind in matter and enabling us to see its false and impossible nature. We are enlarging the place of our tent under its enlightening influence, which breaks through the hypnotic dream of a dust man and a dust creation. Animal magnetism or hypnotism can find nothing in the son of God to influence, or upon which to prey. Little by little are we proving that there is no evil power to produce any discordant condition whatsoever. The Christ is our Saviour, the divine idea which enables us to know that "the kingdom, and the power, and the glory" belong to God, divine Mind. On page 254 of Science and Health is this emphatic statement: "Pilgrim on earth, thy home is heaven; stranger, thou art the guest of God."