After a demonstration has been made in Christian Science one learns that he must hold his ground with humility and a real desire to know more of God if he wishes to progress in his work. He must work and pray consistently if he would press onward into the promised land of God's allness.

To one student of Christian Science, the story of the unclean spirit that had been cast out of a man, as propounded by the Master to his disciples, has always been of great interest. The effort of the unclean spirit to find an abiding place is the seeming effort of evil everywhere, for evil never has a place of its own, since it is but a hallucination. However, seeing his former abode "empty, swept, and garnished," the unclean spirit decided to go in and take with him some of his kindred spirits, "more wicked than himself;" and the Master's narrative finishes with the statement that the last state of that man was worse than the first.

Had the man filled his consciousness with the glory of God, would there have been any place for the evil spirit to return to? The lesson is one that can be taken to heart with humble gratitude, in order that one's healing may be maintained and still lovelier healings be experienced. It is right to sweep clean and to garnish one's mental home, but never to leave it empty. The emptiness, or lack of true thinking, tempts error to go in and occupy it, and reversal and relapse may be the outcome. In her Message to The Mother Church for 1900 (p. 8) Mary Baker Eddy's statement, "Mental idleness or apathy is always egotism and animality," indicates the necessity for mental work so that the dangers of animal magnetism may be overcome. Since in reality there is no physical man to be sick, it is evident that only unlovely mental qualities need to be disposed of. When disease, then, returns or relapses, it means that possibly some unlovely trait has not been thoroughly eradicated and needs further erasure, so that there may be no possible danger of reversal, or that belief in the possibility of relapse has not been annulled.

The claim of mortal mind that healing can be set aside, or that Christian Science does not heal, must be disposed of by an earnest, consecrated desire to stay close to God, to fill thought with a larger knowledge and understanding of God, until one's thinking is so imbued with this loveliness that nothing else can enter. In "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" Mrs. Eddy admonishes (p. 210): "Beloved Christian Scientists, keep your minds so filled with Truth and Love, that sin, disease, and death cannot enter them. It is plain that nothing can be added to the mind already full."

Could there be a more marvelous admonition for our protection? A mind already full has no weakness where the tempter may find ingress. Such was the Mind of Christ Jesus—the Mind that heals instantaneously, for it knows nothing but God. What a goal for every Christian Scientist! It is worth the striving, for the reward will be great. Jesus' whole life was spent in giving us this message of our sonship with the Father. This is a glorious recipe for making our way out of material sense into the true apprehension of spiritual understanding. To sweep from one's thought-home all materiality and belief in mortal mind, to garnish it lovingly with garlands of the letter, and then fail to fill it with the spirit of practical activity, so that the dust of mental laziness and the cobwebs of inaction have an opportunity to clog it, would rightly be regarded as poor housekeeping indeed.

In pondering the "Questions and Answers" in "Miscellaneous Writings," a student was interested to find that the question was asked of our Leader (p. 38), "Is it necessary to study your Science in order to be healed by it and keep well?" And a part of Mrs. Eddy's reply reads, "To avoid being subject to disease, would require the understanding of how you are healed." In this answer the word "subject" is particularly interesting, and it is in italics. Italics ordinarily indicate emphasis, and as the student earnestly thought over this emphasized word, she saw that if one is subject to something, he is under the domination of that thing. Therefore, to avoid being under the domination of disease of any kind one must understand how he is healed; he must understand in some measure the allness of God, which shows him his sonship, or freedom from everything unlike God. The loveliness, the allness, the graciousness, the kindness, of God hold us not in subjection, but in reflection or expression.

Ignorance never brought freedom to anyone, for ignorance is slavery's most potent tool, whereas spiritual understanding is always freedom. Had the man in the parable of the Master understood the dangers of an empty house, he might have filled it so full of the angels of His presence that no other claim to life or intelligence could have found entrance. The lesson of his experience has, however, come down to us through the centuries for our protection. The darkness of envy, rivalry, hatred, opposition to the Christ, scholasticism, and diabolism are ruled out by divine Love's illumination.

How different might have been Judas' life history had he kept the evil influence from finding lodgment in his consciousness! At some time there must have been a glimpse of the true purpose of the Christ, otherwise he would never have followed Jesus; but he allowed the evil beliefs so to gain ascendancy in his thought that they claimed to occupy all the available space, and before he came to his self-imposed suicide, he had surely illustrated the statement that "the last state of that man is worse than the first."

Looking around us to the larger thought of the world consciousness, one is constrained to realize that the world generally has had to prove that it could hold its ground after taking a forward step. A nation, endeavoring to sweep from its midst the noxious odors of intoxication, failed to put in their place the glory of God, and the resultant reversal requires that its efforts toward cleanliness be proved again. Thus one sees the dangers of empty thinking. How wonderfully the great Teacher left behind him signposts pointing the way! His illustrations and parables illumine the path of all mankind just as rapidly as mankind gains the spiritual message in each one. And, if the search is earnestly pursued, a glorious activity will result.

The prayer of the righteous man, after his first conscious knowledge of his heavenly Father's dearness, may well include a constant effort to keep his mental household swept and garnished for the appearing of the Christ. Then, keeping his house filled with the ever-presence of good will prove true the Revelator's vision, "And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life."