Indispensable Human Footsteps

LINDEN E. JONES

"The divine demand, 'Be ye therefore perfect,' is scientific, and the human footsteps leading to perfection are indispensable." So writes Mary Baker Eddy on pages 253 and 254 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." Many an inquirer has asked just what these human footsteps are. It is clear that perfection is not found in any earthly place or in any form of matter.

Because God is perfect Mind, perfection is found in that only which reflects God, which manifests the glory of God. In the true consciousness which expresses the perfection, immortality, and infinitude of Love there is no room for anything unlike God. Divine Mind and its reflection constitute perfect God and perfect man, as revealed to the world in Christian Science, and proved to be infallibly true by the healing of sin and all manner of disease.

It is clear that for spiritual man there is no stepping down from or stepping up to the perfect Principle which he reflects. Knowing this, Jesus said, "The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do." This is the law of spiritual reflection: that man expresses godliness and can never be ungodly or material.

Then what steps are to be taken by mortals to replace the material sense of man with the true idea of man as presented in Christian Science? A pupil uninstructed in mathematics may ignorantly treat a nought as a unit—regard nothing as something. Should such a mistake throw his work into confusion and delay his finding the correct answer to his problem, by studying his textbook the student may speedily uncover the error, correct it, and have the joy of proving the correct answer to the problem.

In like manner mistakenly regarding the atheism of temporal flesh and blood as man obscures the image of infinite Spirit. Materiality is nonintelligent nothingness, dust to dust and it is impossible to find God's man in this dust, or to regard him as being made up of elements of nothingness. Such incorrect reasoning expresses confusion, and they who have been looking into materiality for man must reverse this action. Because man is the image and likeness of God, steps must be taken to know and understand just what God is in nature and character, for "man is the expression of God's being" (Science and Health, p. 470).

The simple and honest seeker for Truth will inevitably be led to the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, which is the "key" to the spiritual sense of the Scriptures. In this age "the human footsteps leading to perfection" require study of these textbooks, pondering their teaching and striving to put into practice the truth revealed therein. This leads to attendance at the Wednesday evening testimony meetings in a Christian Science church, in order to express gratitude for healing or other blessings resulting from a clearer understanding of God and man. Later, through prayer and more unfoldment, one may come into membership with a brach Church of Christ, Scientist, and with The Mother Church. In taking these steps one helps to bring others the blessings which have come to him.

The journey of the children of Israel from Egypt to the promised land figuratively represents the passage from subjection to the senses to the realization of man's God-given freedom and dominion. The mental journeyings of mortals today—are they not the reaching out for the understanding and demonstration of the truth, "till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ"? Before perfection is reached, many human footsteps will need to be taken, day by day, hour by hour—maybe a stepping down from prideful boasting in the flesh to the humility which lives to glorify Spirit, God; maybe a step up from a depressed mortal sense of life to the immortal idea of Life which Christian Science imparts. But whatever the advance may be, it can only be a further emergence from dreams and shadows into the radiant realization of man's forever perfection in God.

If there are times when we are not sure of the next right step, our course is clear if we go the way of the Golden Rule, the rule given by Christ Jesus. Walking in this right way we shall ever remain true to sacred trusts, loyal to human obligations, faithful to employer and employee, loving to those who seem not to love us, and, above all, obedient to God and ever ready to glorify the Father in all our actions.

Should "the human footsteps leading to perfection" and away from bad habits, self-interest, or ungodliness seem uphill, and we sigh for rest by the wayside, it is helpful to remember the words of Mary Baker Eddy in Science and Health (p. 426), "The discoverer of Christian Science finds the path less difficult when she has the high goal always before her thoughts, than when she counts her footsteps in endeavoring to reach it."

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