Daily Demonstration

Violet Ker Seymer

On page 283 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy writes, "We must receive the divine Principle in the understanding, and live it in daily life." Could there be a more fruitful incentive and interest than this receiving and living? In essence, one's "daily life" is mental, for Life is Mind, and true living expresses true knowing. The holy purpose of one's daily life has to be kept constantly in thought. Its highest ideal should be cherished and developed while the outward occupations are being carried on conscientiously and happily.

The children of Israel were told to gather manna daily for the day's supply. The Christian Scientist has to develop his spirituality by daily study and demonstration of the fresh truths he is constantly perceiving. Even as a besieged city defends the roads through which supplies and reinforcements reach it, so must the Christian Scientist watch that nothing obstruct his spiritual receptivity, for it is only through spiritual sense that he is replenished with strength and inspiration. Human consciousness seems besieged with temptations. Absorption in temporal interests, fear, and selfishness would attempt to divert the Christian Scientist's attention from his spiritual supply and so deprive him of the inspiration which is indispensable in daily life.

The taunts of materialism may tempt some to echo the Psalmist's despairing cry, "As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?" Mortal mind ignorantly suggests that certain conditions of sin or disease are incurable, and that God is either absent or impotent. Material sense insists that whereas Spirit is far off, material help is at hand and one should leave the transcendental for the material. "Where is thy God?" it asks. Every day the Christian Scientist is empowered to prove to himself and to the world that God is here, spiritual understanding and integrity are here, courage and fidelity are here, health and joy are here; the power of demonstration is here.

Our Leader writes (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 134), "The unprecedented progress of Christian Science is proverbial, and we cannot be too grateful nor too humble for this, inasmuch as our daily lives serve to enhance or to stay its glory." Every day one is impelled to bring into expression more of the one infinite, spiritual purity, more of the one God-bestowed health and joy, more evidence of the action of spiritual law, the power of right ideas, the beauty of holiness. The perfection and oneness of creator and creation are the basis of demonstration in Christian Science, for is not demonstration spiritual understanding put into practice "with signs following"? Demonstration is proof that the harmony of man is not subject to suspension, obscuration, or annihilation.

The daily life of the active Christian Scientist is one of praise to God. "So will I sing praise unto thy name for ever, that I may daily perform my vows." His vows are simple and comprehensive: to abide in true thinking, true loving, true living, by reliance at all times on the one Mind, the one Life, the one Love. Outwardly he may be conforming to general customs; but if wise his mode of living will exemplify simplicity, the culture of essentials rather than nonessentials. Freed from unnecessary preoccupations, his vital attention will then be given to responding to spiritual attraction, complying with spiritual demands, and reaching out for spiritual rewards.

Rejecting the suggestions of evil seems to entail constant vigilance and mental effort, the need for this effort being due to the belief in resistance to Truth. So fruitage is augmented as it is realized that spiritual man expresses Mind's omniaction. "Mind is perpetual motion" (Science and Health, p. 240). In the one Mind and its manifestation there is no mental laziness, and no resistance. Spiritual reflection entails no effort, for Spirit is All-in-all. Our joyous task is to discern, acknowledge, and demonstrate the everlasting spiritual perfection of all creation, in which there is no evil to undo, and in which nothing good has been left undone.

The temptation to forget Spirit and live in a haze of materialism is constant, but more constant still—in fact, ceaseless—is the spiritual assurance that God is supreme, and that the power of God is always available. Working from this basis, the student of Christian Science will find it natural to declare throughout each day, "All the words of my mouth are in righteousness; there is nothing froward or perverse in them." There is no perverted thought or utterance in infinite Truth. The way in which the Christian Scientist is called to walk with spiritual peace and dominion is "the way, the truth, and the life"—the way of demonstration of real being.

Violet Ker Seymer

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