The tendencies of the present age are expressed in the words of a well-known hymn:

Yet there is one kingdom that is permanent, and forever will remain. Of it, Mary Baker Eddy writes in "Pulpit and Press" (p. 4): "Who lives in good, lives also in God,—lives in all Life, through all space. His is an individual kingdom, his diadem a crown of crowns."

The unfoldment of this individual kingdom to mankind was achieved by Jesus, and it is brought into fuller light in this age through Christian Science. This unfoldment will go on until it exterminates the evil commotion so apparent over the face of the globe.

Jesus proved centuries ago that the ills of mankind could not be legislated away, could not be fought away; and that there is no "mass salvation." The Master joined no political groups, nor did he allow his thinking to be turned from its original basis of divine guidance, or warped by popular tides of thought or emotion. He rendered to Caesar that which was Caesar's, and lived so that men might see that his reflected Godlikeness included all that is desirable and permanent.

To the materialists of his age, as of every age, this satisfaction with what is pleasing to God was a mystery. They could not understand Jesus' self-abnegation, because to them man was a dual character, good and evil, having a material body and an immortal soul. Jesus' profound realization of the unity of God and man, and of the consistency of man's divine nature, unseamed and undivided, enabled him to reject completely the unprincipled claims of material birth, growth, and decay. The fundamental truth that man is spiritual, born of God, enabled him to practice self-abnegation, and it is in proportion to our individual understanding and practice of the quality of self-abnegation that we are enabled to inherit our kingdom.

To many, the word "self-abnegation" suggests martyrdom, or a mistaken sense of unselfishness which may amount to abjectness. Another may picture the hypocritical self-depreciation of a Uriah Heep, or another may mistake mere timidity for self-abnegation. But our beloved Leader defines it scientifically (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 185): "Self-renunciation of all that constitutes a so-called material man, and the acknowledgment and achievement of his spiritual identity as the child of God, is Science that opens the very flood-gates of heaven; whence good flows into every avenue of being."

Jesus' humility and unselfishness, even to the point of laying down his life for his friend—mankind in the aggregate—were never for a moment an abdication of his "individual kingdom" or a laying aside of "his diadem." He might wrestle with temptations in the wilderness, he might allow himself to be taken by soldiers and carry his cross up the hill, in order to prove to doubting, sinning, distraught humanity that his message had no personal origin; but he never left his throne, his consciousness of his God-given power over all that opposed itself to Truth.

To the friend who drew his sword in defense of the Master he loved, Jesus said, "Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?" Was Jesus helpless and hopeless in his hour of need? He knew that he was not. Far from being weak and forsaken, far from being humbled and wretched, he had reached a degree of understanding of God which presently was to raise him to the demonstration of everlasting life in his own ascension, and thus establish in the hearts of men the kingdom of God on earth.

In speaking to this friend, Jesus stated that they who took the sword should perish by the sword, thus indicating that the way to the establishment of this heavenly kingdom on earth is never through bloodshed, hate, acquisitiveness, or personal domination. The words of his prayer, "Thy kingdom come," have been uttered for centuries in the hearts of his followers, yet they have not often been understood. But the prayer remains as an angelic messenger to lead mankind to the scientific and, therefore, demonstrable understanding of God's presence and willingness to bless His children infinitely.

The student of Christian Science finds in these facts a constant inspiration to claim, and to endeavor to possess, his own "individual kingdom." It belongs to him by right of his divine sonship, for is not each one a joint heir with Christ, an indispensable part in the whole of creation? However, if it is to be apparent either to him or to anyone else, it must daily be more clearly discerned in the light of one's ever-advancing study and application of the teachings of the Bible and Christian Science.

The blessed possessor of this kingdom does not leave it for periods of exile in an arid zone of material thinking, human reasoning, or conscienceless deeds. He does not look in fear and trembling at the clash of opposing material forces, at the building up of armaments, at the signs of corrupt politics throughout the world. By looking out upon these from the height of his own spiritual conviction that men's need everywhere is to know of the kingdom of heaven, not only at hand, but within, he is spurred on to renewed effort to let his own light so shine before men that they will see his good deeds, and so seek and glorify the Father.

The possessor of this "individual kingdom" has also to be watchful lest he become imperious, seeking to take from some other the fruits of his honest effort, inspiration, or toil, in the hope of thereby increasing his own scope of harmony. In so doing, he would be looking away from infinite Principle to a personal sense of good as something finite, limited, or lacking.

A finite sense of God has produced the turmoil of the centuries, revolutions, civil and religious wars, personal feuds, because by them men have sought unsuccessfully to find good, continually exchanging one evil for another. Perhaps never before has there been a period of such constant overturning in the kingdoms of the world. This would indicate that governments have ignored the fundamentals of Christly dominion, among which are the inviolable unity of the children of God and the right of the individual to discover for himself the kingdom of heaven which Jesus revealed, and which our Leader defines in Science and Health (p. 587) as "harmony; the reign of Spirit; government by divine Principle; spirituality; bliss; the atmosphere of Soul."