The world may readily define co-operation as the united action of individuals working in a common cause; but it does not so readily manifest the ability to achieve such unity of action. For centuries men have sought ways and means to bring about the co-operation of individuals, groups, nations, and races for the common good, for the establishment of peace, justice, security, economic stability, and so on. But the centuries have brought higher civilization and human progress along many lines without bringing any greater outward evidence of world unity and co-operation than was apparent in eras past. Is it because the task is hopeless? Do wars and strife, unsolved problems of unemployment, human want, social and economic injustice, and ebbing moral consciousness indicate that there is no way to achieve the co-operation among men that would solve these problems?

We learn in Christian Science that the problem is not hopeless, and we give thanks to God that this is true. We perceive that humanity is groping for an answer to its needs without success, because it is groping in the dark wilderness of material sense. And it will not find either hope or freedom until it turns away from the enslaving belief of minds many to the one Mind, God.

The cause of sin, disease, discord, strife, misunderstanding, confusion, hopelessness lies entirely in the belief of an existence apart from God, a false trust in that which would counterfeit Spirit, Life, Truth, and Love. Over and over again the Scriptures counsel us against any trust but trust in God. "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world," we read in I John. The conclusion is unmistakable that we can never find an enduring solution to our problems until we learn to rely upon spiritual means alone.

The Christian Scientist bases all his thought and action in the practice of his religion upon "the first of all the commandments," "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength," and upon that which Jesus said "is like, . . . Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." Through spiritual understanding the Christian Scientist is able to bring the divine authority of these commandments to bear in meeting any human need, in solving any human problem. Knowing there is but one Mind, God, he knows also that there is no man but the perfect idea of Mind, the perfect child of Love, and he applies this truth to his neighbor and to himself. He strives to know his neighbor as the Father knows him. From this standpoint he proceeds to know, and to persist in knowing, that to love his neighbor as himself is to know his neighbor as himself; that he cannot withhold from his neighbor the same truth about man's being that he would realize for himself; that he must know man, individually and collectively, as God knows him, or he is not really knowing himself or his neighbor at all. This true perception of our neighbor, this spiritual understanding of God and man, provides the only means by which we can truly love our neighbor and co-operate with him.

We cannot solve the world's problems or our own on the platform of worldliness. To achieve unity with our neighbor, to co-operate with our fellow men, to show by our own example that the brotherhood of man may be attained here and now through spiritual understanding and truly Christian practice, we must first assure ourselves that we, individually, are working from a spiritual and not from a material basis. The First Commandment and the Golden Rule must motivate our practice.

To find the understanding by which we may work together for the common good, the Scriptures and the writings of Mary Baker Eddy point us ever Godward. Our Leader says in her Message to The Mother Church for 1902 (p. 4), "Follow your Leader, only so far as she follows Christ;" and the Master said, "Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God." Men unite and co-operate only as they realize their unity with the one Mind, good. Only this realization can so unite men that, as we read in Acts, they are "all with one accord in one place."

What, for instance, attracts Christian Scientists to their church services and unites them in their church activities? Is it an individual, or a building, or any human or material influence? We know that it is their individual love of good, evidenced in their collective love of good, which thus brings them "with one accord" into "one place." It is the same attraction of Spirit which alone makes possible the unity and effectiveness of any of our church interests and endeavors.

When a right idea is accepted into the consciousness of men, those receptive to it co-operate involuntarily in accordance with its leading. When Truth attracts men, those coming to its light meet together and work together spontaneously. Men should agree as effortlessly upon anything that is really true and worthy, as they agree upon the principle of music or of mathematics.

Unity and co-operation are laws of Mind, governing all as the ideas of Mind, and ever enabling men to work harmonioulsy and effectively together for the achievement of good. Our first need, however, is the spiritual understanding, the consecration, the devotion to good, the individual growth in grace by which co-operation and unity follow as a matter of course.

Christian Scientists, grateful that Truth has enriched their lives, have consecrated themselves to the Cause of Christian Science, that their fellow men may be blessed as they themselves have been blessed, that the world may find the way out of its self-imposed darkness, and that there may be healing and salvation for all mankind.

Mrs. Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 340), "One infinite God, good, unifies men and nations; constitutes the brotherhood of man; ends wars; fulfils the Scripture, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself;' annihilates pagan and Christian idolatry,—whatever is wrong in social, civil, criminal, political, and religious codes; equalizes the sexes; annuls the curse on man, and leaves nothing that can sin, suffer, be punished or destroyed."