IN the inspiring Scriptural incident recorded in the third chapter of Acts, a crippled beggar, seeing Peter and John about to enter the temple, asked an alms. When Peter said "Look on us," we are told that "he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something of them." Evidently he was expecting an alms; but Peter, knowing the man's real need, corrected this wrong anticipation, saying, "Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk." And we read that "he took him by the right hand, and lifted him up." In this newly awakened mental state of spiritual receptivity the man immediately received his healing and began praising God.

Peter was spiritually prepared and expectant of being able to prove God's healing power through his understanding of the Christ. How full of meaning is this incident to students of Christian Science, for are not they, at times, likewise confronted with various appeals from those who are looking only for the appearing of material benefits? Should not we, then, establish in our consciousness that scientific expectancy of good so necessary to successful demonstration?

It is most important that our looking or expecting be directed to God, the one source and substance. The Psalmist indicates this in the words, "My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him." Christian Science makes clear this primary rule of divine metaphysics, and teaches that God, good, is the undeviating divine Principle, the source and substance of all real being, the one and only Mind. When we actively wait only upon Him, through the affirmation of Truth and denial of error, putting aside all the suggestive doubts and fears of mortal mind, we can be sure of gaining right results. Through looking wholly to God, the divine presence and power, in whom we actually "live, and move, and have our being," we can know assuredly that, whatever our seeming problem, its solution has already begun, even though unseen to mortal sense.

The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, maintained this attitude of spiritual expectancy, and proved its importance in relation to demonstration. On page 109 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," referring to her three-year search for the rule of Mind-healing, she says, in part, "I knew the Principle of all harmonious Mind-action to be God, and that cures were produced in primitive Christian healing by holy, uplifting faith; but I must know the Science of this healing, and I won my way to absolute conclusions through divine revelation, reason, and demonstration." Later, out of the increased wealth of her spiritual experience, she says of herself (ibid., 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. When the destination is desirable, expectation speeds our progress."

What is "the high goal," and do we truly expect to reach it here and now? Are we perchance expecting to gain more of matter through spiritual means? Are we struggling wearily and long over some seeming difficulty, waiting for ease in matter? Then let us be more correctly expectant that the power and presence of divine Love, our Father-Mother God, will be manifested now, without delay, in our own experience, in the Christian Science movement, and in the world; more expectant that our righteous prayers will bring results, indeed, that they are already heard and answered, for ourselves and others.

We need constant self-analysis and vigilance to be sure that we are always confidently expecting, for tomorrow as well as for today, good instead of evil, health instead of sickness, abundance not lack, vitality and freshness, not age and deterioration. Because of the inherently destructive nature and intent of the carnal mind, which is antagonistic to all spiritual progress, collective as well as individual, it would lull or mesmerize us into the error of expecting that which is diametrically opposite to our best and highest interests. Let us not be made to forget that Christ Jesus, in speaking of the devil—evil—the false, deceiving, so-called mind, said: "He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it." Abiding constantly and consciously in the truth, we rejoice to know that we cannot be ensnared.

Our lives must be governed more and more by the clear consciousness of reality, in order to experience the unfoldment of spiritual joys. We cannot expect surcease from the claims of mortal mind through clinging to the fables of material existence with its woe, its finite beginning and ending. We should cultivate an expectancy of endless life, based on the fact that God is Life, man's life, today and always, and that we therefore, even now, can demonstrate, in the measure of our increasing understanding, Life's perfection, harmony, freedom, and continuity.

Spiritual existence alone is real and true, and we should maintain at all times and under all conditions the realization that it is natural to experience it. This our Leader makes plain where she succinctly writes,on page 368 of Science and Health, "When we come to have more faith in the truth of being than we have in error, more faith in Spirit than in matter, more faith in living than in dying, more faith in God than in man, then no material suppositions can prevent us from healing the sick and destroying error."