Growth is the imperative demand of God, divine Mind, the eternal unfoldment of its own being, its own beauty, harmony, law, and power, within the infinite realm of its own reality. To the student of Christian Science growth means the ever-increasing awareness and understanding of the realities of being, of the might and majesty, the omnipotence and omnipresence, of Spirit.

This growth is individually imperative, the inevitable law of God, from which there is no escape, and it is made manifest in the beauty and order of one's daily living. The same demand is made on each one, whatsoever his living may appear to be, whether in the sheltered obscurity of home and its daily routine or in the arena of conflicting, ever-changing world policies and treaty making. And the student of Christian Science is called upon ever to render obedience to this demand of Spirit for growth in understanding and clarified reflection.

This one way of growth is purely spiritual. It is not entangled with, helped or hindered by the suppositional laws of growth in or of matter. On page 527 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy writes, "God could not put Mind into matter nor infinite Spirit into finite form to dress it and keep it,—to make it beautiful or to cause it to live and grow." Human parents anxiously watching the material growth of their own offspring, accepting and fearing the many contradictory and condemnatory suppositional laws of material birth and growth, should turn from this suppositional growth in matter to that sense of growth which is the unfoldment of Spirit, its laws and substantial verities. Then they may see the child grow and wax "strong in spirit, filled with wisdom;" see him nourished by Love divine, strengthened by Truth, guarded by intelligence, and obedient to Principle, growing by mandate of Mind, unmesmerized by the mirage of matter.

True growth is growth out of complexities into simplicity, out of serpentine subtleties and speculations into direct spiritual verities and their inherent power. One learns that goodness and power are inseparable, as indivisible, indeed, as God Himself is indivisible. The allness of God, divine Mind, as the one creator and controller of the universe, the one Lawgiver and law enforcer, is the profound simplicity of premise into which we grow through spiritual understanding. On page 206 of "Miscellaneous Writings" Mrs. Eddy says, "Growth is governed by intelligence; by the active, all-wise, law-creating, law-disciplining, law-abiding Principle, God."

Truly growing, one grows out of adultism into divine sonship; out of the harassment of cares and responsibilities into the freedom and serenity of complete reliance on Principle. He accepts his status of childhood or sonship, a son of, and at one with, the Father, whose omnipotence he trusts. He recognizes that the Father, divine Love, in tenderness enfolds the rose in bloom and beauty, in intelligence creates and maintains man in His own image; that He has power to "bind the sweet influences of Pleiades" and "loose the bands of Orion." He recognizes this mighty Father even as his Maker, "who giveth songs in the night."

So one grows out of the personal perplexities and responsibilities of a human adult into the serenity of sonship whose reflected power and glory give him dominion over all the earth. In humility he accepts his eternal, never-to-be-outgrown status of son, and he knows that the will of his Father is done upon earth as in heaven.

Truly growing is growing out of ignorance into innocence—that purity of Spirit whose innocency is eternal and incapable of adulteration. This innocency is not of an evanescent, flowery nature, to be shielded and protected as long as possible from knowledge of evil. Its purity is the light omnipotent of Truth before which the dark claims of error harmlessly disappear.

This is the innocence of which Daniel spoke after his night in the lions' den when, early in the morning, the king asked him in "a lamentable voice" if his God, whom he served continually, had been able to save him from the lions. With what serenity Daniel replied, not even omitting the usual salutation: "O king, live for ever. My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me: forasmuch as before him innocency was found in me." Such is the power of the innocency into which one grows through spiritual understanding, even the innocency that knows there is no evil in the infinity of good.

Truly growing, one grows out of bondage into freedom. He does not grow into habits that become ever more settled and binding, into personal idiosyncrasies that become more pronounced. His so-called failings and crotchets do not grow worse and unchangeable, but drop away as he grows into the liberty of Spirit, into the unfolding graces and beauty of Soul, the power and prestige of Mind. One does not grow in years, but out of years into eternity, recognizing the fact that man cannot possibly have faculties of his own, independent of Mind, but dependent on organized matter. This is an impertinence out of which he grows, and he finds his faculties in Mind as eternal and indestructible as the Mind which they express.

Thus one grows into ever higher ways and nobler being. Mind unfolds eternally and glorifies its ideas. Truth is glorified by our growth into perfection. So may our Leader be justified in her exclamation on page 159 of "Miscellaneous Writings.": "'O glorious Truth! O Mother Love! how has the sense of Thy children grown to behold Thee! and how have many weary wings sprung upward! and how has our Model, Christ, been unveiled to us, and to the age!'"

Margaret Morrison