Throughout human history mortals have persistently engaged in a search for happiness. It would seem that with such unanimity of desire and purpose mankind would long since have achieved its goal, but the fact is clear that the world at large has learned little from the failures of past experience and that its longing for happiness is still unsatisfied. Even now, leaders of thought in what we are wont to call civilized countries are still working to find material remedies for the general depression and discontent which are constantly threatening to break forth in new forms of violence and strife.

With her inspired vision Mary Baker Eddy points the way of salvation in the following statement from the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 83): "Mortals must find refuge in Truth in order to escape the error of these latter days." While many attempts have, been made to define truth, they go no farther than to consider truth as merely an attribute of God. Christian Science, in accordance with Scriptural teaching, reveals Truth as a synonym for God Himself.

The truth then in which mortals must find refuge is the understanding of the nature and attributes of God and of man in His image and likeness. This understanding of Truth and its creation reveals that mortal existence is a dream of material sense, which is wholly apart from Truth. Indeed, a sense of God as a corporeal person and of man and the universe as material is the foundation of the error from which mortals must escape if they are to attain happiness.

"Happiness is spiritual, born of Truth and Love," declares Mrs. Eddy (ibid., p. 57). Then we must claim this happiness as a natural endowment of the child of God, cherish it, guard it from error's claim that it can substitute its material misconception of man with its false material sense of pleasure for this child of divine Truth and Love.

We have been accustomed to think of ourselves as separate individuals, with minds and thoughts of our own. And this estimate of ourselves sometimes continues even when, we voice the truths regarding God and man. The fact remains, however, that Truth is universal, the divine consciousness that is reflected or expressed by individual man. When Jesus said (Matt. 24:35), "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away," he was not being in the least egotistical, for he was not thinking of himself as a separate human personality, but was conscious of his real selfhood, one with Mind, as the expression of Mind, declaring eternal Truth.

While it is probably true that many of us came to Christian Science expecting either to get something or to get rid of something, our dawning realization of Truth and Love should now inspire us to say, as Jesus did (John 18:37), "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth." In this witness bearing we must guard against overenthusiasm or casting our pearls before the unprepared thought, lest it turn and rend our newborn concept of happiness.

Since "happiness is spiritual, born of Truth and Love," we cannot expect to be happy while we are willfully indulging in error, so there must be constant watchfulness to overcome everything unlike good. We are prone to blame our troubles on someone else, or on circumstances or environment, but, after all, erroneous belief is powerless without a believer, and the fact that discord is manifested in our experience indicates that the discordant belief found a response in and acceptance by us.

Sometimes we attempt to excuse our lack of demonstration by saying that we are under a great deal of criticism or hate, but a mathematician would never think of offering that as an excuse for failure to solve a problem, for he knows that the law of mathematics is unvarying and, when correctly applied, unfailing in its results. So it is with the law of God, which is exact, unfailing, and ever at hand to solve every human problem if correctly applied, regardless of whatever error may be arguing.

We have a right to harmonious surroundings, but only as one of the things added as a result of seeking "first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness" (Matt. 6:33). This does not necessarily mean that everything must conform to what the material senses may consider to be harmonious, for we should guard against the temptation merely to demand harmonious surroundings instead of having them as a result of demonstrating God's nature.

Daniel in the lions' den and the three Hebrews in the fiery furnace were able to bear witness to Truth and prove the powerlessness of evil in spite of what appeared most unfavorable material surroundings. There is nothing encouraging or inspiring about a tomb, but Jesus made of it a refuge from his enemies in which to demonstrate the great facts of immortal Life.

Christian Science is positive, practical, and dynamic. As the law of God, it admits of no negations, and it annuls wrong action or reaction. From its very nature as unchanging good, divine Love sees its own creation as "very good" (Gen. 1:31). The nearer we approach the realization and demonstration of divine Love as All-in-all, the farther we get from the consciousness of evil. Good is always in operation. Nothing can defeat its purpose, nothing can turn us from it, nothing can prevent us from seeing its operation or stop the eternal flow of the ideas of Truth in our consciousness. Divine Love is universal and continuous in its operation. It is available to us now and always. It creates, rules, and governs man. Man's home and activity are in Mind, divine consciousness. Nothing can destroy the harmony existing there. No fear of death, no sense of poverty, lack, or want, can enter there, for these dream shadows are illusions of material sense.

The law of good operates in all our affairs, and in reality there is nothing to resist it, no mind to reject it, and no consciousness to feel indifference toward it. Each individual idea has its place in the kingdom of God. This place is already prepared, and nothing but false belief can hide it from us or withhold from us the unchanging happiness that is born of divine Truth and Love.