A generation ago a boy of ten was at his grandfather's farm in New Hampshire in late November. Snow covered the countryside. In the woodshed the boy had a piece of hickory in a vise and was starting to make a bow. An unfinished sled frame, and a half-whittled hull of a toy sailboat lay close by. Grandfather came in and saw the work that had been started but left uncompleted. When questioned about it the boy said, "Oh, yes, I'll finish those things later."

After the noon meal, as they were walking over the farm, Grandfather challenged the boy to a game. "Let us see which of us can walk the straightest line to that big pine across the meadow." Eagerly the boy started when his elder said, "Go." They were fifty feet apart but making for the same big pine. The youngster put one foot carefully in front of the other as he a little hurriedly made for the goal. Grandfather did not hurry, but to the boy's surprise reached the tree before he did.

Then, looking back, the boy exclaimed with surprise, "How did you walk so straight, Grandpa?"

Said the latter, "Tell me first why your trail is so crooked." The boy could not tell why his trail was almost serpentine. Then said the elder, "Tell me, Son, did you ever look at the pine tree?"

"Oh, yes," said the boy, "every once in a while. Did you?"

"Son, I didn't look at anything else."

Those words became a mighty influence in the whole life of that boy. He learned the lesson his grandfather wished to impart, that the shortest road to one's objective is found by keeping one's thought fixed upon one's goal.

Mary Baker Eddy had a goal. It was to gain an understanding of God and His healing power. There were many steps to be taken before the goal was reached; then another goal appeared—to found and establish in human consciousness the Christ Science she had discovered. Nothing could divert her thought from these greatest of goals. Her unqualified success in attaining them and her qualities of resoluteness of purpose and undeviating steadfastness of endeavor are something every student of Christian Science may profitably ponder and emulate.

In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy says (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."

Mortals with some appreciation for ethical standards generally have worthy goals for themselves and their children. They wish to live lives that are wholesome, do work that is constructive, and contribute something to the common good. But life is accepted as mortal, with the hereafter clouded in obscurity.

Christian Science gives the individual a more satisfying goal and marks the way to reach it. That goal is the demonstration progressively, through increasing spiritual understanding, of man's everlasting sonship and oneness with eternal Mind, Life, and Love—God. This goal transcends any merely human objective. It outdistances any human ambition. It breaks with time and joins with eternity. It is the dawning of reality, the appearing to human thought of Life as Spirit, the one substance, and man as God's individualized evidence. This spiritual goal bespeaks obedience to the Scriptural command, "Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth" (Col. 3:2).

Every day, every hour, the Christian Scientist can joy in his discovery: first, of the truly worthwhile goal of life, and secondly, of the revelation which shows him how to obtain it. The boy's footsteps in the snow were far from being in a straight line because his thought was divided between looking at his feet and looking at his goal. The other's steps were in a straight line because he looked only at his goal and gave his undivided attention to reaching it.

How undividedly is our thought fixed on our goal? Not only do we need to look up and not down, but we need to look straight on. Evil would block, or divert, our steps of progress as long as we listen to its bedeviling self-centered thoughts and accept them as our own. There is no alibi that excuses our failure to get on toward our goal. God worketh in us, and if we use our God-given ability to know what is spiritually true we cannot but advance toward that objective.

"We walk in the footsteps of Truth and Love by following the example of our Master in the understanding of divine metaphysics" (Science and Health, p. 192). His compassion, mercy, love, wisdom, and singleness of purpose are all ours for the asking and seeking. His understanding of divine metaphysics, now explained in Christian Science, shows such understanding is natural to man. Christian Science is divine metaphysics. It reveals that God, infinite Mind, is the only substance, and man as Mind's individual expression is united to God as idea is united to Mind. What hinders progress is the ignorant, selfish, willful thinking which believes mind, and so life, is evil as well as good, and man material instead of spiritual, having purposes, ambitions, and desires all quite contrary to the will of God.

We must challenge mortal mind and mortal selfhood, error's lie, more resolutely, not halfheartedly and intermittently, but wholeheartedly and consistently. We must see and affirm the facts of divine metaphysics, the universality and omnipotence of God, the spiritual sonship and godliness of man. In our daily study and application of the teachings of Christian Science the qualities of God must increasingly appear in us. Some are goodness, wisdom, justice, love. If we humbly listen, we shall know how we should think, act, and speak. Christ Jesus so consistently leaned on and was guided of God that no phase of error could prevent him from attaining his goal. Every right thought leads you and me nearer our goal. Indeed, our true God-constituted consciousness, which Christian Science is awakening us to claim and utilize, is even now fully conscious of our sonship with our eternal Father.

Let us remember the lesson in the snow.

Paul Stark Seeley