Humanity needs leadership today, not of persons or organizations, but divine guidance, which leads thought out of the dark wilderness of materiality into the light of freedom and spiritual understanding. Such is the leadership that Mary Baker Eddy gave and is still giving to the world through her writings and the church activities which she established.

Without an adequate appreciation of our Leader, an adequate appreciation of Christian Science cannot be gained. When the understanding of the Christ, Truth, began to flood her consciousness, family and friends misunderstood her, with the result that she was deprived of the solace of unity with them. But she persisted in her righteous course, undisturbed by any seeming deprivation. Companioned by the divine Father, she gladly worked in a seclusion which permitted her to prepare herself for her great life mission of leadership. "Her attitude," we read in "Historial Sketches" by Judge Clifford P. Smith (p. 159), "was that she had to obey God, even before she knew the reason why."

Even as a young girl, it was said of our Leader by her tutor, the Rev. Enoch Corser (ibid., p. 37): "I never before had a pupil with such depth and independence of thought. She has some great future. ... She is an intellectual and spiritual genius." Mrs. Eddy's earthly experience covered a period of nearly ninety years. The first forty-five years seemed to be weighted down with hardships, struggles, and disappointments to which one with less of the spirit of Christ might easily have succumbed. Mrs. Eddy, however, grew stronger through these hardships and rose to greater and greater spiritual heights. The second forty-five years bore abundant fruit of the toil and sowing and planting, and gave full evidence of the true nature of her leadership.

We may believe we have trials and struggles, and very often we may be tempted to yield to self-pity and discouragement, but our Leader's career reveals that these are the experiences wherein we are tried and purified, and that we too, as she did, must stand firm in our understanding of God and His unvarying law of good, until the mists of error roll away. Thus, following her leadership, we shall profit by the trying experience and gain another step Spiritward.

All that her life was intended by divine Love to give us, all that we could hope to gain from that life and its leadership, is abundantly ours today and is made manifest to the extent that we understand her inspired writings and apply her teachings. Are we really doing this? Are we really accepting, implicitly obeying, our Leader as we understand her through her writings? For instance, do we seek to gain freedom from material pain through her teachings and at the same time ignore what she has so plainly said about material pleasure, namely, that it should not be indulged if it hinders the activities of virtue?

If we are to accept the leadership of Mary Baker Eddy's writings at all, we must accept them in their entirety. We cannot make mental reservations as to what we shall accept. We must follow our Leader implicitly, completely, or we cannot truly say that she is our Leader and claim the blessings which flow from accepting her as such.

Are we giving up all for Truth? Today we are not asked, as in other years, to leave our homes and go into other towns and cities to teach and heal. That work has already been established for us by Mrs. Eddy and her early loyal students, but that does not relieve us of today's obligations in following our Leader. We have important work to do. We must give up merely material desires, examine our thought, and determine whether these desires are giving place to spiritual desire. That is the only way we can truly give up anything.

Do we sometimes murmur over the demands made upon us, feel that we are being deprived of time that could be pleasurably spent on worldly pursuits? Let us then stop and compare our giving with that of the early students, who literally left all to follow their Leader. Giving up all means that a material sense of self must be progressively overcome, thought must be spiritualized and the love of the Cause and the desire to serve mankind become uppermost. We are in the great work of dedicating ourselves to God. In this work, are we giving as our Leader taught us to give, giving of thought, of time, of service, of our very lives? Herein we shall find much to give, and we shall find the goal we seek—better healings, true consecration. Are we following our Leader, for instance, in obedient individual support of her daily newspaper, The Christian Science Monitor, and of all the activities of The Mother Church?

Mrs. Eddy gives us in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" the following rule for progressing most rapidly in Christian Science (p. 495): "Study thoroughly the letter and imbibe the spirit. Adhere to the divine Principle of Christian Science and follow the behests of God, abiding steadfastly in wisdom, Truth, and Love." We cannot do this except on a constantly ascending scale. All of Mrs. Eddy's requirements of her followers can be summed up as emphasis upon the necessity for meeting daily the demands of Christian Science and bringing forth better and better proofs, rather than assertions, of Christian power. It is impossible for us to know the refreshment and strength and spiritual conviction to be attained from a rereading of the authorized biographies and other commentaries on our Leader's life, until we actually do it. By so doing, we may see her and her divinely guided mission in the light of our present growth, and we may discover that the contents of these books are to us almost as if they were new. And we cannot keep too close to Mrs. Eddy's own writings, for each day we find in them the truth of the Scriptural statement (Rev. 21:5), "Behold, I make all things new."

These words of our Leader's from "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 136) are just as true today as when they were written in the year 1891: "I am still with you on the field of battle, taking forward marches, broader and higher views, and with the hope that you will follow. ... All our thoughts should be given to the absolute demonstration of Christian Science."

Shall we not, in truly following the leadership of Mrs. Eddy, do as the writer of the Proverbs has admonished (31:31): "Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates."