Article March 20, 1954 Issue

STEPS THAT LEAD TO LIBERATION

LINDEN E. JONES

The right step to take? To most people this question is oftentimes of great importance. The unprogressive life is one which runs around in small circles of gossip, idleness, or amusement. Indicating goodness to be the means by which one is enabled to advance spiritually, the Bible declares (Ps. 37: 23), "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth in his way."

In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" our beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, writes (pp. 253, 254), "The divine demand, 'Be ye therefore perfect,' is scientific, and the human footsteps leading to perfection are indispensable." Thus in Christian Science, instead of our being misled into the bondage which comes from accepting material evidences as true, or from entertaining a sense of personal goodness, the reverse is the case. For, in this Science, thought is rightly directed towards acceptance and demonstration of the Christ-idea of divine sonship, even the perfection of man in God's image. In human experience such perfection is attained not by bounding in one moment from the mortal to the immortal, but by thought progressively giving place to the understanding of man's wholly spiritual status as the reflection of Spirit, God. Thus in Christian Science, steps leading to liberation from the material body call for the abandonment of the false sense of material existence. Thought is turned in a new direction—towards the recognition of evil as unreal, matter as nought, and Spirit, God, as All-in-all.

In this line of spiritual advancement no departure from normal living is required. On the contrary, orderly progress is the divine demand. To those who have entered this path of Life, there can be no standing in a mental rut of inaction and delay. They have heard Truth's call to leave behind old standards of conduct and physical concepts of existence. The fresh standpoint, looking away from the body and the things of the world, is to seek and find health, happiness, freedom—all that is good—at its source, in Soul.

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