At this time of year many young men and women are graduating from schools and colleges, starting upon careers for which they have been preparing through years of study. Graduation indicates not so much the end of the acquisition of knowledge as the beginning of independent progress in demonstrating what has been learned. And according to Christian Science, progress never ends, because the unfoldment of good is infinite. Mary Baker Eddy says in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 82): "Man is the offspring and idea of the Supreme Being, whose law is perfect and infinite. In obedience to this law, man is forever unfolding the endless beatitudes of Being; for he is the image and likeness of infinite Life, Truth, and Love."

In these words of our Leader's we have the scientific basis for demonstrating God's law of progress in a practical way. Opportunities for spiritual progress are endless, because opportunities for expressing good are endless. And when one associates progress strictly with the opportunity to express the nature of God, he will go forward in useful service to mankind without interruption.

If the young graduate should feel at a loss, not knowing how to adjust himself to the world after leaving the classroom, he can turn to God's law of progress to find a solution for his problem. He can refuse to entertain a bleak mortal mood regarding his future and can identify himself joyfully as "the offspring and idea of the Supreme Being." In this way he will prove the perpetual unfoldment of good in everything he undertakes.

Sometimes the graduate, eager to become self-supporting after years of dependence upon parents for his supply, is tempted to think of his chosen occupation as merely a means of subsistence. His concern is to get on with prosperity and material success. But Christian Science halts this concern and points to the fact that work itself is of the very substance of one's being. Activity of the right sort is one's spiritual meat and drink, one's life and strength, the evidence of one's immortality. It is through his activity that the graduate will prove his inseparability from his divine Principle, Mind, which is omniaction.

One demonstrates intelligence, integrity, ability, love, wisdom, as he goes about his vocation. And because these mental elements originate in God, they are endless in unfoldment.

The young worker needs more than anything else to establish his understanding of man's unity with God. Christ Jesus set the example for this necessity by always identifying his accomplishments with God. And this gave him dominion in the tasks which confronted him. He said (John 5:9) "The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise."

Here was a declaration of man's unity with God as His reflection. The Master's knowledge of his relationship with his source made the outline of his work appear to him clear-cut, unmistakable. He understood his spiritual self, the Christ, to be Mind's impartation, its emanation; and he let his experience unfold the purpose of Principle. His goal was not material, but spiritual. His motive in life was to unveil man's real existence in Spirit so unmistakably that all men would be able to follow him. Through his life they would learn how to express the divine nature, to demonstrate the Father's will for good, and to rise eventually above the material sense of life into the realization of their immortal life in Spirit.

Never should we think of progress in terms of matter. When we prosper through spiritual progress, we should recognize this prosperity as the effect of our turning away from limited matter to unlimited Spirit and as the result of our cherishing the spiritual rather than the material. The Christian Scientist is seeking not more or better matter, but less materiality.

Mrs. Eddy says (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 181): "Progress is spiritual. Progress is the maturing conception of divine Love; it demonstrates the scientific, sinless life of man and mortal's painless departure from matter to Spirit, not through death, but through the true idea of Life,—and Life not in matter but in Mind."

As the graduate who is a Christian Scientist sets out on the path of individual and independent progress, he will realize increasingly that his advancement is an inward awakening to the heaven which is within the real man. He will be translating his world from matter into Spirit. He will be exchanging human concepts and ideals for divine ones. He will never be alone, even though his work is individual, for the Father will always be with him, always unfolding new aspects of life and usefulness to his listening thought. Christ Jesus said of his own work (John 8:29), "He that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him."

The outlook for the graduate who seeks only to please the Father is heartening. The vista of his spiritual unfoldment is endless and challenging. The world needs his contribution to its welfare, and his abilities are in the Father's hands. His progress will always be in the measure of his recognition of God's support of his unselfed endeavor to do Love's will. Continuing in the line of this knowledge, he will assuredly reach the full satisfaction of the life which is obedient to God.

Helen Wood Bauman