In many fields of thinking and living, men are pushing onward, outward, upward. They are breaking through barriers of time, space, and distance. They are putting aside yesterday's most cherished beliefs in matter. They are wiping out long-accepted limitations of mortal mind. They have broken through the sound barrier; they are planning the conquest of outer space; and they are even working on ways to improve the weather.

More than half a century ago, Mary Baker Eddy foresaw and set forth the spiritual significance of this era of expansive thinking and living. Before the Wright brothers made their first flight, even before the first wireless message across the Atlantic, Mrs. Eddy wrote (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 110), "Hidden electrical forces annihilating time and space, wireless telegraphy, navigation of the air; in fact, all the et cetera of mortal mindpressing to the front, remind me of my early dreams of flying in airy space, buoyant with liberty and the luxury of thought let loose, rising higher and forever higher in the boundless blue."

And in the same paragraph our Leader says: "The night thought should show us that even mortals can mount higher in the altitude of being. Mounting higher, mortals will cease to be mortal. Christ will have 'led captivity captive,' and immortality will have been brought to light."

Progress in human invention, faster travel, improved living, better ways of doing things—all are evidence that men are being set free from the limitations of material thinking. Mounting higher in the scale of being, men are freeing themselves from ignorance, hunger, drudgery, and limitations of every sort.

The student of Christian Science sees this as a normal, natural, in-evitable result of more expansive thinking, a wider understanding of God's power and God's presence in the lives of men. Today's better things for better living are but a hint and foretaste of the real man's infinite capacity for good. They are the present-day evidence of the "luxury of thought let loose."

Spiritual man, God's man, reflects and expresses infinite Mind, omnipotent Principle, in inspired thought, in limitless ability, in boundless abundance. The mortal dream will cease in proportion to the advancement of mankind in the scale of being. This advancement, this mounting higher, this outward and upward progress, comes through the understanding and the proving in daily living of God's allness and omnipotence and of man's infinite completeness as God's expression.

All the expansiveness of present-day thinking and living is only a mere beginning of the fulfillment of this prophetic statement by Mrs. Eddy in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 90): "Divest yourself of the thought that there can be substance in matter, and the movements and transitions now possible for mortal mind will be found to be equally possible for the body." And continuing on the same page our Leader says, "The admission to one's self that man is God's own likeness sets man free to master the infinite idea."

Christ Jesus said (John 8:32), "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." For more than nineteen centuries men have known of these simple words of the Master. But they have not understood them in their great import and depth of meaning. They have not known how to prove them in daily living. They have not realized that to know the truth is to know God's allness and omnipotence, to know man as God's own likeness, to set one's thinking "free to master the infinite idea," as our Leader says.

To know the truth is only half of Jesus' great prophetic statement, which is so applicable to the expansive thinking and living of this age. Men must prove the truth. They must make practical the second half of the statement, which reads, "and the truth shall make you free." Free from what? Free from all limitations of matter and mortal belief. Free from dependence on any power apart from God. Free from all trust in matter's counterfeit laws of limitation, confusion, lack, sin, sickness, and death.

Such God-bestowed freedom is available to the housewife, who can prove it for herself by lifting her thought above the burdens of workaday tasks. Such God-given dominion is right at hand for the weary invalid, the frustrated, the jobless, the grief-stricken, the lonely heart, the hardened criminal, to turn to and prove. Such God-inspired mastery of the infinite idea is available for the business executive in overcoming of tax, labor, or sales problems.

Such freedom is not for acceptance and proof in some far-off future. It is for seeing and proving right here and now, this very moment. Mastery of the infinite idea is not for some distant, divine tomorrow. It is for understanding and demonstrating every moment of every day.

Here is an example of how a business executive and his wife worked out harmony on a trip around the world. They had to plan a very close schedule of air travel and to arrange far in advance numerous meetings, conferences, and appointments. Their trip was to take them into parts of the world where both plane schedules and weather conditions were uncertain and where a single interrupted flight might disrupt the entire itinerary.

At first there were all the usual mortal mind arguments. Was such a flight schedule practical? With fifteen different airlines involved, and with thirty different plane connections necessary, were there too many uncertainties? With many all-night flights followed by all-day appointments and meetings, would such a trip be too rigorous?

As plans for the trip progressed, all these arguments and many more melted away through prayerful work with Mrs. Eddy's words quoted from page 90 of Science and Health. These students of Christian Science saw the journey as an opportunity to prove to the utmost that the real man as God's own likeness is "free to master the infinite idea."

From the very start of the trip these students also worked with a constantly expanding realization of the meaning of Mrs. Eddy's words about "the luxury of thought let loose." In overnight flights they witnessed changes of season from winter to summer, and from summer to winter. Although there were several instances when weather conditions and mechanical mishaps threatened delays, these two Christian Scientists realized the fact of God's power to enable them to master the infinite idea and to go onward and upward in the scale of being.

All meetings and conferences were on schedule, and all appointments were met. There was ample opportunity for rest and spiritual refreshment in all-night and all-day flights. Right from the start, each leg of the trip appeared as a normal, natural unfoldment of an orderly plan that had been worked out to the most minute detail through scientific demonstration. Also a cause for gratitude was the sense of good health and well-being enjoyed on the entire trip.

For students of Christian Science an experience such as the foregoing is a simple, normal way of proving through their religion spiritual dominion over the limiting suggestions of mortal mind. The Psalmist said of man (Ps. 8:6), "Thou [God] madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet."