God is the divine Principle of our being. We cannot deviate from Principle and be true. To be true means never to compromise with error, which is but a contradiction of truth, a reversal of good, a belief in falsity. Error must be coped with, not as a real power, but as a belief that there is a power other than God, a belief so entrenched in the world as to appear to be law.

One way of combating this belief is to be true to our own God-given selfhood. This will help us also to see the true selfhood of everyone else. Well may we heed the advice of Polonius to his son in Shakespeare's "Hamlet":

What is this self to which we must be true before we can be true to others? Is it not our real self, free from willful, mortal thinking? A step forward has been taken when one is ready to exchange the basis of thought from a material to a spiritual concept of persons and things. We must understand that the whole of existence is spiritual. This spiritualization of thought should not be spasmodic, but should grow steadily until we are enabled to apply the truth instantly to any situation, no matter how severe. A problem arises if one cannot meet some sudden jolt with equanimity based upon a recognition of one's true selfhood derived from God.

A Christian Scientist was once greatly disturbed over what she thought was unjust criticism from two friends, one especially near and dear to her. With years of study she had acquired a sense of satisfaction that she was doing very well in Science. Yet here were two who knew her intimately assailing her for lack of spirituality and failure to live up to the high standard she professed. At first the heartache and disappointment were overwhelming. She began to enumerate faults manifested by these two, which seemed greater than the ones they were attributing to her. But such criticism was not lifting her or anyone else out of error.

The student began to question herself, and searching through the well-loved books of Mary Baker Eddy, she found the article called "Taking Offense" in "Miscellaneous Writings." The following passage on page 224 arrested her attention: "It is our pride that makes another's criticism rankle, our self-will that makes another's deed offensive, our egotism that feels hurt by another's self-assertion. Well may we feel wounded by our own faults; but we can hardly afford to be miserable for the faults of others."

This was a healing message. She began to banish self-pity and self-justification from her thought. She could see that mortal faults are no part of man, since he is immortal, and that to watch her own thought and live according to Principle was the only thing necessary. "Who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?" asked the Apostle Paul of the Galatians (5:7). Harmony can be restored, as it was in the case of this Scientist, if one destroys the latent error uncovered in his own consciousness rather than magnifies it as it appears in that of others.

If we would have true friends, true companions in the home, true associates in church or business, we must be true to ourselves. It is mesmerism that would impel us to discuss mortal faults with anyone, thus seeing and circulating as true something which God never created. A mental image of a faulty person is not the image of God.

Sometimes the heart needs to be stirred to the depths before it is ready to see and is willing to forsake its own mistakes. In her Message to The Mother Church for 1900 Mrs. Eddy compares those gathered together to guests at a Passover feast. Then she says (p. 15), "The Passover, spiritually discerned, is a wonderful passage over a tear-filled sea of repentance—which of all human experience is the most divine; and after this Passover cometh victory, faith, and good works."

This victory over self comes not without effort. The tears must not be of self-pity or mere longing, but truly of repentance followed by reform. We need to express the love and good we long for. To say, "I want to be good," or, "I try to do right," and then to question God as to why more good does not come to us is not taking a stand for truth, which leads to victory over error.

Each of us has a trust to keep with God. If we are faithful and true to this trust, we shall strive daily to purify our thinking until it becomes natural and easy to reflect spiritual qualities such as loyalty, honesty, courage, gentleness, tolerance, and mercy. Then we can reverse error with truth, renounce sin without self-righteousness, and forgive mistakes without the slightest lingering of ill will. An erring brother needs our fidelity, not our enmity.

Hymn No. 237 in the Christian Science Hymnal tells of the seeking for God "far from sense and hid in Soul." The hymn concludes with the promise,

May this image be so deeply impressed upon the precious metal of our thought that it cannot be effaced or hidden behind a mask of personal sense. Then it will be reflected in every face we see, on the street, in the home, everywhere. Thus we shall be true to God and man.

If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.—I John 4:20, 21.