After looking for his cat for some time and finding it in a very unusual place, the English poet William Cowper recorded the incident in verse and remarked:

The poet's experience is a common one in the everyday affairs of mankind. Even the most methodical person occasionally mislays something; while children and pets elude the most vigilant of guardians and seek improbable nooks, causing anxiety during their absence. Such happenings, however, can be happily adjusted by recourse to God and His spiritual law, in which all being is intact and always in order.

The thought of past losses or fear of present or future losses plagues mortals, who consider themselves owners of possessions which they regard as subject to diminution or sudden disappearance.

Students of Christian Science have learned to turn to God for guidance instead of frantically rushing around to locate what is missing. They have accepted the truth that the real man is a spiritual expression of divine Mind, inseparable from his Maker, and that therefore all that he possesses, including his being, inheres in God and so is not at the disposal of material sense.

After commending the practice of approaching God in prayer, Mary Baker Eddy writes in her Message to The Mother Church for 1901 (p. 19), "I love this doctrine, for I know that prayer brings the seeker into closer proximity with divine Love, and thus he finds what he seeks, the power of God to heal and to save."

How quickly and easily a solution is found when the seeker relies wholly upon Spirit, God, to point the way! Such a seeker has been lifted above human thought-taking and its harassing effects and can testify to God's more excellent mode of unfoldment. Outstanding among the many forceful utterances of Christ Jesus is this positive assertion (Matt. 6:33): "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."

The writer left home early one morning and was able to study only a small part of the weekly Bible Lesson from the Christian Science Quarterly. On returning in the evening she looked forward to completing her reading.

Suddenly, however, she recalled having received that morning an official form, which had to be filled out and sent back by return post. But she realized that she had not the least idea where it was. She envisaged a whole evening's search. Then a spiritual intuition came: to acquaint herself first with God, which she prepared to do.

Material sense interposed with the specious argument: "You will never be able to concentrate on your study. First find the form, and then your thought will be free." Quickly the writer brushed aside the voice of error and sought spiritual direction. She will never forget the joy and gratitude which she felt when on opening "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy she found between the pages the official form.

The leading of divine Mind which she had received was a convincing illustration of the effectiveness of seeking God's help. She had witnessed God's superior wisdom in action and was relieved of what might have been a long search. God's power can be demonstrated every moment and in every vicissitude, and each proof of Love's presence in our midst enlarges our faith and understanding.

When one humbly acknowledges God as all-power and all-presence and man as His spiritual reflection, he will find Truth revealing his true selfhood as a son of God, forever furnished with all that is requisite for his welfare. Moses counseled the children of Israel (Deut. 4:29), "If from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul."

Both the Scriptures and Mrs. Eddy's teachings emphasize the necessity of searching persistently for a spiritual understanding of God and never yielding to discouragement. Do we sometimes, as the poet said, seek "in every cranny but the right"? By looking for reality in matter, we prolong the task, for matter, being itself but an objectification of material thinking, a mortal illusion, is destitute of intelligence or substance.

Mrs. Eddy states in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 188), "When it is learned that spiritual sense and not the material senses convey all impressions to man, man will naturally seek the Science of his spiritual nature, and finding it, be God-endowed for discipleship."

Let us fix our thoughts on the bringing to light of the Christ-idea, which the real man has always expressed and which is forever in the safekeeping of the Father. What a noble pursuit lies before us! Unlike the poet in his dilemma and his human concept of seeking, let us rejoice that we are not groping indecisively. We know where to place our trust and are well aware that nothing which God gives can ever slip from our grasp, but is retained as an eternal possession.

The following lines from a poem by Mrs. Eddy endorse her often repeated theme of God's nearness and allness (Poems, p. 4):

In these lines is no note of uncertainty. Instead, a calm confidence imparts consolation and courage to the troubled heart and an assurance of God's ever-presence.