Progress is the result of persistent effort toward an honest achievement, the natural effect of earnest, intelligent endeavor. In human affairs, however, progress is often only temporary, since it seems to come and go as a changing pattern of mortal mind, as vacillating good, which may disappear at any time. This fluctuation is characteristic of mortality because it swings like a pendulum between harmony and inharmony, abundance and lack, health and sickness, peace and war, life and death.

In Christian Science we learn that true progress is without fluctuation, ever ascending through the law of God. Mary Baker Eddy states in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 258), "God expresses in man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis."

To human sense, progress and good are capricious. To spiritual sense, progress is the result of the steadfast unfoldment of the law of good. Material progress may suffer reversal. In spiritual progress, there is no backward step. Mrs. Eddy assures us (ibid., p. 74), "In Christian Science there is never a retrograde step, never a return to positions outgrown."

Progress is protected from fluctuation by its source, divine, unchanging Principle. Whatever good is demonstrated through Love is governed by omnipotent law and cannot undergo ups and downs. James wrote (1:17), "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."

An influence which tends to interrupt advance in the affairs of men and nations is the belief that good and progress are the results of material cause and effect. If we are to gain dominion over this belief, our understanding of the cause or source of all good must undergo a change of base from matter to Spirit, God.

Mrs. Eddy says (Science and Health, p. 170), "Spiritual causation is the one question to be considered, for more than all others spiritual causation relates to human progress." This statement may seem remote to human experience, but an understanding of real causation reveals the way to experience more of good. If matter caused good, matter could also take it away. Thus matter would usurp the place of God as the Giver of good: a violation of the First Commandment.

Matter neither contributes to nor is it the substance of progress or good. It is only the externalized state of what is believed or accepted about circumstances. Thus dominion over material fluctuations and caprice will be experienced as consciousness is uplifted to an understanding of Spirit as the only cause and substance.

All true progress brings the enlargement of Spirit's qualities in one's experience. These qualities, which are infinite, include love, intelligence, humility, steadfastness, holiness, vitality, and inspiration. Man, as God's perfect image and likeness, possesses these qualities in boundless degree.

The utilization of these qualities by humanity must result in progress in each facet of human existence. As more intelligence, wisdom, vitality, and inspiration are expressed, the human sense of business will manifest greater abundance and advancement; as steadfastness to Truth is expressed, more harmony and health will be manifested; as genuine humility and love pervade the negotiations of nations, their relationships will become more peaceful.

Since God is All and all good, all true progress must be advancement toward a perfect concept of Him and of man as His complete and perfect image and likeness. As each individual learns through Christian Science to base his aspirations and desires upon this perfect concept, he will find human progress manifested as unfluctuating health, harmony, and supply.

The writer recently was working to establish a business in which he would have a part ownership. Progress toward this end seemed to be thwarted at every turn by "tight money," reluctant investors, and procrastination. Each of these errors was steadfastly denied with a realization that God is the only causation, that money, men, and matter do not govern true business, but that business is spiritual, God-created, God-governed, God-directed, and God-protected.

There was need for patience, for the persistent, continual expectation of good. Aggressive suggestions of delay and discouragement were handled, and a better understanding of God's coincident supply and demand was gained.

Then one day the writer learned of a man who was vitally interested in exactly the type of business in view. Investigation revealed adequate finances and generous agreement on proportionate ownerships. Moreover, the relationship answered a twofold need, first for the writer and secondly for the investor as a necessary adjunct to his previous enterprise.

As the writer was driving to consummate the final details, he found his car engulfed in fog. He immediately declared God's allness and knew that in His kingdom there is no mist or mystification, no befogged concept. Moreover, he knew that true progress cannot be slowed, obstructed, or reversed.

The fog rapidly thinned to nothing and disappeared for the remainder of the trip. The business was established with dispatch. Most important, however, the writer had experienced true progress by expressing God's qualities.

When progress is based upon matter, it is like the house in Jesus' parable which fell because it was built upon the sand, upon an unstable foundation. When progress is established upon the spiritual rock of Christ, Truth, it will be constant and unshakable. In the words of the Master (Matt. 7:24, 25), "I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock."

As one demonstrates the boundless implications of these truths, he will manifest steady progress. His forward steps will be unfluctuating, and his advancement will be above the effects of the surge and resurge of matter.