Is there anyone who would not be willing, even eager, to start each day without the weighty problems which seem to accumulate, without the stress of false personal responsibility, and without a sense of burden? Freedom from burdensome care should and can be ours continually, for the Bible promises and the writings of our revered Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, assure us that this freedom is possible here and now.

Error, material thinking, would reverse this harmonious condition and rob us of our peace. So in our daily defensive and protective work we must vigorously deny the error of any power apart from God and steadfastly realize His all-power and all-presence and the perfection of man as His likeness.

Mrs. Eddy declares in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 328): "Whatever obstructs the way,— causing to stumble, fall, or faint, those mortals who are striving to enter the path,—divine Love will remove; and uplift the fallen and strengthen the weak. Therefore, give up thy earth-weights." This counsel, "Give up thy earth-weights," is exactly what an understanding of Christian Science enables us to do.

This Science affirms that the first chapter of Genesis contains a record of the real and only creation, the spiritual creation, in which "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." Following this record, a false record of creation begins with the statement (Gen. 2:6), "But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground." A mist does not actually change anything. It merely distorts or obscures temporarily.

The man of dust obviously could not be given Life; he could only be given the counterfeit of Life—a substitute, fleeting, and unpredictable sense of creation. This false creation is seen to be burdensome, frustrating, and fraught with earth weights.

The material sense of mankind is personified in a sculptured group in the library of the writer's childhood home. This piece of sculpture was entitled "Earth-weights" and showed a group of people toiling under the weight of a great stone. The remarkable part was that bands about their bodies were all that held the great stone that was crushing them. Therefore, to free themselves of the stone, they needed only to straighten up.

A man who had seen the wonderful healing of a relative through Christian Science treatment was greatly impressed and went to a Christian Science practitioner for help in a business problem. The man had seen the physical benefits which an understanding of Christian Science had brought about, but he found it hard to accept the assurances that a sick business can be healed as readily as a sick body.

As he rehearsed a long list of injustices, unkind acts, and mean traits, he was shown that he was blaming his father for his misfortune and that conditions would change when he changed his concept of his father.

"That is impossible," he said. "My father, whom I had loved and respected, has for years been very hard and unprincipled in his dealings with me. He has a flourishing business in my line of work in a nearby town, but he won't help me by giving me some used machinery which he has in his warehouse."

The practitioner told him that God was really his only Father, loving, kind, and understanding, ever ready to help him. His work was to see his human father as he actually was, the spiritual idea of God, and to know that unscrupulousness is something entirely apart from the real man of God's creating.

The practitioner told him not to look to any person or material source for supply but to God, infinite Love, alone, and to loose his father in his thought so that he would not be robbed of joy. As Christ Jesus said (John 16:22), "Your joy no man taketh from you."

Reasoning that his former kind of thinking had not produced any good results, the man decided to listen to and follow the practitioner's advice. The results were almost immediate. His father began to manifest love and helpfulness. He supplied the needed machinery with no expense to the son, and one kindness followed another. He began respecting Christian Science and became a loving parent.

In Proverbs we read (12:25), "Heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop." It is the heaviness of the material thinking of the world that weighs mortals down. But we are told in Job (22:29), "There is lifting up."

With no weight of condemnation, regret, fear, or self-pity, man is joyously free to go on his way. Mrs. Eddy tells us in "No and Yes" (p. 38), "In proportion as mortals approximate the understanding of Christian Science, they take hold of harmony, and material incumbrance disappears."

The working out of a problem is not dependent on any person, place, or thing but on our clear understanding of God, our Father-Mother, who is ever present. God is not a greater power; He is not even the greatest power. God is the only power. The whole work of dropping earth weights is a joyous and rewarding experience. Each one can sing, in the words of Hymn No. 402 in the Christian Science Hymnal,

O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days... Let thy Work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.—Psalm 90:14, 16, 17.