One of the common foes of mankind is the fear of failure. Defeat and failure, however, are words unknown in the language of Spirit, God, for Spirit, Love, can report only victory and triumph. One must learn to think and reason from a spiritual basis in order to understand "the secret of victory" and bring out its harmonious results.

Failure has sometimes been accepted as inevitable because mankind have generally regarded themselves as mortals, partaking of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of both good and evil, subject to its limitations and disillusionment.

Spiritual sense recognizes man as the image and likeness of God, as immortal, dwelling in the eternal sunlight of Spirit and enjoying his divine heritage of dominion.

These two opposing viewpoints, which Christian Science terms the unreal and the real, require us to choose the one with which we shall identify ourselves. Christ Jesus warned his disciples (Matt. 6:24), "Ye cannot serve God and mammon." "Know thyself" has been a teaching of moral significance through centuries of civilization, and Christian Science opens the way whereby mankind can truly know themselves, or identify themselves, as the children and heirs of God, divine Principle.

To attempt to rearrange matter or to reshape human events in order to turn seeming defeat into victory is the temporal and oftentimes futile way of mortals, and it does not eliminate the fear or root of the trouble. When one's viewpoint shifts from the unreal to the real, one understands that success is not dependent on material conditions but on an awakened realization of man's inseparability from God.

"The very circumstance, which your suffering sense deems wrathful and afflictive, Love can make an angel entertained unawares," we are told in Science and Health (p. 574). And Paul said (Am. Stand. Ver., I Cor. 13: 8), "Love never faileth." Since defeat is unknown to God, how could it possibly be real to His manifestation? To side with God is to win.

The Scriptural rule (Eccl. 3: 15), "God requireth that which is past," can be used as a steppingstone to the greater opportunity which lies ahead. To use this steppingstone is not to take an attitude of fatalism or of passive acceptance of come-what-may or to let nature take its course. It is, rather, to let God, divine Mind, Life, Love, have His way it is to let His will be done and to know that His will can never result in disaster.

A young advertising salesman was one of several in his company under consideration for promotion. When the decision was made, another was chosen, and the young man became engulfed in bitter disappointment. Discussing the situation with a Christian Science practitioner, he was asked. "Was the winner worthy of selection?"

"Oh, yes, he was an excellent choice," he averred.

"Well, then, certainly Principle has not ceased operating, has it?"

The practitioner helped the young man to see that good is illimitable; it does not deprive one in order to bless another. To be thrust prematurely into a situation for which one has not been sufficiently prepared could spell a far worse sense of failure.

Jesus himself had to prove his readiness for his great mission. He bided his time, strengthening himself spiritually for the tremendous work ahead. "My time is not yet come," he remarked on one occasion (John 7). When one advances at God's command, success is always assured.

The young salesman was encouraged to watch and pray and to go forward, expectant of unfolding good. He took up his work with renewed zeal. Within a short time his sales had far exceeded those of the others in his company. He was recognized for his achievement, entrusted with increased responsibility, and his progress has been steady and continuous.

Julia Michael Johnston, in her book "Mary Baker Eddy: Her Mission and Triumph" (p. 75), speaks of the widening horizon at the end of each lane of seeming defeat with which our Leader was faced as she worked for the progress of the Christian Science movement. Her far-reaching vision and her willingness to wait for God to direct enabled her to lead the Cause safely through its many periods of test and trial to the consummation of its final plan of successful operation, from seeming disaster to ultimate victory.

In his desire to gravitate Godward, the faithful Christian Scientist will challenge each claim of failure, meeting it with the truth of his identity, forever inseparable from God's unfailing dominion. Then he will press on, conscious of the uninterrupted unfolding good of the divine plan, in which all individuality is included. He will learn the truth of what Mrs. Eddy says (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 339), "Experience is victor, never the vanquished; and out of defeat comes the secret of victory."