Since Jesus' day, the phrase "the salt of the earth" (Matt. 5: 13) has been used to designate "the sprinkling of people who preserve and give tone to the rest," as one dictionary puts it.

Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health (p. 367), "A Christian Scientist occupies the place at this period of which Jesus spoke to his disciples, when he said: 'Ye are the salt of the earth.' 'Ye are the light of the world.'"

One of the functions of salt is to add flavor to food; in other words, to bring out qualities which are already present, though unnoticed until the salt heightens them. As Christian Scientists, are we having this effect upon those we meet? Can friends and acquaintances say of us: "He brings out the best in me. I am at my best when I am with him"?

In consonance with the law of infinite, ever-present Love, it is our privilege to affect others beneficially wherever we are, whatever we are about. In fact, it is our duty to demonstrate daily not only man's perfect, individual expression of God, but also his loving, harmonious relationship to God's other expressions.

Not by the exertion of will is this done, nor by any attempt to dominate or influence by mere force of personality. The sunbeam affects the earth by embodying the sun's light and heat, not by exerting any force of its own. Nothing could be less divine than the mortal who believes himself better than his brother and tries to influence him humanly.

To influence another in this fashion is to attempt to change the way he would act and bring his conduct into accord with some concept of one's own. Every individual has his own way of expressing God's qualities, and no one has the right to interfere with his doing so.

However, the Christian Scientist would be in error if he sought to work out life's problems in an ivory tower of solitude while he let his world go unheeded upon its way. Jesus once said, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me" (John 12:32). Men will seek our company for the Christly qualities we express: the compassion for repented sin, the instant rejection and destruction of disease, which the spiritualized thought accomplishes, the overspreading love which knows man to be his heavenly Father's likeness and finds him thus.

No one can be either a Christian or a Christian Scientist to himself alone or for his own salvation alone. Individual man has another function besides that of being individual: the function of being harmoniously at one with God Himself, at one with all good, at one with other ideas of God. In addition to being a perfect, individual idea of God, he also expresses universal harmony, the perfect relationship of idea to idea and of each to its source, divine Mind. In human affairs this divine relationship, this changeless harmony, finds expression in the Church of Christ, Scientist.

We go to church not to be alone, not to enjoy the service in mental solitude, but to worship in unison with others, to enjoy and practice our harmonious relationship to our fellow men. If, therefore, we find ourselves critical of the church service or the other worshipers, we are not fulfilling our duty as church members.

But one may ask: "What if we know that some of the people in church are wrongdoers, violating our high sense of ethics and morals? Are we to try to feel at one with them? Are we to receive such individuals into our loving consciousness of being?"

The answer is in Science and Health where on page 259 Mrs. Eddy tells us, "The divine nature was best expressed in Christ Jesus, who threw upon mortals the truer reflection of God and lifted their lives higher than their poor thought-models would allow,— thoughts which presented man as fallen, sick, sinning, and dying." As the master Christian did, so must we do. Indeed, that is one of the chief reasons why we are in church—to throw upon those who are there with us "the truer reflection of God."

Every individual attending the service or taking part in it is in reality God's perfect man, though imperfectly seen. The imperfection is in the view, not in the individual. The light in which we regard ourselves and others is often faulty. The real man, created by God, is never faulty.

How wasteful to spend time and thought in criticizing the imperfection of the view, when we could be loving and magnifying the perfection that is there all the time! So doing, we shall be fulfilling our function as "the salt of the earth." In church we mentally join hands to preserve one another's sense of Soul, to give heightened tone and flavor to one another's thinking. In this way, each blesses all the rest; and thus the whole congregation, having come to church for the collective worship of God in divine Science, can go away from the service strengthened, supported, and to a degree spiritualized.

We must not isolate ourselves from our earth if we would be truly "the salt of the earth." We must take heed of its errors sufficiently to see their nothingness. Our reflection of God will help to lift other lives higher than mortal thought has hitherto permitted.

Even outside the church services, we can bring out flavor and character in others through Christlike gentleness, equanimity, and patience in the daily round of events. These qualities, when genuine and based on the inner conviction that we, and all men, are really at one with the Father as His expressions, will indeed bring out the best in others. For these are qualities that put men at ease, set the timid one free from his timidity, give the inarticulate tongue the courage to utter truth. With tender persuasion they lead the falsely self-conscious one into the graceful behavior that is natively his.

Instead of critical impatience and scorn, the radiant appreciation of eternal Mind and its divine ever-active qualities should fill thought all day, every day, to the utmost of our ability. Then we shall see these qualities objectified in ourselves and in others. As our Leader urges us (ibid., p. 367), "Let us watch, work, and pray that this salt lose not its saltness, and that this light be not hid, but radiate and glow into noontide glory."