"For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ," wrote Paul (Gal. 1:10). Humanly, it seems impossible for one to please his Maker, especially if one believes that the creator is the source and sender of all the ills and distresses of mankind. Christian Science corrects this mistake about God by revealing Him as Spirit, Mind, Love, ever loving and ever imparting all good to His children.

In the understanding of this Science, one learns that pleasing God is important. One also learns that faith is a necessary element in pleasing God. Christian Science explains that faith is not mere human belief. It is a transitional state of thought which becomes spiritual understanding as false human concepts and beliefs are dissolved. This spiritual understanding includes the perception that our heavenly Father created man spiritual, in His image and likeness, in the image of Spirit, Mind, Love.

The physical man is not this image. Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health (pp. 476, 477): "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw Gods own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick." This teaching of perfect God and perfect man is basic to Christian Science.

Christ Jesus is the outstanding example of one who pleased God. Speaking of the Master in "Rudimental Divine Science," Mrs. Eddy declares (p. 3), "His example is, to Christian Scientists, what the models of the masters in music and painting are to artists." All that he said and did, his many healings and remarkable demonstrations of the power of Truth over sin, disease, death, fear, matter, was to glorify his Father. So his followers must be found expressing all the qualities imparted by Mind in the minutiae of daily living, qualities such as love, wisdom, discernment, gentleness, purity, integrity, resourcefulness, and so on.

Overcoming all phases of discord is conforming to God's law —pleasing Him. To conform to God's law, to do His will, is to obey Him at all times. Often the temptation to please person instead of Principle, divine Love, controls one's actions. Paul's counsel to the Ephesians, if followed, would protect us from this temptation. He said (6: 5—7): "Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; with good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men."

At times of elections in branch churches, it is well to ask oneself, "Am I pleasing Principle or am I pleasing personality?" It is of great importance, if one is to make wise decisions, to understand that the power of God, divine intelligence, is governing every aspect of His church and to apply this truth to one's thought about church affairs, whether elections, appointments, or regular business transactions. A Christian Scientist cannot afford to let material impressions control his thinking. Divine Mind must govern his desires, his outlook, and his prayers if he is to please God.

To please God is always to behold perfect God and perfect man without any reservations whatever. As one views the human scene in the light of what he thus beholds, he learns the nothingness of mortal errors and refrains from repeating them and from criticizing and condemning persons.

The following experience shows how an erroneous experience may try to disguise itself as harmless. A group of friends met one afternoon at the home of a student of Christian Science. In the course of the afternoon the conversation turned toward one who was not there. This one had at times expressed somewhat negative qualities. Several comments and criticisms were made. Then suddenly one of the friends quite forcefully said: "This is not right! This is not Christian Science!"

The hostess was startled. She had always prided herself on her conduct as a Christian Scientist. Even now she found herself thinking in justification, "We were not really condemning him; we were not really hurting him; it certainly was not malicious criticism." Immediately, however, the thought came clearly, "Perhaps not, but certainly you were not pleasing God!"

The Christian Scientist was grateful for this rebuke as it helped her greatly in overcoming a tendency to criticize destructively. Sometimes we hear of justified criticism. But nothing is justified if it is not pleasing God. Our gratitude and love for God and His goodness impel the desire to please Him always; to be ready to give up all false desires and motives. Mrs. Eddy writes in "Pulpit and Press" (p. 3): "The river of His pleasures is a tributary of divine Love, whose living waters have their source in God, and flow into everlasting Life. We drink of this river when all human desires are quenched, satisfied with what is pleasing to the divine Mind."