A common paradox is mankind's seeming inability to accept the existence and continuity of good. We hear all too often such expressions as: "It's too good to be true!" "It's too good to last!"

The child stares wide-eyed at a proffered sweet; the gold miner rushes his newly mined ore to be assayed ; the beggar bites the coin he is given; and the businessman hurries to reconfirm the large order he has just received. All have to be convinced that largess is really theirs.

Serious thought, however, reveals the truth that good is permanent, else it is not truly good. And Christian Science demonstrates that spiritual things alone are permanent. We limit our harmony and our enjoyment when we seek goodness in the material, and then, because material things are uncertain, question our right to have good. We gain contentment and peace when we learn to understand Spirit, God, as the source of all good. Then we can understand its nature and our right to have good always.

Students of Christian Science are early introduced to a basic explanation of good. Literally hundreds of references to this word are made in their textbook, Science and Health. Its author, Mrs. Eddy, uses good as a term for God, the creator of all. She further describes man as the image and likeness of God, the inheritor of God's estate of good at all times and under all circumstances. It is this status of the real man, the spiritual man of God's creating, that Christian Science so clearly elucidates.

Mrs. Eddy defines "good" in the Glossary of the textbook as "God; Spirit; omnipotence; omniscience; omnipresence; omniaction." ^{Science and Health, p. 587;} When the eternal activity and all-power of good are understood in the light of this definition, we can never question good's being, despair of its passing, or fear its absence. All of us can accept the ever-presence of God and immediately utilize this knowledge to solve the myriad problems that seemingly deny His existence or availability.

The Bible serves Christian Science students as a treasury of accounts of humanity's ever-expanding consciousness of Deity. Not always was His presence and power immediately acknowledged. When the Lord identified Himself to Moses and promised the deliverance of the children of Israel, Moses feared that God's message would not be accepted. It was necessary for the Lord not only to change Moses' rod into a serpent and back into a rod but also to show him his hand white from leprosy and once again clear of it. And the Bible tells us that the Lord said, "It shall come to pass, if they will not believe thee, neither hearken to the voice of the first sign, that they will believe the voice of the latter sign." ^{Ex. 4:8;}

Centuries later Gideon undertook to test the actuality of God's presence. After being promised the opportunity to save Israel from the Midianites, Gideon insisted that he must first see a fleece of wool wet with dew, though the earth around it was to be left dry. When God met that request, Gideon sought further proof by reversing his request. "And God did so that night: for it was dry upon the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground." ^{Judg. 6:40;}

It remained for the Master, Christ Jesus, to demonstrate instant affirmation without examination or reservation. At a time that a loved friend was ill, Jesus was spiritually prepared to know the true situation immediately. When the Master received word of the illness of Lazarus, Jesus stated, "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby." ^{John 11:4;} Nor did his understanding diminish, for later, in the presence of fear and sorrow and the physical testimony that Lazarus had been dead for several days, Jesus renewed his affirmation of the presence of God. "I knew that thou hearest me always," ^{v. 42;} he said. Lazarus was freed from the bonds of death and came forth from the tomb to be loosed from the restricting thoughts of those who had doubted.

Do we question as Moses did and delay our opportunities by moments or hours? Do we test as Gideon did and postpone our deliverance by days? Or do we, like Christ Jesus, freely accept Truth, Life, and Love into our experience and know that God hears us always?

The task of Christian Scientists today is to advance Spiritward to such receptivity and confidence as our Way-shower expressed. Instantly accepting the gifts of God and denying the threats of evil, he taught, healed, and saved. In proportion to our consciousness of the omnipresence and omnipotence of good, God, are our instantaneous healings earned, our demonstrations made, and our harmony preserved.

Knowing our true status as the sons of God, we can prove that it is our right to have all that is needful without diminution or dissolution. It is our duty to seek and accept only that which is given us of Spirit, God. We must refuse that which would come to us in the guise of good while identifying itself as pleasure in matter, excessive materiality, fruitless ease, and the opportunity for self-aggrandizement. It is our joy to be forever grateful to God for all the good—the peace, harmony, health, supply—that He has given so freely, so irrevocably, to His children !

When we are convinced of the eternality of good, we shall be prepared to demonstrate the Science of Mind-healing and be freed from sickness, sin, and death—the diametric opposites of the good we know is ours. Speaking of the demonstration of Mind-healing, Mrs. Eddy writes, "This demonstration is based on a true understanding of God and divine Science, which takes away every human belief, and, through the illumination of spiritual understanding, reveals the all-power and ever-presence of good, whence emanate health, harmony, and Life eternal." ^{Rudimental Divine Science, p. 11.}