"Wisdom is Justified of her Children"

It is an aphorism of the business world that it pays to follow the line of least restistance, and the practical wisdom of the proposition strongly commends it. To achieve a desired end with the expenditure of the least possible time, effort, and trouble seems to be equally good philosophy and good common sense, whether in the field of ethics or economics; and if our discernment has become adequate to the guidance of our impulse, and if we have reached an effective understanding that "success in error is defeat in Truth" (Science and Health, p. 239), then this dictum may indeed run and be glorified, for it is applicable to the widest and noblest range of endeavor.

It is manifest, however, that we cannot safely commit ourselves to the government of a law, the significance of whose terms we do not clearly comprehend, and the issue in this instance, therefore, will be determined by our understanding of this word "resistance," our realization of what it is that opposes our every worthy undertaking. Herein lies the need of constant thoughtfulness and illumined perception; for from the day of Eve's downfall until now, humanity has been sadly fooled regarding the things which help or hinder spiritual progress.

We are tempted assiduously to determine the line of least resistance by considerations for personal ease and creature comfort. The love of laziness and the love of luxury are the twin sirens whose united charms have lured many a well-meaning voyager from his course, and their appeal is still very winsome and seductive to human sense, but he who heeds their call learns in due season and through painful experience that his chosen line of sense satisfaction in doing, makes a gigantic angle with the line of wisdom and of true advance.

The mathematician knows well that but one thing can save him from the possible mistakes which crowd the field of his involved calculations; namely, a constant adherence to the basic law and rule of numbers. A single forgetfulness of the mandate of the multiplication table insures his failure, and therefore his every step must be a knowing of demonstrable truth; and, following this highway, nothing can separate him from his goal. This is illustrative of the faithfulness to Principle which counts, in spiritual things, and which made it possible for our Leader to write, "I saw before me the awful conflict, the Red Sea, and the wilderness; but I pressed on through faith in God, trusting Truth, the strong deliverer, to guide me into the land of Christian Science" (Science and Health, p. 226).

Every follower of Christ Jesus must come to know that the line of least resistance is that in which our progress is opposed only by the sense of error; seeing this we shall also see that nothing but a constant discrimination between truth and error on the basis of practical demonstration will make it possible for us to hold our true course amid the surging currents and shifting winds of this life's tumultuous sea.

For him to whom error is uncovered, the only path is the line of least resistance, since he knows that error's mightiest and most threatening aggregations are dispelled by Truth, as are the shadows by light. W.

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