The greatest question of all time has been and will be, "What must I do to be saved?" Every other question engaging the attention of mortals becomes petty, utterly insignificant, in the presence of this query which relates to permanent peace and eternal freedom. Men may busy themselves for a few flickering years with other questions, "What must I do to be rich, powerful, famous?" but the really important thing is to find out what I must do to inherit eternal life, for when I have that, I have all the rest,—I am rich, have dominion, am well known, and though least in the realm of spiritual things, I am greater than he who is dreaming a temporary dream of heights gained and difficulties surmounted. Jesus knew this, hence he said, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." In the endeavor to answer purely material questions of economics or utilities, we miss, not only the primary objects of our search, but the ultimate of man; namely, salvation. On the other hand, if we can only bring ourselves to forget personal needs, ambitions, desires, fears, and doubts, and give ourselves up to the profitable search for salvation, we shall be rewarded by a satisfactory answer to that original question, and when we awake in His likeness, awake to the realization that we are saved; all other questions as to limitation, possession, enjoyment, sensation, will also be answered.

It is not profitable to waste time discussing the human fact that man needs to be saved. If there is one point upon which all men find themselves in practical agreement, it is the necessity for salvation. There is no disposition to dispute human suffering and sin. From these unideal conditions man, every man, no matter what his color, race, creed, or station in life, wants to be liberated. From these conditions the human race has struggled for centuries to free itself; in its extremity it has gone to almost ludicrous lengths, and has involved itself in the most curious inconsistencies. Groaning under an appalling consciousness of discord and misery, the human family has at one moment made frantic efforts to resist pain and death, and at another has tried to reconcile itself to a condition from which there seemed to be no escape, by assuring itself that it was the will of God.

Although we all agree that there are untoward circumstances from which it is highly desirable to be freed, our notions as to the best method of bringing about the object of our desires have been many, varied, and contradictory. The fundamental mistake seemes to have been made when the scheme of salvation was divided up into several parts, and it began to be taught that a man must look in one direction for moral and spiritual improvement, and in an opposite direction for relief from physcal suffering. To this mistaken philosophy we owe our centuries of failure to achieve entire salvation, because, manifestly, when we know how to be saved, and there is the desire to be saved, we are saved. We have fallen short of redemption, not because we did not recognize our need of it, nor because there was not something which could save us, but because we did not intelligently understand and apply this saving power.

Salvation is something to work for, it is something to demonstrate. If it were faith, or blind belief, or mere human willingness to be saved, man would have been redeemed long ago. Salvation is not believing, or hoping, or expecting, it is knowing. "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Knowing the truth constitutes salvation. At no point is the process material, hence the futility of employing material means to bring about salvation. Even when the condition demanding salvation is physical, the process is mental, as Christian Science has demonstrated so many times that the point is no longer open to discussion. The Christian Scientist finds out that mere belief on his part is not enough. Belief in Christian Science is better than opposition to it, better than belief in some other systems, but the demands of the Saviour are that we shall know the truth. As we add to our store of positive knowledge of the rule and practice of Christian Science, we lose any lingering sense of apology or excuse for the more radical and abstract statements of Christian Science. The Christian Scientist who is afraid to give a treatment, who is afraid to respond to a righteous appeal for aid, has not gone farther than to change his former beliefs into a belief in Christian Science. Lacking accurate knowledge, he has no confidence, either in the truth or his ability to express truth. The only way to gain confidence in God is to prove Him. Growth without demonstration is not possible in Science.

A sick-ridden and sin-laden world needs to learn the answer to these questions, "What must I do to be saved from every kind of discord, from pain and lack, from immorality and selfishness? Is there one Saviour, or many? When I find my Redeemer, will he not be my Saviour from everything that is unlike God? When I really become conscious of the Divine, the saving presence, will I not be as free from physical, as from moral blight?" There is a great deal said about salvation in the Bible, and Christian Science calls attention to utterances which are ages old, which have not by any means lost their efficacy, but which have simply been neglected. Jesus said that the "Son of man is come to save that which was lost." The record of his earthly ministry indicates that he spent much of his time in healing bodily ailments, and his attitude towards mortal discords is perpetuated by Christian Science. He said plainly that to heal or destroy sin was to heal or destroy sickness; in other words, the Saviour is come to free man from sinful, carnal, material thoughts, and from disease and death, the effect of such thoughts. Sin was given a broader definition by Jesus, and was made to include much more than the formal schools of theology of his time or of ours have attributed to it. To Jesus, sin evidently meant everything or anything that was unlike God, and God, to him, was Spirit; therefore, whatever had to do with matter, even though it seemed in itself harmless enough, and even though matter called it good, to him, was not God, not good.

Hosea says, "But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle by horses, nor by horsemen." This is clear enough, and emphasizes the Christian Science teaching that salvation is not to be found in human resources, is not to be looked for in matter or material remedies, neither in the human will, but in God alone. David says, "Salvation belongeth unto the Lord," and again he prays, "Give us help from trouble: for vain is the help of man." Now the man who is suffering from sickness, from business reverses, from utter despair, is certainly in trouble and would be glad to be helped out of it, and human experience has abundantly proved that material aid is indeed vain. It turns us confidently to God, for the prophet Isaiah represents Him as saying, "I, even I, am the Lord; and beside me there is no saviour." If this be true, and all Christians profess to believe it, are we not throwing away opportunities and losing valuable time and expending our energy and talents uselessly, so long as we expect to be saved by drugs, by the human mind, by anything less than omnipotence, since He is indeed the only Saviour?

It frequently happens that the patient who comes to Christian Science really does not know from what he needs to be saved. He thinks it is a diseased body. when all the time it has been a discordant mental state, and the Christian Scientist must first of all show this man what it is that must be saved. This is not always pleasant or easy, but Science is inexorable. The patient will tell you he has had rheumatism for twenty years and he so longs to be free, when a mental diagnosis may reveal hate, envy, absorbing self-love, uncontrolled anger, or some of the kindred qualities of the human mind, the presence of any one of which would make it evident that the Saviour must heal this mental disease when its bodily effects will vanish. The good human who is a moral man or woman, cannot understand why he should suffer years of agony when he has not been a great sinner, and he will not understand, until he grasps Jesus' definition of sin. When the rich young man who had kept all the commandments asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, he was told to give up that which he cherished the most and follow the Christ-man, model himself after the spiritual pattern. In this particular instance, the sacrifice involved "great possessions," but what would the answer mean for you, or for me? Evidently Jesus meant to teach that salvation came by leaving all our material sense of things for the spiritual. We all want to be saved, but do we want to yield our love for that which interdicts salvation? When patients fail of healing in Christian Science, they sometimes say, "Why, I don't understand it. I read the book, and go to the services, and I've had so many treatments, and still I'm not cured." In other words, "All these things have I kept from my youth up," and the answer is to-day, as formerly, "Sell that thou hast,"—part with pride, love of money, love of merely sensuous ease, a desire for popularity, love of society,—get rid of anything that attracts you away from God. and you will have riches in heaven, in harmony and health.

Christian Science is not to be blamed if here and there one may be found who refuses to separate himself from the thoughts which produce discord. You cannot force a man into the kingdom of heaven. Jesus could and did point out to the young man who came to him, that which was holding him, but he could not and did not force him to sell his goods, and thus accomplish his salvation. Sometimes our journey in Christian Science seems slow, until hope deferred does make the heart sick and we begin to find fault with Christian Science, when all we need to do is to sell whatsoever we have that is keeping us from health and harmony. Salvation is at our very door. It is possible to be free now, but, like the kingdom of heaven, redemption is within us, not outside of us, not in any other person, but in us, and it involves our selling whatsoever hinders. When we recognize this it makes us quite a good deal more humble, and certainly more gentle, more forgiving, less critical and complaining. We begin to illustrate the text. "All things work together for good to them that love God." And finally, brethren, in the words of Paul, "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?" how can we reasonably expect to escape misery and continued suffering, if we neglect the very essentials of salvation, that fearless purging of self which redeems us fully, not only from unhappy effects, but from the cause of those effects?