The familiar saying, that "man's extremity is God's opportunity," expresses a truth which should stimulate mankind to a livelier examination of their position and their mental conditions. The divine presence is not humanly recognized or appreciated except as place is made for it, even as light cannot enter and illumine one's house unless there is an opening. As absolute Truth, God is ever present, and where God is "there is no need"; but human consciousness rests upon the belief that God is not ever present, and the truth of God's allness can permeate and destroy that belief only as it finds opportunity. As Christians, working out our salvation from a sense of evil, we may well ask ourselves what opportunity God finds in us, or how we can expect the Christ to enter and redeem our thought unless it is unreservedly opened to Truth.

Human need comprises many and varying conditions. The sick and suffering call for harmony and peace: the victims of sin cry out against the misery that results therefrom; the poor and the unfortunate suffer from lack of food and comfort. What opportunity do these give to God, from whom alone permanent help can come? How gladly do they turn from the errors that enslave, to welcome the truth that makes free? Where do we stand in this category,—we who still struggle with a sense of error's reality, and who are discouraged at times over slow progress? How much room does God find in our thoughts and affections? How large a place do material pleasure, ambition, business, etc., occupy in our consciousness? The difficulty with us may be that we are not ready to see our extremity; in other words, we are not quite through with the material world. We think it still holds pleasure for us, that material things can add to our joy, that "mortal mind" has yet some intelligence apart from God. We have not reached the point where the "prince of this world" finds nothing in us. We do not recognize that there is no help or joy or gain or good in anything but God. If these things are so, we are not giving God the opportunity to become All-in-all to us. How can we honestly ask God to do more for us than we are permitting Him? How can we expect the truth to liberate our thought, if our thought is closed against it?

The sufferer who asks help from Christian Science may think that his consent to be treated is all the opportunity God needs to heal him: or that so long as the practitioner is willing to treat him and he is willing to pay the money price, he is under no other obligation except to receive the benefit. The Christian Scientist cannot lessen God's requirements, or abrogate one point of His law, however hard he may work to effect the patient's healing. God says to mortal man, "Give me thine heart;" that is, turn away from all that is unlike God, and have no other hope or faith or trust. When one reaches his extremity he knows there is nothing for him but God, and he desires nothing else. Are we giving God such an opportunity? or do we love aught else than good? The desire for physical health does not necessarily include the desire to forsake the errors that underlie the sense of disease. While one clings to wrong thoughts, and seeks to be rid only of the sufferings that result from them, he has not reached the point where he is ready to be healed by God in God's way. Human extremity is expressed, not so much by the physical sense of need, as by the moral and spiritual sense of need. It is the point where the human reaches the willingness to give up itself and grasp the divine.

Can mortals force this condition? No; but they can hasten it by cherishing the truth as it is perceived, by encouraging to its fruition every spiritual desire, every influence for purity, every unselfish motive, and by discouraging every unspiritual thought or tendency. Mankind should not wait for punishment to become willing to forsake error. Mrs. Eddy puts it pointedly when she says, "If we desire holiness above all else, we shall sacrifice everything for it" (Science and Health, p. 11). If we do not "desire holiness above all else," God is without His opportunity in our case. If we desire aught besides holiness we are sinners in our thought, and to that extent are turning away from instead of toward God. We are far from our extremity if we are willing to sacrifice spiritual gain for the delusive attractions of materiality.

Truth cannot enter and transform thought while one adheres to and loves error. The sinner who believes in the pleasure of sin has not reached his extremity, and neither has the invalid who believes in the power of drugs and other material means to heal him. To look to matter for life, health, happiness, is to close one's mental door against God. So long as mortals believe they can live without God, so long as they believe they can be happy without goodness, God has no opportunity to help them, no matter how great may be their need. It is assuredly out of place to complain of the little good we receive, when we reflect upon the allness of God and remember that good only waits for the opportunity we ourselves give it to enter and abide in our consciousness.

Every Christian Science practitioner has probably had experience with cases where there seemed little or no response so far as physical benefit was concerned, and while each case is marked by its own peculiar conditions, so that no general diagnosis can be given, it may be that the difficulty frequently is in the absence of that mental extremity where the whole thought is willing to accept God for all that He is. Physical health is not the primary need of mortals, and its presence or absence is not sufficient evidence for correct judgment. The physically healthy are not, for that reason, necessarily more holy than the sick; and the physically diseased are not always more willing to rely upon God than are others. A sufferer may be induced to turn for help to Christian Science with no higher hope or desire than for strength to pursue ambition, business, or pleasure; but such motives would limit God's opportunity, and the patient may have to wait until the heart recognizes its greater need. God is ever ready to respond to the human call, but the human is not always ready to yield to the divine, and further discipline may be requisite to effect that end.

It does not follow, however, that is no hope in Christian Science for those who, as yet, think of little above the physical healing, for if these turn honestly to God they will be led to see their spiritual need. As more of the truth enters thought, the presence of error is made more manifest ; and if there is the willingness to forsake it, God's opportunity is enlarged and progress is realized. There may be many of these stages before the desired healing is gained, but in the struggle for holiness "above all else" one may be called upon to "sacrifice" his desire to be healed first physically, while letting the spiritual come afterward as of secondary value. The first may have to become the last, in order that the last—the sense of spiritual need—may become first.

This we know, divine Love is equal to every human demand. Our Master spoke of the Christ as standing at the door, knocking to enter, and waiting only for its opening to illumine the human heart and bring in the consciousness of the kingdom of heaven. What closes the door upon the Christ, "the spiritual idea" (Science and Health, p. 333), but the belief of life in matter, the belief in its pleasures and pains, its sorrow, sin, and suffering? But as human hopes deceive and decline, and material sense ceases to satisfy; as existence without God becomes an unthinkable thing, and its sinful pleasures end in unendurable pain, the door begins to loosen and unclose. When the truth enters the heart so little, the poverty and wretchedness of material existence begin to be revealed, and mortal man discerns his extremity, his nothingness without God. This becomes "God's opportunity," and human thought is redeemed and regenerated until man is recognized in the likeness of God.