The door that opens to receive the Christ-idea, the spiritual "King of glory," swings not upon material hinges. It is not the golden-hinged portal to any earthly temple. It is the door of consciousness, and how to keep this door open should be a problem of serious moment to every seeker after Truth.

In Revelation we read, "Behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it." The door here referred to is the door of opportunity that is open to every honest heart seeking to be "taught of God." God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should know, understand, Him, from the least to the greatest. God could no more withhold His presence from His child than could the sun refuse to radiate light. God does reveal Himself to humanity, but only through the door of consciousness. While this door from the divine view-point is ever open, from that of benighted mortals it seems closed. The Scripture further says, "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." This clearly indicates that the first condition precedent to communion with God is the ability or capacity to hear the voice of Truth. The student of divine metaphysics has learned that the "still small voice" of Truth is not carried upon the waves of sense perception, and that it can be heard only when the din and confusion of material sense is hushed. The next step leading to spiritual communion is to open the door of consciousness, otherwise the divine evangel will not come in. How shall this be accomplished?

The great Teacher of humanity answers this question in these words: "Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." Without a proper sense of self-abnegation as taught in Christian Science, the mental approach to the kingdom of heaven is closed, the voice of Soul is unheard, and the dream of mortal existence continues. Upon this one point, so little understood by professing Christians in general, hinges all the peace, joy, and happiness which can be experienced by human beings. The unhappy admission of a mortal selfhood living in constant disobedience to God's laws, and doomed to the supposed consciousness of an evil presence and power, would keep one in constant ignorance of Christ, Truth; while the understanding in Science of how to correct this unchristian admission and to know oneself as a child of God, reflecting only divine attributes, opens the doorway to that spiritual consciousness wherein dwell purity, health, holiness, and happiness. The spiritual apprehension of man's godlikeness will come slowly to one who thinks only of the loaves and fishes. He must set his affection on spiritual things, "not on things on the earth," and be found living consistently with his desires if he would be conscious of the potency of divine power to extirpate the belief in evil. If self-abnegation, alias the denial or correction of sense testimony, is cherished as the key-note of all Christian activity, the sweet assurance voiced through the revelator will be realized, "I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me."

If the belief of a material selfhood is cherished as a part of the natural order of things, and the theory maintained that the world could not get along without this so-called flesh and blood man, one's moral and spiritual progress will be slow indeed. Any argument which encourages the cultivation rather than the putting off of the old man, alias the belief that man is mortal, will not open the door to the kingdom of heaven, here or hereafter. There is but one way to cease "from man, whose breath is in his nostrils," and no other religious teaching than Christian Science explains its modus operandi. Other systems may refer to self-denial as a means of grace, but they fail to explain the dream nature of the so-called Adam man and the divine rules by which humanity can and must put off this mistaken concept of man and thus be enabled to put on the real man of God's creating.

When one stops to ponder seriously the terse statement of Scripture that "no man can serve two masters," he is confronted with this fact, that spiritual sense and so-called material or physical sense do not mingle or cooperate in cause or effect, and that he must therefore choose which he should or will serve. While the centers of intellectual and scholastic training may encourage the cultivation and upbuilding of material sense, when one is forced to admit that without this so-called sense there would be no channel through which evil or sin could find its way into the consciousness of mankind, he turns at once to the contemplation of things spiritual and eternal. In so doing he becomes the willing servant of that spiritual sense which our Leader tells us "is a conscious, constant capacity to understand God" (Science and Health, p. 209). Material sense keeps the door closed on progress, while spiritual sense alone ushers in the law of spiritual perfection and reveals the harmonious government of Soul. The highest possible achievement of material sense would necessarily be a fleeting human concept of God, man, and the universe. It never has arrived and never will arrive at any spiritually accurate conclusions concerning anything that really exists.

Spiritual sense, on the contrary, opens the door to that higher order of thinking which reveals the harmonious facts of true existence, wherein there is neither a changeable God nor a fallen man. It is this spiritual sense which Jesus enjoined his followers to serve, and Christian Science has no other mission on earth than to magnify and to demonstrate the power and presence of the omnipotent good to which this spiritual sense is the only open door. Until one gains a spiritual sense of the Scriptures he is quite sure to misunderstand and pervert the inspired teachings of Christian Science as they are expressed by Mrs. Eddy; but let him begin to look at Christian Science through the lens of unselfishness and purity, and the scene changes. He will then understand and uphold its teachings, and because of his own God-given ability to prove the healing power of Truth he will know that Christian healing as demonstrated by the Master is a present possibility, and rejoice in the new freedom he has found.

The Master said: "I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture." This certainly describes the open door of spiritual sense which is closed to thieves and robbers, in other words to the erroneous theories and opinions of men, but which swings freely and noiselessly upon its hinges of truth and love to all who can repeat the password of purity and sincerity, "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God."

Copyright, 1912, by The Christian Science Publishing Society.