A BAR TO PROGRESS

IDA CLARK ALLINGHAM.

Unreasonable criticism and complaint darken one's dawning sense of spirituality and stunt one's own growth in Christian Science. The children of Israel were brought through the water on dry ground, but up to that time, although Moses proved to the people that God was leading them, they were afraid to take the next step because they could not see how God would lead them over that expanse of water. And when Moses would have cried unto the Lord because of all the doubt and fear, God said, "Wherefore criest thou unto me? speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward." To stand still with a sense of lack and limitation does not give one a sense of progress, but rather just the opposite sense, and the complaint will be voiced that he is not making a demonstration over the false claims arising from lack of understanding. A sense of need is experienced which, if not guarded against, may be passed on to others and possibly a whole church or community be influenced by it.

Miriam and Aaron criticized Moses, who had risen to a higher plane of thought than they themselves had done, and they were punished for their sin and foolishness, but the whole congregation were at a standstill until this thought was healed, and no progress was made until the error was eliminated from the camp. This should teach us to avoid the mistake of criticizing and condemning others, who may possibly have risen to a higher plane of thought than that which we ourselves have attained. It is the complaining and limited thought which leads one to criticize and thus bring himself and others into darkness.

Criticism and complaint are often a cause of lack and limitation. Giving fluctuates where these errors sometimes seem to predominate. Our divine supply is not intermittent, and why should our giving be so? "Freely ye have received, freely give," has no limitations, and nothing but wrong thinking can divert our supply of any good thing or our giving out that good again. We are told that if we keep the commandments to do them, we may go in and possess the land which the Lord sware unto our fathers; "a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey;" yea, and "a land of wheat and barley," but we are not to forget the divine giver when we have eaten and are full, when the herds and flocks have multiplied and the silver and the gold abound, but we are told to "remember the Lord thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day."

In "Unity of Good" (p. 11) Mrs. Eddy says, "Jesus taught us to walk over, not into or with, the currents of matter, or mortal mind. His teachings beard the lions in their dens. He turned the water into wine, he commanded the winds, he healed the sick,—all in direct opposition to human philosophy and so-called natural science. He annulled the laws of matter, showing them to be laws of mortal mind, not of God. He showed the need of changing this mind and its abortive laws."

There is no limit to the good to which we may attain if only we keep our thought clear and unclouded by doubt, fear, and fault-finding.

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