How frequently the spirit of restful confidence finds expression in the psalmist's references to God as a "rock," as the immovable basis of faith, assurance, and joy! In all the exigencies of temptation and distress this fact is ever recognized as the one sure thing, the eternal refuge. Thus we find him saying: "My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation." This also recalls the Master's words to Peter respecting that apostle's recognition of the Christ,—"Upon this rock I will build my church."

This Scripture concept of the basis of faith was recalled recently by one while standing in the presence of the famous Woolworth Building in New York. The vastness of its towering sweep at once prompted wonderment how any foundation could have been devised which would prove equal to the support of such an enormous structure. Then he was told how a great gulf had been excavated in the earth, until the mighty ledge upon whose shoulders even the Himalayas would prove but a feather's weight, was uncovered, and that upon this there was built a great steel and concrete substructure, which is unburdened even by so enormous a load, because the planet itself is supporting it.

That the architect was wise in thus looking to the beginnings of such an undertaking, goes without saying, and this common sense procedure is particularly wise with respect to the building of Christian faith. By way of its emphasis Jesus told the familiar story of the man who, digging deep, laid the foundation for his house upon a rock, and no teaching of Christian Science is more sane and significant than its insistence upon this course. Mrs. Eddy's supreme appeal to mankind might be said to be of the nature of a searching inquiry respecting the fundamental truths of being, respecting the nature of God and His universe, and man. The faith which Christian Science erects in human consciousness proves stable and permanent, because it removes the ignorance and unverified tradition which material belief has left upon practically every stretch of "good solid sense;" and having thus reached the rock of demonstrable truth, it proceeds to raise thereon a reflex of that building of God which is "eternal in the heavens."

When one is brought face to face with the sense of a great world tragedy like that of to-day, when hope is well-nigh overwhelmed by the surging tides of conflicting religious belief, or when called to conquer an assertedly incurable disease,—then it is that men feel the imperative need of an immovable foundation for thought. They then with the psalmist exclaim, "My heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God;" and in such an hour happy indeed is the Christian Scientist who has proven for himself the presence and availability of that eternal truth the understanding of which crowned Christ Jesus "with the glory of a sublime success, an everlasting victory" (Science and Health, p. 45), even in the very midst of mortal conflict.

Before the paths of scientific thought have become so familiar to the Christian Scientist that his feet can follow them even in the dark, and in the situations which are occasionally precipitated when one meets with those to whom the teachings of the Bible make no appeal, we sometimes come upon yet other foundations for thought. For instance, the initial affirmation of Descartes' philosophy, "I think; therefore I am," will not be questioned by the average man or woman.

Now the greatness of human thought, the premises and logical processes by which men are able to determine the orbit of a hundred year period comet, or map out with startling exactness the location of the shadow of an eclipse which is to take place a half century hence; the wondrous constructive and prophetic flight of the imagination, which suggests the order of a truly creative activity and power,—all this marvelous mental achievement must be reckoned as an effect, and, by the universally honored law of sufficient reason, it demands an adequate explanation. There is no escape from this requirement; but when one posits an adequate explanation for these thought manifestations, he has come upon that which is unsearchable in wisdom and power. He has come upon the Christian's God, though he may call it the unknowable. When the confessedly atheistic physical scientist acknowledges the discovery of the absolutely inscrutable and the infinitely intelligent at every point in the universe,—and this despite his unbelief,—he certainly is not far removed, did he but know it, from the acceptance of the teachings of Christ Jesus, and the teaching of Christian Science that "all is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation" (Science and Health, p. 468).

Thus for all those who are sane and willing to think, who do not assume a trifling, make-believe attitude toward serious things, and who are amenable to a logically progressive search for a satisfying interpretation of mental experiences,—for all such an ascending way may be found out of the deepest bogs of unbelief, the darkest confusions of mental mesmerism. However he may think of "the ultimate," it is practically impossible for any man to make up his mind that the supreme nature-ruling intelligence is malevolent, and in so far as he refuses to do this he can be hospitable to the teaching of the Master that God, the foundation and explanation of all real being, is Love; and in his efforts to account for that hateful thing called evil he must look elsewhere than to the source of good. Though not thought of by the many, it is easily seen that there is and can be no darkness in light, no error in truth, and no evil in good, however much they seem to be blended in human experience, that is, according to material evidence.

The clear diagnosis of mental conditions, the right perception of the status in which one may find himself or another in a given moment of experience, and the tactful wisdom with which one so addresses and satisfies floundering human sense as to be able to get it out of the mud in which it has mired itself,—this determines the happy outcome of many a struggle, and establishes the victim of mental vagrancy or illogic upon that firm foundation from which his feet may not again be moved. It is thus that the demonstrated truth, in the consciousness of the good and wise, may become a rock of refuge in a storm-swept land; and thus to minister to the mentally distressed is one of the very great privileges of every true Christian Scientist.

Copyright, 1917, by The Christian Science Publishing Society.