For many years, the world has accepted the theory that the development of the highest order of things depends upon the survival of the fittest. This has not been confined to the various forms of animal and vegetable life which we see all about us, but has been carried into the business and social world and in fact into almost every activity of human experience, upon the assumption that those who have exhibited the greatest amount of fitness along the line of brute strength or physical ability to endure opposition should survive at the expense of their weaker brothers. Moreover, mortal belief has argued that this is right, for should not the stronger forms of life thrive at the expense of the weaker!

Viewed in the light of Christian Science, all of God's ideas have their permanence in the divine Mind. They do not thrive at the expense of others, but the unfoldment of good blesses all, and good is constantly being unfolded to every individual just to the extent that he permits himself to be receptive to it. From the standpoint of absolute Truth, man is and always has been the spiritual idea of God, the reflection of divine Mind, Spirit. All things in the universe of Truth are created by and of Spirit, where no destructive element exists. Their permanence is therefore assured.

Only the right can endure, only that which is true can eventually survive. Ever since mortal mind has claimed to have a history of itself, material sense has striven to reverse the spiritual fact of everything that exists. In the human experience of things, those individuals whose thought has been touched by the glorious truth of Christian Science recognize that Jesus the Christ was indeed the Way-shower. He said when arraigned before Pontius Pilate: "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth." The truth regarding what? Surely, the truth of Principle and its idea. In doing this he not only taught and demonstrated the ever presence and all-power of God, Spirit, Soul, Truth, divine Principle, but also the instant availability of God's law. He was constantly reversing the testimony which material sense was presenting as real and as true, that which mankind was seemingly condemned to serve in hopeless bondage. Mrs. Eddy says on page 122 of Science and Health, "The material senses' reversal of the Science of Soul was practically exposed nineteen hundred years ago by the demonstrations of Jesus." Is it not our great work, then, as followers of Christ Jesus and as grateful students of Christian Science to reject and reverse every argument that error presents to us, to reverse as Jesus did the "material senses' reversal of the Science of Soul"?

Error, evil, has no real existence; it cannot endure. The only existence or reality it seems to have is that which material sense tries to give it. Jesus said material sense was a lie and the father of lies. As we individually reverse and prove unreal these false claims, as we reverse these attempts of error—material sense—to reverse the truth of being, it is seen that eternal Truth, God and His reflection, alone can survive.

The operation of God's law in human affairs is just as effective to-day as it was in the days when Jesus trod the hills of Judea. This law is constant and invariable. By reversing the mortal error which would make us believe that it was available to Jesus only, or that it is applicable to some of our problems but not to others, we place ourselves in a position in which we prove the operation of this law for us. The natural, inevitable result is harmony, right activity, and improved conditions in all of our affairs, in short, a foretaste of the millennium, or kingdom of God, which Jesus said is within us.

As we are patient and unceasing in our efforts to demonstrate God's government in our individual experience and in our relations with our fellow men, we find that to each of us "the survival of the fittest" will mean not the stronger tendencies and beliefs of animality overcoming those of lesser intensity, but the unfoldment of good in manifold and perhaps unlooked-for ways, with an accompanying elimination of everything that is unlike God, good. In the one sermon of which we have record delivered by Jesus to his followers, the Sermon on the Mount, we have a wonderful code for human conduct by which to work out the problems our individual experience and contact with the world at large are constantly presenting to us all. Mrs. Eddy says, beginning on page 253 of Science and Health, "The divine demand, 'Be ye therefore perfect,' is scientific, and the human footsteps leading to perfection are indispensable." It would therefore appear to be a matter of great importance to each of us that we at all times take the human footsteps which will bring to us a clearer recognition and realization of God's omnipresence and omnipotence; that we refuse to take steps of error, which would tend only to perpetuate our belief in evil and its reality. Material sense often tries to tempt us into believing that obedience to its suggestions will bring some blessing into our lives which strict adherence to the law of God will not. This is simply another attempt of mortal belief, devil, evil, to reverse the operation of the Christ, Truth, in the affairs of men, and this attempted "reversal of the Science of Soul" must be recognized for what it is and reversed, rejected, utterly repudiated. A resort to the methods of mortal mind in an endeavor to bring about the demonstration of Christian Science can result only in the dimming of our own spiritual perception and the intensifying of our individual belief in the error to be overcome, with a corresponding lengthening of the time needed to work out the problem before us. On the other hand, the recognition on our part that God's law is immediately at hand and equal to every emergency, great or small, coupled with our acceptance of this law and the rejection of everything that would attempt to interfere with its operation in our thought, is sufficient to insure the correct solution of every problem and the doing of God's will "in earth, as it is in heaven." Rightly viewed, every situation that confronts us as a problem is merely another opportunity of proving the omnipotence of God "and the power of His Christ." It is an opportunity of demonstrating that nothing can really have place in our thought except that which emanates from the divine Mind, that nothing can survive but God and His perfect reflection.

Material sense uses many subtle arguments in an effort to gain entrance into one's thought, and if these specious arguments are to be detected and rejected much vigilance is often required. One of the most pernicious of these is the suggestion that would cause us to become intolerant of another's point of view in a given situation, impatient because others do not accept without reservation our concept of the situation and its solution. We may be entirely ignorant of the fact that we are outlining what our brother's demonstration shall be,—an act which is tantamount to our attempting to stand between him and his perception of the leadings of divine Mind. Mrs. Eddy writes, on page 254 of Science and Health, "When we wait patiently on God and seek Truth righteously, He directs our path." Jesus showed clearly in many unmistakable ways the great need of our individually working out and proving our own at-one-ment with God and at the same time manifesting the greatest consideration, toleration, and charity toward others. This is as true regarding our relations with those with whom we come in frequent contact, in our homes, in the business world, in our church activities, or in our social intercourse, as it is with respect to our attitude toward those with whom we have very little in common. Paul wrote to the church at Corinth: "And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity;" and, "Charity never faileth."

The effort of evil is to keep us from being tolerant of one another, of other viewpoints on given questions, for the simple reason that toleration, charity, love, are the natural expression of a thought which is itself seeking divine guidance alone and extending to others the same privilege. As each turns in this way to the ever present, all-wise, all-loving God, divine Mind, for guidance, and is honest and sincere in following the path as it is revealed through individual perception and demonstration of God's government, we are certain to find at length that only that which is "fit" from the standpoint of Truth, from the standpoint of reality, has survived in the thought of each of us, and we will then necessarily be "of one mind" because it will be the divine Mind, God, Principle, which is reflected in and through us.

On the other hand, can any of us afford to take the position that we are absolutely right in our present concept of any given question or situation, when we know that more and more of good is constantly being unfolded to each of us as we daily and hourly listen for the voice of God and wait patiently on Him? Have any of us demonstrated, from the human standpoint, perfection and infallibility? Should we not, then, extend the greatest degree of consideration and toleration toward all who are seeking divine guidance, toward all who are yearning for a clearer realization and outward manifestation of God's allness, recognizing that only in this way can our own present belief, as well as that of others, in the reality of anything that can in any way hide God from His children or make His law inoperative be seen to be what it actually is, namely, a lie?

In the last analysis, each individual must prove for himself the unreality of the claims of material sense. He must himself demonstrate these arguments to be false; in the end, he alone can do this. The toleration and consideration, the freedom from interference which we extend to others in the working out of their problems determine to a great extent our own success in rising above the temptations of material sense. Loving the Golden Rule with all our hearts, we spontaneously live it in our daily lives, until everything unfit from the standpoint of divine Principle, everything that is not the reflection of divine Mind, Spirit, Love, will be dissolved, eliminated from our thought and experience, and the peace of God that floweth as a river from the eternal source alone is proved to be ours now and forever.

Copyright, 1921, by The Christian Science Publishing Society, Falmouth and St. Paul Streets, Boston, Massachusetts. Entered at Boston post office as second-class matter. Acceptance for mailing at a special rate of postage provided for in section 1103, Act of October 3, 1917, authorized on July 11, 1918.