In a state well regulated those who do well are not deprived of the results and rewards of right doing. If, as husbandmen, they patiently labor with fruit tree and vine, then at the time of harvest they are partakers of the yield of orchard and vineyard. What they sow, they reap; and the increase of flocks and herds rewards them for the season's care and their labor in field and pasture. But where lawlessness prevails, it would seem for a time that they who do ill are rewarded. They reap where others have sown; they rob the pastures and folds. It is as Jesus said, "The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy." Where law is established, and law keepers are united and courageous, the bandit and the brigand soon find that the thief's trade is unprofitable. And so should it be in the realm of thinking. The right thinker should have his reward of peace and comfort; and the scornful man and the slanderer should not be able to deprive him of his reward.

Too often the effort to do good is personal and accompanied by pride. The evil-doer, likewise, has pride in his way; and by the very force of his unscrupulousness may gather in for a time the results of the good man's personal labors. Then he will contend that selfishness succeeds; and the disappointed victim of the robbery is tempted to say that fair dealing spells failure, and that kindness is unrewarded. This is not so, and it is needful to learn how to win and make sure the reward of righteousness, so that law may be regarded and God honored among men.

Paul makes a list of the malign activities of erring minds, naming them "works of the flesh," and contrasting them with the "fruit of the Spirit." So, then, it is the boast of mortal so-called minds that they can rob others, cheat and cozen them, and lie to them, and get a result therefrom that is desirable. Mrs. Eddy, like Paul, draws a startling contrast between this claim of material sense and the actual facts regarding Spirit and its reward, and speaks kindly to those whom she is instructing, when she says on page 253 of "Science and Health with key to the Scriptures": "I hope, dear reader, I am leading you into the understanding of your divine rights, your heaven-bestowed harmony,—that, as you read, you see there is no cause (outside of erring, mortal, material sense which is not power) able to make you sick or sinful; and I hope that you are conquering this false sense."

Just as soon as an impersonal sense is gained, even the wrongdoer has to pause and think; and he then recognizes that whatever good results have appeared in his life were connected with right attitudes. Estimating these occasions aright, he finds that a desirable law was operative which make no distinction of persons. When he who was actually proud of being a wrongdoer happened to do spontaneously right, or did a kindness without exactly intending or planning it, the reward came to him inevitably,—taking no account of his former evil acts as a personal judge would do, by whom he would be classified as outside the reach of good:

This is a veritable judgment by fire, wherein the perishable disappears; as, for example, the pride of the Pharisee in his punctilious and personal righteousness, as well as the pride of the malefactor in his recklessness and lawlessness; for in these we find only the personal, not real, cause and effect. When the Pharisaic mind, thinking itself perfect and despising others, or the wicked mentality, thinking itself different and also despising others, is put off and the individual with childlikeness obeys the law of God, a new world opens out, a gracious, beautiful world, unlimited in possibilities of happiness because of the unlimited action of real cause and effect. The regenerated individual perceives this law operating in his own life, recompensing every right desire; and no longer can he for any reason despise others, but must wish for every one the joy of being rewarded for righteousness.

The patience and endurance of the martyrs and saints of old time is explainable in that they saw clearly how impossible it was for any cruel act of men to separate them from their connection with God, as cause. When Paul saw this he declared, "I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the Love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." That is how those spoken of in Scripture as having endured cruel tortures would not accept the lower deliverance offered them by evil humanity which might have come to them if they had given up their trust in God. They endured, like Moses, because they saw that which is invisible to material sense. They recognized God, who is good, as the ruler, lawgiver, including all law, because they understood divine Mind to be cause.

Fiction writers have labored to show evidence of humanity in the burglar and the road agent, and to depict severity and inhumanity in the Puritan and churchgoer. The effect of fiction generally is that it confuses the issue. It is in effect usually some special pleading for the justification of error; some attempt to make the worse appear the better part. Sometimes it reaches to truth and would change its nature, so that men say, "Truth is stranger than fiction." Christian Science deals entirely with everlasting fact, and enthrones eternal Truth. It opens the way for all men to find true causation, and to connect themselves by their rightness of thinking with the inevitable effect of good. It enables them to apprehend and realize that hope expressed by the apostle, "That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive."

Christian Science, then, is in every way practical. Mrs. Eddy shows this in her testimony regarding the legitimate comfort of health for the doer of good when she says (Science and Health, p. 202): "Common opinion admits that a man may take cold in the act of doing good, and that this cold may produce fatal pulmonary disease; as though evil could overbear the law of Love, and check the reward for doing good. In the Science of Christianity, Mind—omnipotence—hasall-power, assigns sure rewards to righteousness, and shows that matter can neither heal nor make sick, create nor destroy. If God were understood instead of being merely believed, this understanding would establish health." Mortal mind has throughout the ages been trying to discourage the righteous. One of its clever devices has been, not so much to argue against the good man, as to make him argue with himself that hard times, joyless days, and suffering hours are inevitable for him because of his determination to do right. Then he is allowed the solace of thinking that heaven afar off will be his reward. "Here we suffer grief and pain," he has been accustomed to sing; whereas he might much better sing, and understand, such a new song as we find in the Hymnal (p. 192):—

Copyright, 1922, 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.