A glance in retrospect reveals to us how much good has come to us from our loving Father, and how much sorrow has come to us through our ignorance of God, our waywardness or weakness. Thus past experiences have taught us the imperative need of finding safety and happiness by dwelling in "the secret place of the most High;" for here we find the gifts of heaven's treasury free to all who are faithful and true. God's will for His every child is all that makes for happiness, success, abundance, health, dominion, perfection.

Recognizing our spiritual sonship each of us may say with Jesus, "All things that the Father hath are mine;" and this means just what it says, for all God's children are "jointheirs with Christ." How vital, therefore, that we stop limiting God and robbing ourselves! Instead, we must actively and intelligently claim our divine right to good; then, in proportion to our understanding and sincerity, we shall find good becoming increasingly apparent in our daily life.

It is not divine Love that furrows the brow with care, or leaves us fumbling and stumbling amidst our problems. The explanation of discordant conditions is found in these words of Christ Jesus: "O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee." Indeed, the problems that seem so closely to hedge us about would vex us no more if only we had a deeper knowledge of God, infinite good, infinite Love. The true knowledge of God means life and peace for us, whereas false belief about God vitiates our views respecting all things and leaves us drifting without anchorage.

If we wish our lives to be full of joy and love and every good that the pure heart can desire, then we have our part to perform; we must put out of our lives those things which bring suffering and sadness. Here Christian Science comes to our aid with its glorious promise of freedom and boundless good; and it fulfills this promise by showing us how to correct the premise, of which all human discords are the conclusion, namely, that there is power, intelligence, and life apart from God.

Spiritual enlightenment shows that God is the only real presence and power, and destroys the ignorant belief in an opposing power called evil. Only when we are led to assume erroneously the existence of some power other than that of the Almighty, can the belief in evil seem to hold sway over us. With the omnipotence of the Father-Mother ever in thought we cannot be moved; and material shadows must flee away, for this understanding undermines the assertions of error, makes possible our escape from bondage to material sense, and enables us to enter upon a life of spiritual freedom.

This truth of being, however, must be understood and patiently applied until every error in human thought has been corrected. Christ Jesus never hesitated to refute evil, under whatever guise it appeared, because he knew that sickness and suffering, the ills that to mortal sense seemed to surround him, were not of God, and were, therefore, a violation of the divine law of harmony. He saw them all as false, a seeming perversion of those spiritual facts that admit of no inversion, since they are infinite, eternal, changeless. And following in his footsteps, the work of the Christian Scientist is to overcome evil by knowing that it has no foundation in fact or reality, for in the infinitude and omnipotence of God, good, evil has no place whatever.

In her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy writes (p. 450): "The Christian Scientist has enlisted to lessen evil, disease, and death; and he will overcome them by understanding their nothingness and the allness of God, or good. Sickness to him is no less a temptation than is sin, and he heals them both by understanding God's power over them." Gaining and holding this spiritual vantage ground, we can withstand our foes, for the wise counsel of James is as timely now as when uttered centuries ago: "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you."

Knowing that evil has no power does not mean that we can relax our vigilance and let our watch fires grow dim, for the enemy is ever on the alert to insinuate itself within the consciousness of the unwary. If we allow error to break through our mental guard; if we permit its entrance because we fail to declare the truth, deny the error, and abide in Him, ours is then the responsibility to overcome the discords that always follow a lapse from alertness.

The human longing to realize the ideal makes clear the need for self-purification, for there is no easier or quicker process of shaking off sins, sicknesses, and worries, thus proving their nothingness, than by the simple overcoming of evil with good at all points. The human sense of life, falling so far short of the divine, must be conformed to the perfect model, thought by thought. Paul gives us the modus operandi of salvation in these words: "Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." It is manifest, therefore, that our thinking is the crux of the whole matter; and our assurance of salvation lies in expelling from our consciousness every thought that does not measure up to the true ideal, and substituting and maintaining thoughts of joy, health, love, harmony. As this is done, it will be found that discords fade from our experience because they have ceased to becloud our consciousness. So, day by day, thought may be improved and uplifted. Each wrong thought replaced by a right thought is a step towards the millennium, towards that perfect life and freedom which is the goal of every true follower of the Christ.