In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy states (p. 331), "Everything in God's universe expresses Him." This positive, comprehensive statement provides for no unexpressed good or expressed evil. All spiritual ideas participate and are united in God's infinite self-expression. By his admission that divine Mind imparts beauty and variety of expression, the student of Christian Science pledges himself to reject the notion that he has but little good to express, or else that he is deprived of the faculty of right expression. Spiritually understood, the faculty of expression is unerring, invariable, and boundless.

Of necessity, Love is expressed in love. One who has hitherto harbored resentment, animosity, morbid introspection, loneliness, selfishness, learns through Christian Science to reject this false presentment and identify himself with Love's own expression of love and joy. Gradually he discerns and expresses the intelligence and wisdom which divine Principle is imparting to all without stint or favoritism. Humble in his recognition of the oneness of cause and effect, he discards the egotistic notion that, by his failings, he can impede Love's own expression of harmony. Thus he abandons the old belief in a restricted, personal standard, and rejoices in proving his God-given ability to express "the beauty of holiness."

If one appears to need more intelligence and greater dependability, he can gain these qualities by accepting without reservation the scientific fact that "God expresses in man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis" (ibid., p. 258). Is God boundless and man bound by mortal mind and matter? No. Man is consciously spiritual, free, and complete. Spiritual progress and development, springing as they do from a "boundless basis," are above the suggestion of mortal lack. The ideas of divine Mind express freedom, not handicap.

Discouragement and fear are due to too scant an understanding that the divine Mind maintains man's perfect expression of health and harmony. Suggestions of discouragement, along with other would-be obstructive beliefs, find no response in the loyal student of Christian Science, for he knows that his spiritual ability to express that which Mind is imparting is stable and unimpeded. Hence he rejects the argument that his right to health and the expression of the divine nature can be taken from him.

Whoever depends upon divine Principle grows dependable in all that he undertakes. He shows forth greater mental accuracy, order, and spontaneity, together with increased resourcefulness and loving-kindness. He no longer accepts the mortal estimate of himself as timid, disappointed, uninspired in his search for Truth, thwarted in his right efforts, for he is definitely learning to prove that he is spiritually inspired, sustained, and rewarded in all his right endeavors. Everyone who is in earnest can learn to behold the spiritual ideal and express it confidently and in ever-increasing measure.

What if one has hitherto seemed handicapped by faulty bringing up and the development of illness or sinful instincts? Through Christian Science he learns that these dead weights are but misrepresentations of his true selfhood, and that he must and can drop them, exchanging bondage for liberty. Christian Science assures him that he has the spiritual ability to bring forth good fruit and to express genuine health and happiness here and now, for in infinite Mind there is no evil to be expressed or suppressed. One who would progress in Christian Science must cease passively assenting to the accusations of mortal mind and joyfully identify himself with intelligence, goodness, wisdom, and joy, which are the permanent endowments of spiritual man.

False belief is nothing, and it expresses nothing real. Persistent though evil suggestions may appear to be, they have no effect upon the individual who consistently rejects them and sets himself to entertain and express the true concept of man. The alert Christian Scientist does not stoop to gauge his opportunity, his ability, and his prospects according to chronology or fluctuating human conditions, for he is looking to the invariable power and presence of the divine Principle for his guidance and illumination. So doing, he is not fearful, but faithful; not ungrateful, but grateful; not anxious, but confident. God never ceases to be God, and man never ceases to be man. All that God imparts man expresses, and this expression is exempt from deterioration or interruption.

The student of Christian Science is called upon to discard every belief in drawbacks or setbacks on the ground that the law of God provides for infinite spiritual development and achievement. He is called upon to respect his true individuality too much to accept the material evidence which decries and denies this individuality. He learns to "prove all things; hold fast that which is good." By his allegiance to divine Mind, the student of Christian Science proves with untold joy that throughout eternity the dominion of good is established. He glorifies God by advancing in the straight way of spiritual development. Pursuing his course calmly and confidently, he demonstrates the scientific fact that "allness is the measure of the infinite, and nothing less can express God" (Science and Health, p. 336).

Violet Ker Seymer