Under the marginal topic "Our footsteps heavenward," Mary Baker Eddy writes in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 426): "The discoverer of Christian Science finds the path less difficult when she has the high goal always before her thoughts, than when she counts her footsteps in endeavoring to reach it. When the destination is desirable, expectation speeds our progress."

What is the high goal to be kept foremost in our thoughts? Truly it is the establishment of God's kingdom in the heart of mankind—the full understanding of the Father-Mother God and the brotherhood of man, the demonstration of eternal Life. This high goal is clearly held before our view in our association meetings. Attending these meetings each year, in accordance with Mrs. Eddy's directions in the Manual of The Mother Church (see Art. XXVI, Sect. 6), students of Christian Science receive a clearer, fuller vision of "the high goal" and go forth to find during the ensuing months "the path less difficult."

The members of an association, assembled in their meeting, should exercise their right to be on the mount of revelation. Here the vision of the new heaven and the new earth is opened in glorious splendor. In this renewal of the high intents and motives of Christian living, whatever of selfish aims or desires has been obscuring the students' goal drops away, and they can appreciate in further degree what their beloved Leader means when she writes (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 136): "The eternal and infinite, already brought to your earnest consideration, so grow upon my vision that I cannot feel justified in turning aside for one hour from contemplation of them and of the faith unfeigned."

How gratefully should we cherish our association day! For surely it can bring us progress in clear thinking. These meetings serve to strengthen our hold on the eternal truths of being. As the result of clearer, fuller views of God's omnipotence and omnipresence, the student attains greater spirituality. A purer concept of man as God's idea, image and likeness, should result in more instantaneous healings. The true purpose of a Christian Scientist is to help establish God's will "in earth, as it is in heaven."

The constant prayer of the humble heart is to let God be exalted. Our association meetings serve to protect the vision of a better life from defilement by the mists of mortal mind, and thus help us to see more clearly the guiding light on the upward way. Association meetings help to awaken us further from the Adam-dream of pleasure and pain in matter to the holy consciousness that we live in Spirit.

Bringing the fruits of their understanding to the feast of Love, the students of an association sit down together with grateful hearts for the feast provided, opening the way for further service and abundant fruitage. They are strengthened in their conviction that Christian Science heals, and that the power of God is adequate to cure mankind of every ill.

In the twenty-first chapter of St. John there is recorded in beautiful simplicity the account of Jesus' meeting with his disciples on the shore of the sea of Tiberias. How patient was Jesus with the disciples who had reverted to their former work! Turning aside from the vision of spiritual activity which had been given to them by their great Teacher, they had fallen back to the belief in matter as the source of supply. To his question, "Children, have ye any meat?" they were forced to answer in the negative. He said to them then, "Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find." With these words he brought forcibly to their consideration their high calling as "fishers of men." So exalting was the vision of the eternal Christ, Truth, gained at the morning meal, that thereafter they held themselves true to the noble life purpose to which their Master had called them.

Today, students of Christian Science who have loyally availed themselves of their Leader's provision for class instruction are grateful for their association meetings, which bring them face to face with that stirring question ringing down through the centuries, "Children, have ye any meat?" As the association meeting draws near each year, this question should serve as a challenge to each of us in our preparation for the meeting. And on page 330 of "Miscellaneous Writings" Mrs. Eddy advises, "It is good to talk with our past hours, and learn what report they bear, and how they might have reported more spiritual growth." A period of honest and earnest self-examination preceding our association meetings helps us more humbly to seek the vision of the Christ, Truth, which will lift us to higher joys and nobler aims.

With the use of the Concordances we can find in our Leader's writings many inspiring statements concerning the true Christian Scientist. Do not our association meetings fulfill their purpose as they cause us to "search and try our ways," that we may discover whether our lives proclaim us worthy of this new name?

If, like the disciples, our nets are empty—that is, if demonstrations have not followed the greater unfoldment of Truth—it is well to ponder the cause; if our nets are only partially full, or almost empty, we can go forth resolved to forsake vain efforts in the darkness of material thinking, to cast our nets on the right side in the clear light of Truth, and thus to prosper the Cause dearest to our hearts.

The Christ, Truth, speaks to us in the holy hours of our association meetings, and with joy we answer in words from a hymn in the Christian Science Hymnal (No. 185):