Two acquaintances met in New York. One casually asked the other where he was stopping. The latter, seeing his questioner was not really listening for his reply, jocularly answered, "I'm stopping at Madison Square Garden." The unhearing inquirer, hurrying on, called back, "I'll be calling you tomorrow!" (Some distant readers may not know that Madison Square Garden is not a place for paying guests. It is New York's largest convention hall.)

Sometimes we appear to be listening, but we do not hear. Just recently I called the telephone information girl for a number. She gave it clearly enough, but I found myself asking her to repeat it, and I recalled that I had done that before. Why? Because I had not listened. Much time is wasted, and much that is useful is unheard, because we do not listen. This is particularly true when we fail to listen to the voice of God within us, the "still small voice" of Love's promptings and Mind's leadings—the one intelligent, guiding force for man. What is conscience but His voice?

A writer whose writings gave out much inspiration to many people was asked how she could write so often and so helpfully. Her reply was, "I have learned to listen." She had learned, through Christian Science, that Mind, God speaks to man, its manifestation; that this all-intelligent presence is never inarticulate but always articulate, able and willing to impart to man the positive, right ideas which constitute his natural being.

We have the Bible because men and women in earlier centuries were willing to listen to the impartations and revelations of God to man. Moses had to learn to listen before he could lead the Israelites out of Egypt. When, earlier, he slew an Egyptian for mistreating an Israelite, he yielded to a mindless impulse instead of listening to Mind. But after years with Jethro's sheep in the desert, with opportunity for quiet meditation, Moses became humble enough to listen for the voice of the great Shepherd. He heard the call to return to Egypt, and lead out his people. He heard God's counsel as to when and how to act, what to speak, and how to accomplish their deliverance. When baffling problems arose during their years of wandering, he asked, and God answered. Moses received the Commandments because he had learned to listen to the one Lawgiver.

But God speaks not to one, or to a few but to every individual—yes, to you and to me. In the one real creation only God is speaking. His is the only voice there is to hear. As our true individuality, spiritual and perfect, is the individual expression of the Life that is God, so each must individually express the speech of God, which is coincident with this Life. Mind's speaking must be individualized as surely and as continually as Mind's being. Something of this truth was felt by the Gospel writer who wrote of Jesus, "Never man spake like this man."

Fear, animality, or egotism would obscure this fact, and dull our ears so we do not hear, and do not obey. Through the spiritualization of our consciousness, Christian Science destroys, step by step, these negative obstructions. How often mortals plaintively cry: "What shall I do? What course should I take? I am up against a stone wall. There is no way to turn." But this is not so. There is always a way out, and it is not a hidden pathway. God, Mind, Love, knows it well, and will tell you and me whenever we are willing humbly to listen for the "still small voice" within.

A woman had had help from several practitioners but was not healed. She was in the depths of despair. In her darkest hour, she turned with all her heart to God, without reservation, and asked Him to show her His way to health and freedom. Fear and self were put down, and she listened for His voice. Soon, during a Wednesday evening meeting, she felt a definite prompting to go to a practitioner whom she had not before known. She obeyed, and in a fortnight she was free.

A businessman in England had the responsibility of outlining the advertising campaigns for a widely consumed product. His work required originality and variety. For years he was haunted with the fear that some day his ideas would give out, and he would fail and become destitute. His life was robbed of security and happiness by this fear.

Then he found Christian Science. He learned that man does not originate a single thought. Man expresses God's thoughts. The one positive Mind, named God, creates infinite ideas, all of which man exists to reflect and express. They are under Mind's unstoppable impulsion, forever appearing in, and constituting, his life and consciousness. As this simple, scientific fact became realized in some fair measure, the baseless fear dissolved. How could he fear any lack of ideas when he knew the divine, infinite Mind was his Mind, and his only real consciousness was the expression thereof, forever united thereto? His life and work became joyous, fearless, free, for he had learned to listen for the bestowals of Mind. That was his part to do.

In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy says (p. 308), "The Soul-inspired patriarchs heard the voice of Truth, and talked with God as consciously as man talks with man." If man and God communicated so easily and naturally at one point in the calendar of time, has anything happened so to change the fundamental verities that they should not do so today, and every day? It is as natural for Mind to communicate to you and me the ideas which fill our every need, and constitute our true being, as it is natural for Mind to be. To suppose a creation wherein the intelligent cause is sometimes communicative, sometimes mute, and man sometimes hearing, but more times deaf with dullness, is anomalous.

Let us then individually claim the ability God has given to us to silence the clamor of material sense and self, and with open mind hear the angel thoughts with which God exercises His charge over us, to guide, protect, make healthy, happy, and harmonious our entire experience.

Either we are listening to the devilish, tearing-down suggestions of the one evil, mortal mind, or we are listening to the wise, loving, upholding ideas of deific Mind. As through study and prayer the spiritual facts of being become more real to us than the material fable, as pride, egotism, and self-inflated thinking give way to a humble willingness to be what the all-wise creator makes us to be, His son and image, we find ourselves ready and able to hear the voice of Truth and Love. This is the natural force of divine intelligence enabling its representative, man, joyously, successfully, and safely to fill his niche in the human and the divine order after the manner of his Maker's appointing.

The Master's terse command still stands, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear."

Paul Stark Seeley