The train thundered to a stop beside the little station. "Wish me luck," said the boy in the new khaki uniform as he made ready to get aboard. "Wish me luck as I start off into the great unknown."

"I can do more than that," replied his mother. "I can know that there is no 'great unknown' to God; that wherever you are, there God is too; and that 'neither ... things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth,' can separate you from God's unfailing goodness and love."

God's unfailing goodness and love! The Bible abounds in proofs and promises of omnipotent, omnipresent good. Yet from time immemorial men have feared a lack of good, have believed in evil and limitation, in fate or chance, have accepted all too generally injustice and imperfection as their lot. "Just my luck" has ever been a ready reason, or excuse, for both failure, so called, and success.

"Luck," says a modern wise man, "is a good word if you put a 'p' before it." And Emerson, the great American sage, has written: "Shallow men believe in luck. ... Strong men believe in cause and effect." Christian Science teaches that cause and effect belong to God; that God is, indeed, the only cause; that He is wholly good; and that effect, therefore, by its very origin and character must also be good.

Through the ages, however, men have believed in both good and evil as cause and effect. Ancient and modern mythologies and philosophies have had their origin in this erroneous belief. Men have worshiped the stars, the sun, the moon, money, armaments, gods of many kinds. Lucky stones, amulets, beads, and charms have been worn to ward off evil and disease. Even religion, with its dogmas of predestination, everlasting punishment, and resignation to God's will, has been tinged with the satanic belief in fate.

Why has this specter of fate and frustration haunted men through the years? Because they have worshiped more than one God, because they have believed in the reality and power of evil as well as of good, and because since the time of Jesus no adequate or scientific explanation of either was given to mankind until Mary Baker Eddy revealed Christian Science, the practical, provable Science of Christianity.

"Luck," so called, and "fate" are but ornamental names for fear and ignorance, and these are no part of true consciousness, for God is the Mind of man. Evil has no mind, no power, no reality. "It is neither person, place, nor thing, but is simply a belief, an illusion of material sense," writes Mrs. Eddy in the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 71).

God is unchanging divine Principle, eternal Life, infinite good, indestructible Truth. Everything that God makes, and He makes all, is good—"very good," the Scriptures say. God is not, then, the author of evil, of sin and sickness, of poverty and want. If He were, evil would be real, and all the prayers of Christendom, all the skill of material medicine and surgery, all the economic devices of men and governments, all the so-called luck in the world, could not destroy it, for nothing can destroy reality.

Nothing can destroy good, for good is real. Good is ever present, infinite, ever available for each one of us. God's blessings are not bestowed upon certain so-called fortunate individuals to the exclusion of others, nor are they limited to certain places or times. There is no inequality, no injustice, no chance in divine law. "Accidents," the Christian Science textbook states (p. 424), "are unknown to God, or immortal Mind, and we must leave the mortal basis of belief and unite with the one Mind, in order to change the notion of chance to the proper sense of God's unerring direction and thus bring out harmony."

"You're the luckiest person I ever knew," a young Christian Scientist was once told. "Everything breaks just right for you. It doesn't seem fair."

"No," replied the young man thoughtfully, "I'm not lucky. There's no such thing, really, as luck. What you call my lucky breaks are opportunities I've been preparing for, expecting, and utilizing. And opportunity is always knocking at one's door."

Today is big with opportunities for all of us. Let us prepare for them, expect them, utilize them! No adverse circumstance, heredity, or environment controls our destiny. God alone controls and governs the universe, including man. Man is not weak or stupid, afraid or unlovely, subject to chance or fate. Man is the son and heir of God. He is strong because God is his strength. Intelligence is his, and belongs to each one of us, as God's idea. Ability is ours by reflection; it is man's inalienable heritage from his Father-Mother God. Man's individuality is the reflection of the one Person, God, and includes all the lovely qualities of God. "In my Father's house," Jesus assured us, "are many mansions." Here, then, may be found man's true home, the consciousness of divine Love. All this, Christian Science teaches, and study of the Scriptures and of Science and Health shows us how to utilize in daily living these spiritual facts of man's true selfhood.

God's goodness never fails. It is as certain and sure as God Himself. There is no such thing as chance in man's experience, no limitation, no lack. Good is infinite, inexhaustible, eternal, for God is the source of it. Man reflects good, not partially but wholly. He has no selfhood, no existence, no mind, no life apart from good. His real and only business is to reflect good; his destiny is to possess good. This is the law of God, and nothing can interfere with its perfect and complete jurisdiction over man and the universe at all times. Good is because God is—there is no other presence or power.