Why do students of Christian Science sometimes fail to challenge the aggressive mental suggestions of mortal mind which say that they are not sufficiently advanced to make certain demonstrations over evil? In the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel according to St. Luke we read the unequivocal promise (verse 31), "Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine." In order to be ever with his heavenly Father, man must necessarily be so now, this very moment.

Mankind is prone to postpone acceptance of the good that spiritual man rightfully possesses through divine heritage. The counterfeit of the real man, of whom we read in the first chapter of Genesis, is mortal, a false concept of man subject to sin, sickness, limitation, and death. As one realizes that man is actually and forever the spiritual representative of his heavenly Father, His image and likeness, and sees the truth as applied to his own true selfhood, he will no longer postpone laying claim to the good which is man's here and now. No matter how long or how short a time he has been a student of the Science of being, let him steadfastly cling to the fact that his loving Father-Mother God is ever with him, and that by reflection man has all that God gives. Then and then alone will he demonstrate the immediate availability of His power and riches.

So long as erroneous, apathetic thinking can mesmerize us into accepting false claims as annoying but negligible, or too formidable to fight, it has deceived us. Mortal mind would always tempt us to procrastinate in overcoming its false beliefs. However, we are learning through the daily study of Christian Science to recognize and challenge a lie under any and all guises. Like our Way-shower, Christ Jesus, we can say fearlessly to mortal mind, whenever it presents itself, "Thou art a liar and the father of it."

In St. John's account of our Master's dining with Lazarus and his two sisters, Mary and Martha, not long after Jesus had raised Lazarus from the tomb, we read that while the guests were at table Mary anointed Jesus' feet with a costly ointment which was valued at some three hundred pence. Although one of the disciples objected to her using the precious ointment on the Master's feet, Jesus said (John 12:7), "Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this."

The Master's statement is most significant. Did he not discern that Mary's gift betokened a great spiritual awakening, and that she no longer believed in the reality of death, but rather understood in some degree the ever-presence of Life eternal? How could it be otherwise after she had seen her own brother raised from a tomb in which he had lain for four days? Jesus had clearly proved that man is experiencing or expressing the eternality of Life, God, now, rather than at some future time after the resurrection, as Mary's sister, Martha, had thought. Mary's act of reverence acknowledged her acceptance of his vital message to mankind that the death process is not inevitable, but can and must be overcome through the Christ, the spiritual idea of Life and man.

The writer has reason to be deeply grateful for the understanding of the nowness of Life eternal that he has attained, with consequent proofs of the availability of divine protection and strength here and now. While serving as a crew member on a Liberator bomber, he was sent out with the ship on a dangerous mission. The men were told to expect intense antiaircraft fire over the target to be bombed. As on each of his preceding missions, at the take-off from his airdrome in England the writer turned to his Christian Science Hymnal. Singing the hymns gave him a great sense of comfort and quieted the aggressive mental suggestions of fear and danger.

Just before flying over the target he looked out of the window. The entire sky was literally black with enemy antiaircraft fire, and it seemed as if it would be impossible to fly through it without being shot down. Realizing that there was need for immediate protective work, the writer turned to his small Service Edition of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" and read part of Mrs. Eddy's answer to the question, "What is man?" on page 475 through 477. Especially he pondered the opening lines: "Man is not matter; he is not made up of brain, blood, bones, and other material elements. The Scriptures inform us that man is made in the image and likeness of God. Matter is not that likeness." The conviction unfolded to him that since God is indestructible and everlasting Life, and man is His image and likeness, man is now experiencing the omnipotence of indestructible and everlasting Life, wholly apart from the illusion of death and destruction.

This student had often read the story of Jesus' last night in Gethsemane, and how his sweat was as drops of blood while he prayed. For the first time he realized the struggle our Master must have gone through that night in the garden to unsee the false beliefs that seemed so aggressive and real; and he clearly saw that his own acknowledgment of the unreality of the beliefs of death and destruction had to be made at that very instant and not put off until a more convenient time, when he might feel in the mood for such mental work, or when he should be sufficiently advanced metaphysically to handle it with assurance.

He clearly saw and fervidly maintained that he was on a mission of liberation, and that therefore God could and would sustain him. The mission was successfully carried out in spite of the adverse testimony of the senses. Later that evening, while in the barracks, he overheard one of his fellow crew members saying: "I just can't understand it. As we approached the target, it seemed impossible to fly through the flak without being hit; but as we went over the target, there was a path wide enough for our plane to pass safely through the enemy fire."

How meager our efforts to demonstrate truth are apt to be when we are not sorely pressed from all directions! It may even seem helpful at times to be placed right in the midst of trying experiences, for then we are more likely to be "instant in prayer" than to put off our affirmations of man's God-preserved status until a more convenient season. Mrs. Eddy writes on page 196 of Science and Health, "Better the suffering which awakens mortal mind from its fleshly dream, than the false pleasures which tend to perpetuate this dream."

How can one be grateful enough for all the good that Christian Science has brought into his life, and especially for the understanding of St. John's words, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God" (I John 3:2)! Our Leader writes in Science and Health (p. 39): "'Now,' cried the apostle, is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation,'—meaning, not that now men must prepare for a future-world salvation, or safety, but that now is the time in which to experience that salvation in spirit and in life. Now is the time for so-called material pains and material pleasures to pass away, for both are unreal, because impossible in Science."