It is the Christian Scientist's joyous privilege, as well as his solemn duty, to obey, and to be protected by, the Rules and By-Laws of the Manual of The Mother Church by Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. One of these, entitled "Alertness to Duty," reads (Art. VIII, Sect. 6): "It shall be the duty of every member of this Church to defend himself daily against aggressive mental suggestion, and not be made to forget nor to neglect his duty to God, to his Leader, and to mankind. By his works he shall be judged,—and justified or condemned."

The demand, then, is for defense, not casual or occasional, not after danger looms or its impact is felt, but systematic daily defense against error. The sequence of obligation is important. Our first duty is to God, our second to our Leader, and our third to mankind. As this order is preserved, the unassailable security of true health, happiness, and useful activity is experienced.

What is aggressive mental suggestion? As understood in Christian Science, it is anything which claims or insinuates that there is a power other than God, good. Then we must daily acknowledge man's immunity from such trespassers as self-depreciation or self-importance, because God alone is creator and to God alone belongs all glory. We are obligated to refuse hospitality to silent whispers of mortal mind, inducing on the one hand indifference or apathy and on the other a personal sense of responsibility or self-righteousness. Each day we should be specific in knowing that no evil, even as veiled innuendoes stimulating small and apparently trifling resentments and vanity, can sully thought or invade man's God-likeness. Aggressive mental suggestion would sometimes roar like a lion, spreading terror and scattering effort; but more often it comes so soundlessly that we need to defend ourselves from imputing its messages to the impulse of our own heart.

It should be emphasized that whatever the erroneous inference—personal, hereditary, medical, ecclesiastical, economic—it has no true life, no vitality, no actual presence, therefore no real force. When one surrenders wholly to God, good, as all-power and all-presence, no reservation remains for faith in wrong methods or fear of worldly policy. Moreover, while aggressive mental suggestion is as devoid of conscious identity as is dust, it is in individual thought that it must be vanquished. Unless one's own belief receives it, it is harmless. It is always a deflection from pure thinking that picks up some general error and seemingly reproduces its inharmony as a microphone amplifies whispers. It is the undisciplined temperamental tendency through which the carnal whisper finds entrance.

And by the same logic every true thought is an opening through which the hosts of heaven pour blessings. Flawless defense consists in the choosing of only pure and perfect mental concepts. Mrs. Eddy plainly states in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 83): "No person can accept another's belief, except it be with the consent of his own belief. If the error which knocks at the door of your own thought originated in another's mind, you are a free moral agent to reject or to accept this error; hence, you are the arbiter of your own fate, and sin is the author of sin."

Our duty to God is to accept the fact that God is our Life. We then trust Him with every desire, learn to be still under His hand. A conscious realization of this never-severed relationship not only is our duty to God, but is sure protection and defense. This was proved in the experience of a young officer during World War II. For many months he had daily, often hourly, clung to the truth of God's beneficent control, with its corollary, that man is always in his right place, as God's reflection. On the eve of the Battle of the Bulge, the choice of two positions was unexpectedly presented: to return to the protected rear in his capacity of special service officer or to go up to the front line. He heard himself reply, "I'll go up front."

Combat fire was terrible beyond description, and the exposed flat terrain afforded not even foxhole protection; but the Scientist persisted mentally with the assertion that since God had placed him all during his life, he was still in his right place; God could not now be absent. When the battle was over, he and his immediate comrades observed that shells had pitted the ground in a circle around them, but not a hair of their heads had been touched. "For I, saith the Lord, will be unto her a wall of fire round about, and will be the glory in the midst of her" (Zech. 2:5). Not where we are, not what others about us think or do, constitutes either danger or protection, but as one "thinketh in his heart, so is he" (Prov. 23:7).

The Church of Christ, Scientist, which our Leader founded, with its publications, Reading Rooms, authorized lectures, philanthropic activities and institutions, registered practitioners, Sunday Schools, and provision for class instruction, constitutes visible evidence of Mrs. Eddy's revelation of Truth, and we at least partially fulfill our debt of love and our duty to her as we unite with The Mother Church and a branch church.

Active participation in branch church work affords protection and defense beyond ability to measure. Countless numbers bear witness to a quickened concept of democracy after joining the Church of Christ, Scientist, to ever-wider horizons of health, joy, and service, and to a constantly deepening understanding of God's unerring direction. Obstacles in individual affairs are overcome through one's demonstrated loyalty to the Manual's instruction that we neither neglect nor forget our duty to the leadership of Mrs. Eddy through her inspired writings and through her Church.

Do we defend ourselves daily against aggressive mental suggestions which would make us forget or neglect our duty to mankind? Sometimes it seems that one must go into the valley of human belief and love right there. Did not the good Samaritan come to the injured man "where he was"? To see another's viewpoint and meet the human need without compromising the lofty spiritual idealism of Christian Science is possible to the pure heart and is a rewarding effort. But the reflection of divine Love alone can do this. Self-righteousness and pride pass by on the other side, envy strikes stealthily, but love openly prepares breakfast on the Galilean shore of every human experience.

Well may we honestly examine ourselves to see if we love only in a degree or up to a certain point. Love is not sincere until every vestige of feeling that somebody owes us something is surrendered. All good is from the Father. Ever aware of his divinely royal sonship, Christ Jesus never chafed at the cruel treatment received from others. He loved. Spiritual love, meeting the human need for the healing of every ill "that flesh is heir to," alone fulfills our duty to mankind.

The work of daily defense is neither mysterious nor arduous. Threefold protection from every aggression of the world, the flesh, and the devil, from sin, disease, and death, rests on threefold love—love of God, love of our Leader, and love of our brother. As self-centered mortal thought yields to the truth that God made all, only the effects of this original good are experienced. God made man upright, complete, joyously incapable of incurring danger or experiencing incompleteness. We do not have to make man perfect, since he already is so; but we do need to recognize this, affirm it, and prove that he is as free from stain as light is from darkness. Light does not lay the already paved mountain highway, but it makes apparent both road and precipice, so that safe travel is assured.

A duty performed without joy is servitude; pleasures divorced from responsibility invite frustration. But Love makes duty a delight, joy obligatory. The duty of daily defense soon becomes spontaneous gladness to the maturing student, and that which was undertaken as a voluntary fast is transmuted into a cheerful feast—a daily spiritual breakfast of Love's preparing.