The traveler who carries a valid passport enters distant countries with confidence. Indeed, he is not permitted to leave his own country without this documentary evidence of his identity.

"Do you have your passports with you? Are they handy? You will need them today." This reminder one morning from the courier of a group caught the attention of a Christian Scientist. Here, she thought, is another country that must be satisfied as to my identity.

Then she remembered that Mary Baker Eddy had employed the idea of passport to advance a pertinent truth. In an article called "Vainglory" she says, referring to Christ Jesus' example (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 270), "Fidelity to his precepts and practice is the only passport to his power; and the pathway of goodness and greatness runs through the modes and methods of God." Surely, here was a passport of great importance to the Christian Scientist, and she asked herself if she had it with her. She was aware that mere travel and living abroad would be vain unless it forwarded her journey from sense to Soul, from a material sense of existence up to the illumined consciousness of being identified as a son of God and at home in God. Moreover, humanity would be truly blessed in proportion to her recognition that God is the only power and that in Him there are no border lines, no divisions.

Paul's thought-provoking statement (Acts 17:28), "In him we live, and move, and have our being," is a basic truth in the teachings of Christian Science. Mrs. Eddy quotes it several times, and when we consider it along with "the scientific statement of being," as given by her in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 468), we are helped to realize that man is eternally good and great and that "the modes and methods of God" must be familiar to him because God is his dwelling place. We must see man as a true brother, with no suspicious distrusts and no misunderstandings, always and forever within the consciousness of Love.

Mrs. Eddy writes (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 22): "God is over all. He alone is our origin, aim, and being. The real man is not of the dust, nor is he ever created through the flesh; for his father and mother are the one Spirit, and his brethren are all the children of one parent, the eternal good." These helpful thoughts point to correct identification whether one is traveling toward the heavenly consciousness at home or abroad.

Saul of Tarsus was not always aware that his residence and citizenship were in God. Keenly alive to the events which were taking place around him, Saul had permitted himself to become antagonistic to the teachings of Jesus. He was a stern religionist, and so he thought he owed it to God to persecute the followers of the Master. Letters of introduction in hand, he started on a journey to Damascus with the fixed intent of arresting any who offended his sense of law and right and bringing them bound to Jerusalem. But God's justice, being more powerful than Saul's human concept of doing Him service, arrested his thought. The voice of the Christ spoke to him. His zeal was turned into channels which were in accord with Principle, God.

In the Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline Epistles we read the full story of Saul's conversion and his subsequent good works. He followed no other pattern than that of the Master. Thus it was that one of the millions of falsely educated humans received the light of Christ, Truth, and through obedience to the vision earned his passport to power. God had provided helpers along the way, but it was an individual experience. So must it ever be. Paul did not, and could not, conceal his identification with the Christ. It shone forth to bless the world for all time. So too must it be with every individual whose thought is arrested, purified, humbled, and made Christlike.

The thought of a pure, brilliant, but delicate little girl, Mary Baker, heard God's voice call "Mary." In "Retrospection and Introspection" (p. 9) she tells us that her answer was, in the words of Samuel. "Speak, Lord; for Thy servant heareth." Her mother had told her to answer in this way because the voice had been heard before. As the years took this little girl into womanhood she listened more and more intently for the directing of God. She was sure that God was good and that good could not sanction evil. Temptations to believe in human frailty, separation, duplicity, loneliness, and sometimes lack of provision tormented her but she overcame them faithfully, as the Master had overcome the temptations in his wilderness experience.

In 1866 she was tempted to believe in the reality of accident and death. Those around her were sure that death was imminent. But God had not deserted her. Turning to her Bible, she read the account of the Master's healing of the palsied man (Matt. 9:2). Understanding illumined the so-called miracle, and she saw its divine naturalness. She was healed.

It would not have been like Mrs. Eddy to rest in the joy of her own healing. She must help others and help them to help themselves. Her pure, receptive thought received the revelation which explained the healing power. We love her for her grasp of the Master's teachings and for her tremendous labor of love in inditing under divine direction the Science of the healing Christ. We love her for the very exercise of that power, for she followed the Master faithfully. Surely her passport, earned through strict fidelity, is valid. Loyal Christian Scientists all over the world are lively witnesses to its validity.

We greatly err if we lazily or with a human sense of insufficiency attempt to borrow the passport of some faithful practitioner. He can lead us to the Christ, but he cannot relieve us of our responsibility. We too must love and heal, so that the power of the healing Christ will never again be lost as it was for so long prior to Mrs. Eddy's discovery. In a challenging paragraph with the marginal heading "Complete emulation" our Leader leaves no room for doubt as to what she considers to be our duty. She says (Science and Health, p. 37): "Hear these imperative commands: 'Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect!' 'Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature!' 'Heal the sick!'"

When through constant affirmative prayer and sincere devotion to the study of the Bible and our Leader's works we truly understand that man is perfect, even as God is perfect, we shall joyously and gratefully claim our passport and go forth with confidence into fields which are "white already to harvest" (John 4:35). The fields may be in the home, school, shop, factory, office, studio, or church— wherever we find a neighbor to love as ourselves. But we shall no longer feel or say, "I am insufficient." We shall rise in true humility to know and say to ourselves: "I can of mine own self do nothing" (John 5:30); "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me" (Phil. 4:13). Gone then will be mere personal effort, and God will be seen to be the only actor. Being All, He is always successful.

The Christian Scientist's spiritual passport bears no record of age, no birth date or birthplace, for no such phenomena identify the man of God's creating. No photograph can be affixed, because God's image and likeness does not appear to the physical senses. He is seen, even as God is seen, through spiritual perception only. The validating seal is divine Science. It is not purchased by material wealth, worldly honor, or display of scholarship. Faithfulness is the only fee acceptable. Continued fidelity will keep it valid throughout eternity.

So let us ask ourselves if we have our passports with us, for we shall need them today.