The professor paced up and down for a moment without answering. He had just explained to a student the very promising results of an extensive vocational test she had taken. But the student had greeted the professor's deductions with dismay instead of elation. "How can I possibly embark upon any one of those breathtaking careers you recommend," she had blurted out, "without a conviction that it is the right one for me? I haven't a clue yet what life is all about anyway—and not a shred of self-confidence! Before I can decide to take up one of those careers, I must first gain a modicum of confidence and conviction. Please tell me how!"

The professor returned to his desk and shook his head regretfully. "I'm afraid I can't. You'll have to find out for yourself."

Lack of confidence. Lack of conviction as to the purpose of life. How often one or the other lies back of the confused or brash behavior of students one knows, making them feel isolated and unhappy even when they are with the crowd! Unless firmly tackled, such uncertainties can prove responsible for a secret, deep-rooted sense of failure later on.

The genuine regret of the professor at his own inability to help spurred the student on in her search for some sound basis for confidence and conviction. With this in view she left home, took some intensive training, and landed a job so exacting that it threatened her last vestige of self-assurance. But as the Bible says, "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." ^{l Cor. 10:13;}

At this critical time, Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy came into the student's hands. The Science of being it revealed so completely cut across most of her own thinking and the medicopsychological theories surrounding her job that at first it did not make for easy reading. But right away Christian Science began to illumine favorite Bible verses to which she found herself clinging to survive the impact of the forceful personalities of her employers and the hectic demands of her work.

After one particularly shattering day, all the way back across the park to her digs, she kept repeating desperately, "For in him we live, and move, and have our being;... for we are also his offspring." ^{Acts 17:28;} Suddenly she was stopped in her tracks by an extraordinary question: "When will you stop sitting in your self-made coffin, nailing down the lid?" As she paused in astonishment, the analogy came clear. "First you accept this wrong concept of yourself as a weak character. Then at the earliest opportunity you act up to it. You present other people with a picture of abject timidity and weakness. They react by bullying. And then you say to yourself, 'It is true—I must be weak or they wouldn't treat me like that!'— and wham!—another nail goes into the lid. Isn't it about time you stopped nailing yourself in? Someday you'll have to break out and the only way is to reject that false concept of yourself. Why not now?"

And the "now" of another favorite verse suddenly stood out: "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." ^{Rom. 8:1, 2;} No weakness, no condemnation. She couldn't entirely grasp it, but that night she fell asleep still marveling.

In the early hours she was awakened by another angel thought. "You're not weak, because God never made you weak. God Himself would have to be weak before His offspring could be weak." All the way to work this unbelievably wonderful fact went with her. Throughout the day it remained, the calm at the heart of the storm, while one serious allegation after another was hurled at her. By late afternoon, out of her inner stillness came a simple query, all that was needed to clear her completely of all blame before her employers. It was a very different person who returned to her digs that evening. The answer to her long quest had come. She had found a reliable basis for confidence, something to build on.

Mrs. Eddy says, "Christ presents the indestructible man, whom Spirit creates, constitutes, and governs." ^{Science and Health, p. 316} Christian Science reveals that omnipotent Spirit, divine Mind, creates no failures, is not weak or ineffective, permits no mistakes. It does not matter how long one may have condemned himself as a failure or a weakling or how much evidence this false accusation may have accumulated to substantiate its claim. The moment the truth of man's real spiritual identity and of his inseparable relation to God as His reflection is accepted to some degree and acted upon, at that moment one begins to awaken from the self-imposed, mesmeric mortal nightmare.

Mrs. Eddy says in Pulpit and Press, "You have simply to preserve a scientific, positive sense of unity with your divine source, and daily demonstrate this," and further on, "Reflect this Life, and with it cometh the full power of being." ^{Pul., p. 4;}

Once an individual begins in a measure to "reflect this Life," to "walk... after the Spirit," his purpose in life is no longer uncertain. He exists to express, to glorify, the divine Principle of his being; to demonstrate the kingdom of God, good, on earth. If a great oak tree had to puzzle out where or how to place each single root and branch and twig, it would probably get into such a tangle that it would topple over—if it could manage to start growing at all. But it just reaches up for light and air and down for moisture and nourishment; its natural grandeur, symmetry, and beauty emerge effortlessly.

In much the same way, an individual who accepts the reality of man's spiritual identity and lives to the glory of his Maker by expressing his God-given qualities and abilities in obedience to spiritual law finds these Christly attributes taking over and determining the outward course of his human experience far more wonderfully than he could himself have devised.

In a letter to a branch church Mrs. Eddy writes: "As an active portion of one stupendous whole, goodness identifies man with universal good. Thus may each member of this church rise above the oft-repeated inquiry, What am I? to the scientific response: I am able to impart truth, health, and happiness, and this is my rock of salvation and my reason for existing." ^{The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 165.} These words come with all the authority of one who proved their truth herself in a long and triumphant life of compassionate service to mankind. They constitute a sound basis upon which to establish individual confidence and conviction.