What Constitutes Being Awake to Evil’s Claims

Science and Health declares, “More than profession is requisite for Christian demonstration.”

To be an alert Christian Scientist is not easy. It requires the same quality of earnestness and sacrifice which success in any line of work demands.

First comes consecration, willingness to forsake the ease of material sense for the attainment of the goal. And secondly perseverance, which never ceases working until the goal is attained.

In Christian Science moral as well as physical courage is requisite. Science and Health says, “It requires courage to utter truth.” At times it also requires tremendous so-called physical courage to meet the lies of material sense when it declares pain, suffering and anguish to be real and true. But every Christian Scientist has learned with joy that, when he stands unflinchingly on what he knows is true, the reward is great. He also knows that sooner or later every question must be settled on the side of right, and that regardless of the degree of moral and physical courage required, the present tests do not become lighter to the one who puts off doing the thing he knows is right. The old saying, “Procrastination is the thief of time” is truer perhaps in the practice and demonstration of Christian Science than in any other activity.

The Christian Scientist is actively about his Father’s business. He is wide awake to the fact that evil ever keeps pace with good and he acts accordingly. He is not hurried, but to him each hour is valuable. Because God is constantly unfolding to His own idea the infinity of good, the wise man does not miss this wondrous unfoldment.

If the practice of Christian Science takes a full measure of physical and moral courage, it is worth it. Then give it your all.

Mrs. Eddy expresses exactly what constitutes Christian Science, and what makes a Christian Scientist, in her clear statement in Miscellany, “To live so as to keep human consciousness in constant relation with the divine, the spiritual, and the eternal, is to individualize infinite power; and this is Christian Science.”