WE not unfrequently hear new students of Christian Science express discouragement because some discordant condition does not yield readily to their treatment; but we all need to learn that these problems are the test of our real understanding of Truth, and are as necessary to the attainment of a demonstrable knowledge of Christian Science, as the sums we had to do at school were necessary to a correct and practical knowledge of arithmetic. Through demonstrating the unreality of these conditions we reach a higher understanding of the infinitude of Good, and make just that much progress toward man's rightful dominion. The exactness required of us by divine Principle in working out our deliverance from physical and moral error, through Christian Science, does not vary a hair's breadth any more than it does in mathematics. In the Christian Science text-book, Science and Health, we read, "Divine Principle never pardons our sins or mistakes till they are corrected" (p. 11).

Take an illustration from the work of an accountant. At regular intervals he is required to prove the correctness of his work by means of a trial balance; if his work has been rightly done the books will balance; if they do not, he knows there has been a mistake; there is something about his work that is not true, and that the only way to restore the harmony, or correctness, of his books is to discover and correct the mistake. To complain of the hard work this may entail avails nothing; even the discovery of the troublesome error does not release him; but when he corrects it, it has ceased to exist, and is unreal in the most literal sense of the word.

And so it is with our human life-work; we are frequently called upon to prove the correctness or truthfulness of our work, or thought; and as even one cent on the wrong side will throw the accountant's books out of balance, so what may seem the most trivial of faults, if uncorrected, will sound a note of discord in our sense of life. Jesus referred to this absolute, unyielding exactness required by Truth when he said, "every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment." The apparently petty mistakes in the day's thinking and doing do not disappear with the day, though seemingly forgotten; they remain in the individual's consciousness to bring forth fruit after their kind, until destroyed. The accountant's mistake of one cent may pass unnoticed, but the balancing time will show it up as surely as if it were a thousand dollars, and the standard of mathematical truth requires its correction just as imperatively. Why should we wish the standard of Christian Science, or right living, to be less exact than the science of numbers?

A sense of discord arises in our consciousness, things do not come out right; and we are discomforted, or diseased. In Christian Science this is recognized as the consequent of a mistake, an antecedent error in thought and practice, the following up of something which has not been true. If we are wise we shall seek at once for the hidden cause, the wrongness in our work, that we may correct it. Until the disturbing error is discovered and corrected we are not delivered; but when this is done it has ceased to exist, and is as absolutely unreal as the corrected error in a mathematical problem, and can trouble us no more, unless repeated. Discouragement in this work effectually hinders our success, and is a phase of selfishness, doubt, anxiety, unfaithfulness. Patience and persistence are indispensable elements in all successful work, and no less so in our efforts to gain a living knowledge of the Christ-Truth which delivers us from evil.

No Christian Scientist will deny that, to the sense which clings to material selfhood, the way in Christian Science is toilsome and difficult; but this work needs to be done, it cannot forever be avoided. The divine compulsion of the fact of Good, supreme and omnipotent, will ultimately lead every mortal to relinquish the illusion of evil and seek the way to God. Though we often fail in reaching the object of our desire, the imperative need of salvation should impel us to greater diligence and more perfect work. Discouragement would be a confession of indolence; the folly of expecting to reap a harvest we have not sown.

The Christianly Scientific healing of sin and disease is not the result of human will or thought suggestions, nor can it be accomplished apart from mental and moral rectitude. A wicked man may work a problem in mathematics correctly, or he may through the sin of hypnotism lull a sufferer's thought for a time into deeper delusion; but he cannot demonstrate Christian Science, for it is the knowledge of Good, and only a good man can understand and practise it. The human mind must be purified to reflect the Christ-Mind through which alone it can reach the demonstration of Christian healing.

If our efforts to demonstrate Christian Science in any case are not successful, we know the causative error has not been corrected, hence not destroyed. Cain was discouraged because his offering was rejected, and made his complaint before the Lord, as so many have done since; but he was shown that his work was not accepted because his thought was not true toward God. "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door." Discouragement under such conditions is dishonesty, for it covets the possession of that which has not been earned.

Christian Science treatment is not a formula, or a magic charm, which does its work in some mysterious way independent of our state of heart; it is living, intelligent prayer, which actively recognizes man's unity with God as the divine reflection, and is satisfied. In the letter alone this prayer is as dead as the vainest heathen repetition. Sincere and faithful treatment will surely discover for us the errors uncorrected, for the abiding desire to be no other than God made us, will reveal whatever in us is not Christlike; but it will be our task to make the needed reformations. Apparent failure should stimulate us to more constant effort in bringing every thought "to the obedience of Christ." Discouragement because of our small reward is either our spiritual idleness (lack of prayer), or the love of self (sensuality).

If we think we can go on indulging in temper, jealousy, bitterness, unkindness, gossip, and kindred errors, and when trouble appears that we can simply treat the discomfort away, we shall be humbled, for this would be to make a mere charm of that form of prayer the most exalted the world has yet received. Reformation alone can complete our pardon, for "The way to escape the misery of sin is to cease sinning" (Science and Health, p. 327). Discouragement in such a case must be the love of sin not yet quenched.

We must climb to get above the clouds; to whine discouragingly in the valley is to waste golden opportunities, and prolong the period of storm and tempest. Let us thank God that we can climb higher daily, though it may seem a long, dark, and weary way before the clouds are left quite behind; but our dear Leader in this new-old faith in God, who has gone the rugged road before us; says in Science and Health, "the angels of His presence . . . are our guardians in the gloom" (p. 174), and we should rejoice in the assurance.

The recognition of Truth which will remove every error from our experience is not reached in a day or a year, but some time even this will be ours. Discouragement in this progress only weakens our ability when we need to be strong for the pulling down of the strongholds of fear and sin. It is indeed a glorious thing to know that we can gain on earth that knowledge of God and His Son which is eternal life; that nothing, absolutely nothing, outside of self can hinder our obedience to Truth. With an intelligent, unfaltering faith in God as omnipresent Love, we will look ever to the ultimate goal of our labors rather than to the imperfect things of to-day, when we only see through a glass darkly. The encountering and overcoming of evil is inevitable until that which is perfect is come; and until then let us remember that "The glory of human life is in overcoming sickness, sin, and death" (No and Yes).

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