Blot and wipe

Ret 86 To energize wholesome spiritual  warfare, to rebuke vainglory, to offset boastful emptiness, to crown patient toil, and rejoice in the spirit and power of Christian Science, we must ourselves be true. There is but one way of doing good, and that is to do it! There is but one way of being good, and that is to be good! Art thou still unacquainted with thyself? Then be introduced to this self.

"Know thyself!" as said the classic Grecian motto. Note well the falsity of this mortal self! Behold its vileness, and remember this poverty-stricken "stranger that is within thy gates." Cleanse every stain from this wanderer's soiled garments, wipe the dust from his feet and the tears from his eyes, that you may behold the real man, the fellow-saint of a holy household.

We must resign with good grace what we are denied, and press on with what we are, for we cannot do more than we are nor understand what is not ripening in us. To do good to all because we love all, and to use in God's service the one talent that we all have, is our only means of adding to that talent and the best way to silence a deep discontent with our shortcomings.

A little more grace, a motive made pure, a few truths tenderly told, a heart softened, a character subdued, a life consecrated, would restore the right action of the mental mechanism, and make manifest the movement of body and soul in accord with God.Instead of relying on the Principle of all that really exists, — to govern His own creation, — self-conceit, ignorance, and pride would regulate God's action. Experience shows that humility is the first step in Christian Science, wherein all is controlled, not by man or laws material, but by wisdom, Truth, and Love.

To live and let live, without clamor for distinction or recognition; to wait on divine Love; to write truth first on the tablet of one's own heart, — this is the sanity and perfection of living, and my human ideal.

Self-renunciation of all that constitutes a so-called material man, and the acknowledgment and achievement of his spiritual identity as the child of God, is Science that opens the very flood-gates of heaven; whence good flows into every avenue of being, cleansing mortals of all uncleanness, destroying all suffering, and demonstrating the true image and likeness. There is no other way under heaven whereby we can be saved, and man be clothed with might, majesty, and immortality.

Clothed, and in its right Mind, man's individuality is sinless, deathless, harmonious, eternal. His materiality, clad in a false mentality, wages feeble fight with his individuality, — his physical senses with his spiritual senses. The latter move in God's grooves of Science: the former revolve in their own orbits, and must stand the friction of false selfhood until self-destroyed.

Divine Love is our hope, strength, and shield. We have nothing to fear when Love is at the helm of thought, but everything to enjoy on earth and in heaven.

Never ask for tomorrow: it is enough that divine Love is an ever-present help; and if you wait, never doubting, you will have all you need every moment. What a glorious inheritance is given to us through the understanding of omnipresent Love! More we cannot ask: more we do not want: more we cannot have. This sweet assurance is the "Peace, be still" to all human fears, to suffering of every sort.

16-17 This is how we’ve come to understand and experience love: Christ sacrificed his life for us. ... 18-20 My dear children, let’s not just talk about love; let’s practice real love. This is the only way we’ll know we’re living truly, living in God’s reality. It’s also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves.  21-24 And friends, once that’s taken care of and we’re no longer accusing or condemning ourselves, we’re bold and free before God! ... As we keep his commands, we live deeply and surely in him, and he lives in us. And this is how we experience his deep and abiding presence in us: by the Spirit he gave us.

But, as one grows into the manhood or womanhood of Christianity, one finds so much lacking, and so very much requisite to become wholly Christlike, that one saith: The Principle of Christianity is infinite: it is indeed God; and this infinite Principle hath infinite claims on man, and these claims are divine, not human; and man's ability to meet them is from God; for, being His likeness and image, man must reflect the full dominion of Spirit — even its supremacy over sin, sickness, and death.

God could never impart an element of evil, and man possesses nothing which he has not derived from God. How then has man a basis for wrong-doing? Whence does he obtain the propensity or power to do evil? Has Spirit resigned to matter the government of the universe? The Scriptures declare that God condemned this lie as to man's origin and character by condemning its symbol, the serpent, to grovel beneath all the beasts of the field. It is false to say that Truth and error commingle in creation.

If God is the Principle of man (and He is), man is the idea of God; and this idea cannot fail to express the exact nature of its Principle, — any more than goodness, to present the quality of good. Human hypotheses are always human vagaries, formulated views antagonistic to the divine order and the nature of Deity. All these mortal beliefs will be purged and dissolved in the crucible of Truth, and the places once knowing them will know them no more forever, having been swept clean by the winds of history. The grand verities of Science will sift the chaff from the wheat, until it is clear to human comprehension that man was, and is, God's perfect likeness, that reflects all whereby we can know God. In Him we live, move, and have being. Man's origin and existence being in Him, man is the ultimatum of perfection, and by no means the medium of imperfection. Immortal man is the eternal idea of Truth, that cannot lapse into a mortal belief or error concerning himself and his origin: he cannot get out of the focal distance of infinity. If God is upright and eternal, man as His likeness is erect in goodness and perpetual in Life, Truth, and Love. If the great cause is perfect, its effect is perfect also; and cause and effect in Science are immutable and immortal. A mortal who is sinning, sick, and dying, is not immortal man; and never was, and never can be, God's image and likeness, the true ideal of immortal man's divine Principle. The spiritual man is that perfect and unfallen likeness, coexistent and coeternal with God. "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."