Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.djvu/499

Rh The world must grow to the understanding of Christianity. If good enough to drink Christ's cup of earthly sorrows, we shall endure them. Until we are thus divinely qualified, and willing to drink his cup, millions of vain repetitions will never pour into prayer the unction of Spirit, in demonstration of power and “with signs following.” Christian Science reveals the necessity of overcoming the world, the flesh, and the evil, and helping to destroy them, as they would destroy us.

One of the forms of worship in Thibet is to carry a praying-machine through the streets, and stop at the doors to earn a penny by grinding out a prayer, as our street Italians grind tunes from barrel-organs; whereas civilization pays for prayers by the clergy, in lofty edifices.

Experience should teach us that we do not always receive the good we ask for in audible prayer. There is some misapprehension of the source and means of all goodness and blessedness, or we should certainly receive what we ask for. The Scriptures say: “Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.”

To cause suffering, as the result of sin, is the divine method of destroying it. Every supposed pleasure of personal sense will furnish more than its equivalent in pain, until the belief in material life and intelligence is destroyed. To reach heaven, the harmony of being, we should understand the Divine Principle of Being, which destroys the sinning sense.

Seeking is not sufficient. It is striving that enables us to enter. Spiritual attainments open the door to a higher understanding of the Divine Life.