Article August 20, 1910 Issue

"I WILL BE WITH HIM IN TROUBLE."

SAMUEL GREENWOOD.

The cause of Christian Science has prospered because of its fidelity to the divine verities, namely, the omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience of God. Its unqualified acceptance of the teaching of God's infinitude is, perhaps, its most distinguishing feature, for it alone among religious organizations has held to the all–power and all–presence of God in the face of material evidence to the contrary; and its rich reward has been to bear healing to the sick, joy to the sorrowing, and freedom to the sin–enslaved. Christian Science is in truth, to use Mrs. Eddy's words, "the revelation of Immanuel, 'God with us,'—the sovereign ever–presence, delivering the children of men from every ill 'that flesh is heir to'" (Science and Health, p. 107), which recalls the words of the 91st Psalm: "I will be with him in trouble: I will deliver him."

God's presence with men in time of trouble, as promised throughout the Scriptures, is evidently not for the purpose of giving them strength to bear it, but for the purpose of delivering them. One may endeavor to be patient in distress, believing it to be God–sent, but the heart's desire is for relief rather than endurance of the ill, and Jesus' healing work proved that the Father's will for mankind is life, health, and holiness, not their resignation to the beliefs of sin, disease, and death. Overcoming evil, not submitting to it, is the Christian's duty and privilege; it is the way the Master pointed out and the way in which he walked. Indeed, it is the experience of Christian Scientists that their troubles disappear to the extent that God's presence is realized.

It is a lamentable fact that the teaching of God's presence has brought little consolation to suffering mortals, because they have also been taught that their troubles were either divinely procured or permitted; and, believing thus, it is but natural they should not look to God for help. What comfort, to one struggling in deep water, would be the presence on the shore of the one who had either thrust him in, or was coldly permitting him to drown? To believe that God, by whom "all things were made," takes account of evil, and allows it reality and power, is to make Him the author of all the misery of earth and hell. But the infinite consciousness of God, or good, has never been touched by the mortal illusion of evil, otherwise one's realization of God's presence would not prove a protection from that illusion.

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