Editorial January 12, 1929 Issue

Serenity

Albert F. Gilmore

Those who seek to conform their thinking to the divine develop a mental serenity and stability which has its background in spiritual truth. We learn in Christian Science that the divine Mind, which is God, is stable, serene, unchanging, eternal; and that Mind's idea, or expression, man, is likewise serene and equally poised; and as God's idea, His perfect offspring, man, is not susceptible to the influence of the seeming forces which tend to unsettle the so-called human or mortal man. There can be no doubt as to the value and importance of the mental state which we may term serenity; for it is a permanent quality of the divine Mind, and man as Mind's idea expresses all the qualities, attributes, and conditions of that Mind. Moreover, whatever emanates from God, divine Love, must of necessity bless His perfect offspring, man.

How greatly does mental serenity advantage us! The serenity which comes from a profound conviction that God is, that He is infinite good, omnipotent and omnipresent, constitutes the perfect poise, the mental equilibrium, which is not overturned or thrown out of balance by the seeming assaults of mortal belief. Serenity which results from a consciousness fixed in spiritual truth is the house built on the rock, against which the waves of materiality beat in vain. It is mental stability which can never be overthrown, for its roots are set deep in the truth of spiritual being. Mrs. Eddy speaks of this quality in appealing terms on page 506 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." In commenting on the beautiful passage found in Genesis, "And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day," she writes: "Through divine Science, Spirit, God, unites understanding to eternal harmony. The calm and exalted thought or spiritual apprehension is at peace." The eternal harmony into which discord never enters is the serenity which constitutes perfect peace, perfect equilibrium.

Is this mental habit attainable now? Most assuredly! How? By laying hold of the truth of being; by becoming conscious of the ever-presence of God and of man as His perfect creation. The mental qualities which are the seeming enemies of serenity are the instability and uncertainty which arise from doubt and fear. These are qualities of the so-called human mind. None of them has a divine origin; hence none is real or permanent. To be rid of the thief of our serenity, then, is our mental necessity. And we accomplish this in proportion as we lay off the old, false sense of man as material and grasp the new, the fact that man is spiritual and perfect. These qualities are not, strictly speaking, new; rather do they belong to the infinite and eternal; but they seem new as they first become a part of human experience.

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