Circumstances

It is related of Napoleon that once when some one offered "circumstances" as an excuse for failure, he arrogantly replied, "Circumstances! I make circumstances!" The sad sequel to his long–continued bravado is familiar to all. Such is always the tragic end of human will, not always so dramatic in its final desolation, but always desolate, always defeated.

And is man, necessarily a creature of circumstances? Only so far as he essays "to fight the beast with the beast," to defeat the malignity of impersonal error with the weapon of human will–power; only while he persists in his efforts to climb the ladder of a selfish ambition, which always rests on the treacherous quicksands of popularity; only so long as he expects darkness to dispel darkness, hate to destroy hate, discord to scatter discord.

Man learns through Christian Science that the measure of his dominion is the measure of his spiritual altitude. He must be "lifted up" before he can know the absolute nothingness of the threatening circumstances,—of material environments, with their sham conflict of jangling discords.

The limiting circumstances,—poverty, sorrow, sensuality, and despair,—are negatives, and vanish from the consciousness of him who dwells in the realm of the positive. The man who realizes the munificence of God's supply lacks nothing. Sorrow has no tears for him who perceives the truth of joy. The redemptive grace of purity frees the sensualist. Despair can offer no suggestion to the sweet peace and unquestioning faith of him who is on the heights.

Disease, sin, all manner of inharmonious circumstances confronted the Master, but through his clear sense of harmony and love, his conscious at–one–ment with the Father, he banished discordant conditions and freed the captives of sense. His gospel of love and liberty has reached to–day a listening ear, has found utterance again through faithful tongue and pen, and it is teaching man how to establish dominion over self; how, through Truth, to say intelligently, "I make circumstances!"

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There is no Refuge in Obscurity

February 12, 1903

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