Article June 11, 1904 Issue

Understanding

HERBERT W. BECK.

There lies in the British Museum a clay tablet which gives the Assyrian account of creation. Briefly it is as follows: Chaos was filled with the powers of darkness and the attempt was made to destroy evil with evil, but the effect was always discouraging, for evil became intensified. The legend further reads that the desire for peace at last compelled the well-doers to turn away from evil or darkness as a reality and to find its opposite in the good powers of Light. The verse ends with the statement that there was rest and peace, and evil could not be found, for good filled creation.

While it matters little that attempts have been made to find a similarity between this and the story in the second and following chapters of Genesis; there does lie within this myth a lesson applicable to each one's experience. More often perhaps than we care to admit, we attempt to destroy evil with evil, and expect that by working in the dark we may destroy darkness. When injured wrongfully, do we always meet hate promptly with love, without a shadow of retaliation? Does kindly and helpful understanding instead of self-righteousness always meet another's misstep or lack of understanding? In short, do we in all things immediately antidote specific evil with Truth? If not, then the lesson on the Assyrian tablet applies to us, and we must renounce the weapons of darkness and utilize the "powers of Light." This we can only do as ignorance gives way to understanding. Ignorance — the seeming power of evil — is but a suppositional vacuum, while understanding is the consciousness and realization of omnipresent good. Herein are found no vacuums but the active, divine, working Principle — Life. Christian Science cannot cause any confusion of good, but it surely has come to confound the ignorance that will not know. This is found true in understanding and not in blind faith or vain and foolish belief in phenomena.

Jesus refused to give signs for a spectacular purpose, but he was and is an example for all who wish to understand and repeat his life-work. He never worked contrary to the laws of God, but always understandingly in fulfilment of them. He knew why God always heard him, and when he raised Lazarus he understood that Life cannot be destroyed. It was only human ignorance of Life that suffered, and from this delusion Lazarus had to be awaked.

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit

Understanding

We'd love to hear from you!

Sign up for unlimited access