Editorial December 30, 1905 Issue

Looking Up, and Ahead

John B. Willis

At a time when many are wont to yield their thought to a retrospection which leads them into the cheerless haunts to regret, they that be wise will turn away from every temptation to self-depreciation or self-excuse, and follow the loving counsel of our Leader, "Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts" (Science and Health, p. 261). To recall past failures so far as to profit to the utmost by their lessons brings gain, but to cling persistently to the remembrance of bygone blunderings is to hold fast to that which surely is not good.

The only gleaning from the fields of failure which is of value, is the wisdom of experience; when, therefore, we have recognized an error for what it is, it were well to leave it to bury its own dead. Mistakes may serve us and others as cautionary guide-posts, but the knowing traveler will not add them to his permanent baggage.

Students of Christian Science find nothing in its teaching to encourage the husbanding of disagreeables. Its fundamental declaration of the allness of God, good, authorizes no gospel save that of optimism, and its strong, glad word to humanity to-day is this, "Joy to the world, the Lord is come."

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