Editorial May 27, 1905 Issue

Divine Deliverance

Annie M. Knott

In a recent issue of the Optimist, a paper published in the State prison at Jackson, Michigan, it is said that a prisoner, while attempting to escape, fell from the sixth story to the ground, striking projections several times in his descent. It also says that "He had not been able to lie down for months previous, but the jar of the fall cured him of heart disease." The article closes with the trenchant advice, "Come here and jump off the roof if you have heart trouble." This was certainly a most unusual occurrence, but it is probable that many who heard of it would dismiss it from thought as simply a fortunate happening for the one who had the experience. There is, however, a hint of something else in the advice jestingly given to others.

This occurrence was a marked instance in which a greater fear overcomes a lesser, and it furnishes another proof of the unreality of disease. It is undeniable that disease has no intelligence to take possession of the human body, though no one ever disputed its authority to do so until Mrs. Eddy laid bare its false claims, by declaring in Science and Health that God, the only creator, never made disease or sin. Since her discovery of the Science of being a great change has taken place in human opinion, so that the mental origin of disease is now very generally admitted. It is also conceded by the most thoughtful physicians that any shock may produce very startling results, either for good or ill, according to the predominating sense of the patient.

While this may be admitted by Christian Scientists, it is at best only a partial explanation, for a shock is merely a negative condition. It cannot contribute anything which is positive or real, hence the belief that it can either help or hurt any one is based upon error. In the awful fear of immediate and certain death which would be experienced in falling from a great height, the lesser fear of possible death from heart trouble might vanish, never to return, but this would not explain deliverance from the effects of the fall. It is, however, more than probable that in a moment of extremity, thought would go out in vehement appeal to God, even if His aid had long been unsought, and no prayer to the infinite Father is ever in vain. Though the one delivered from disease or from deadly peril may not understand how he is delivered, the law of God, good, is ceaselessly and universally operative, else it were ill for mankind. "I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed." In these words of the prophet we learn of the true source of security,—alas, that this should be so little understood! Even a momentary sense of truth may do wonders in removing a sense of danger, however manifested, but unless Truth be understood and Truth's law obeyed there is likelihood of retrogression, and of continued bondage to errors even more obstinate than that which was overcome.

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