Editorial October 20, 1906 Issue

PERFECTION ATTAINABLE

Annie M. Knott

The beginner in Christian Science is sometimes at a loss to know how he may reconcile his former views with the ideals presented in its text-book, but he soon learns, and the sooner the better, that in so far as his concepts of being are erroneous, to that extent they are irreconcilable with the truth. Our Leader says that "inverted thoughts and erroneous beliefs must be counterfeits of Truth;" indeed she says that mortals "were counterfeits from the beginning, to be laid aside for the pure reality" (Science and Health, pp. 267, 409). Now, no Christian Scientist desires either to pass or to accept a counterfeit of any kind in the mental realm, any more than in the physical realm, so-called. He has started out with Truth as the basis of all his thinking and acting, because he has learned that divine Principle and His ideas constitute the all of reality. He also sees that all his false concepts must be given up, in order that the divine ideals of health and holiness may be realized by him. To do this quickly and effectively he must, like the virgin's son of whom Isaiah writes, "know to refuse the evil, and choose the good." While Christian Science teaches that all of God's ideas are good, like himself, it never teaches that sin, disease, or death are either good or real, and only a careless or superficial study of our text-book could leave on any student's thought such a mistaken sense of its teachings. After accepting Christian Science, we constantly find ourselves placed where we must choose between the spiritual and the material, the good and the evil, the real and the unreal, and here it should be remembered that unless evil were to put forth some sort of a claim to be real or good it would have no recognition at all. In view of this tendency we need to guard against what Mrs. Eddy calls "false charity" (Science and Health, p. 447), which is only a deceptive counterfeit of the true. It is false charity to claim perfection for mortals. Even the most sincere student of divine Science can only say as did Paul, "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect ... but this one thing I do ... I press toward the mark."

Our text-book makes it very clear that "mortals are not like immortals, created in God's own image;" that they "are a discordant race, and are oft-times false brethren" (Science and Health, pp. 295, 444). Happily, however, it presents the true model,—the perfect man,—and teaches us how we may realize and express this idea and so maintain perpetual harmony. True charity separates all evil—whether sin or sickness—from our concept of man, and maintains the possibility as well as the necessity of each one's reaching the perfect standard of perfect manhood. Any attempt to call that good which is not good must result in disappointment, as it should.

When error presents itself under any guise, whether it be open or insidious, the student is ready to meet and overthrow it, if he is living in obedience to the spirit of our Leader's dedicatory Message, "Choose Ye," published in The Christian Science Journal. July, 1906. Well does she say of such an one, "A Christian Scientist verifies his calling." This we can do only as we reject the evil—knowing its nothingness—and "cleave to that which is good." for thus only can we reach "the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ."

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