Article May 11, 1907 Issue

THE CORRECTION OF MISTAKES

SAMUEL GREENWOOD

Christian Science is the most simple and practical teaching which engages the attention of mankind, although to those of opposite view it may seem at first sight to be vague and visionary, if not impossible. Goodness and love are elemental qualities of being, without which even the human sense of existence would be a blank, and yet to the purely sensuous thought these essentials of true manhood are as mere abstractions. In like manner the human mind, looking upon all things as material, may regard Christian Science as mystical and impracticable in this present world; whereas this teaching so clears the thought that mortals may perceive and appropriate the truth of man's spiritual being while yet sojourning in the flesh. In its operation and effect Christian Science is as simple and potent as the action and influence of goodness and love on human character and conduct. The importance of gaining an understanding of its teaching is commensurate not only with the splendor of its promise and the large measure of their fulfilment, but with mankind's desperate need.

Christian Science practice has no alliance or kinship with the occultism of the human mind, nor with any of its hypnotic or suggestive mental methods. In simple phrase it is the reformation of wrong ideals, the correction of mistakes, the rearrangement of thought to conform to the acceptance of the Divine supremacy and of man's spiritual perfection in the likeness of God. Any seeming difficulty in understanding this process lies wholly with mortals' unwillingness to learn and be governed by these truths. The threshold of the understanding and demonstration of Christian Science is the desire and readiness to give up the delusions of evil for the reality and permanence of good, the human material ideal for the spiritual Christ-ideal, with all that this implies. When the heart is glad to lay upon the altar all that would oppose or subdue the spiritual nature of man, the Science of Christianity is easily learned.

On the plane of human experience nothing is simpler or of more natural performance than the reversal of an exposed falsehood, the correction of an error, and the reordering of one's affairs in harmony with discovered truth. This is not regarded as impracticable, nor does any one question the effectiveness of the change resulting therefrom. The first thing one usually does, upon learning that he has been deceived in any course, is to seek the truth and adjust his thought and conduct to it, no longer considering his former belief true or real. He applies the truth, discovered by himself or another, to what had been falsely believed, and the result corresponds to the corrected belief. This is universally considered to be the natural and right thing to do in the ordinary affairs of life, then why should the same method be looked upon askance when used in Christian Science for the reclamation of the sick and the sinner from the false state into which their erroneous beliefs have led them.

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