Article November 7, 1908 Issue

"THE EAR TRIETH WORDS"

ERNEST C. MOSES

Human language at its very best, and as best understood, is indeed but a feeble vehicle for the transmission of the truths of Christian Science to the human consciousness. Mrs. Eddy has often commented on the inadequacy of mere words properly to interpret or convey the spiritual import of divine revelation. In Science and Health (p. 349) she especially refers to the difficulty of expressing "Spiritual conceptions and propositions" through the use of mortal language, and states the way whereby to elucidate the profound meanings of Christian Science. Students who have secured some understanding of this Science of God readily perceive the barrenness of language to measure and record the facts of its unlimited Principle.

For the practical purpose of regenerating material sense, our present understanding of Science must, however, depend in considerable measure on an enlarged understanding of the terms of the English language. For this purpose of human betterment there are systems of logic, rhetoric, and other modes of cultivation in the realms of thought-expression, which are relatively excellent approximations of true intelligence, and are available to the discriminating students of Christian Science. But in advance of and underlying all aids to mental cultivation, an expanding comprehension of the definitions and applications of words is of prime importance to study and demonstration. In fact, it is admitted by all progressive students of the Bible and Science and Health that no compilation dealing with the letter of intelligence is so essential to study and practice as a dictionary of recognized authority and standing.

All languages composed of words and their combinations are the products of the human sense, groping its way under the heavenly impulse upward to Mind, the sole creator, and source of all true intelligence. Such vehicles of thought have been slowly developed and brought into common use by a continual evolution in human circumstances and necessities. In many instances the former meanings of words have been so completely changed that present definitions declare the very opposite of significations common in the use of terms fifty or one hundred years ago. Again, many words are employed to signify two or maybe ten different things, conditions, or actions, and many different words are used to give various discriminating shades of meaning to the same thing or action. Consequently, in Christian Science, in which the infinite Principle of all true intelligence is brought nearer to human comprehension, and in which judgment is laid "to the line," and "rightenousness to the plummet," there is more than ordinary necessity that words of important significance, used in the Scriptural writings and in Science and Health, should be well understood. A good dictionary, therefore, is not only designed to be, but is, an important factor in the upward trend of human intelligence, and it is especially of great value in Bible study, because it assists the student to interpret the varied definitions of any word employed to declare or quality a truth, and thus to secure the exact meaning of any sentence of which the general import may at first seem to be obscure.

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