Article November 28, 1908 Issue

RISING ABOVE NOTHINGNESS

LEWIS LUDINGTON YOUNG

Isaiah says, "When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him." In a time of temptation this prophecy was fulfilled in a novel way for a student of Christian Science who was striving to prove the nothingness of evil. Notwithstanding the vigorous declarations of the nothingness of error which the student was making, evil was seemingly becoming very real and terrifying, and at the moment when the temptation seemed strongest and the heart weakest, these words of Mrs. Eddy's came to him: "If mortals could grasp these two words all and nothing, this mystery of a God who has no knowledge of sin would disappear, and the eternal, infinite harmony would be fathomed" (No and Yes, p. 26). The student then tried to grasp the meaning of "nothing." He knew how it was defined in the dictionaries, and being a common word he thought he knew what it meant, but found he could not realize its significance in the hour of need. In his perplexity he was prompted to draw a circle representing the figure 0 on a piece of paper lying before him. As he looked at it he noted that it stood for nothing, that there was nothing to it or in it. He then thought to himself that if the figure 1 was placed before the 0 it would stand for 10 and mean something; that as the 0 stood alone it meant nothing. Gradually the realization of the meaning of "nothing" dawned upon him; the seeming reality of error disappeared, and a better understanding of Christian Science was gained.

The meaning of this experience was brought home to him a few days later while reading a biography of Lincoln, in which he is quoted as saying,—

"In the course of my law reading I constantly came upon the word demonstrate. I thought at first that I understood its meaning, but soon became satisfied that I did not. I consulted Webster's dictionary. That told of certain proof, 'proof beyond the probability of a doubt: but I could form no sort of idea what sort of proof that was. I consulted all the dictionaries and books of reference I could find, but with no better results. You might as well have defined blue to a blind man. At last I said, 'Lincoln, you can never make a lawyer if you do not understand what demonstrate means:' and I left my situation in Springfield, went home to my father's house, and staid there until I could give any proposition in the six books of Euclid at sight. I then found out what demonstrate meant, and went back to my law studies."

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