Article July 4, 1908 Issue

THE TEST OF SINCERITY

CLARENCE W. CHADWICK.

The mortal who admits that he cannot grasp the spiritual meaning of the Christian Science text-book is not competent to explain what Christian Science is or is not. Spiritual things in all ages must be spiritually understood. The great good that Christian Science is accomplishing in the world is not the result of any intellectual discernment of Truth: it is the result of a higher spiritual understanding of a spiritually operative Principle, which heals disease and sin and regenerates human consciousness.

One of the besetting sins of humanity is an innate disposition to pass judgment upon spiritual things, and to spread broadcast the results of what it terms honest research and investigation. Fortunately for the human race all such efforts are characterized by such flagrant inconsistencies that even the casual thinker is ready to brand them as unreasonable and unjust. The test of one's sincerity in investigating spiritual truth hinges upon his recognition and acceptance of this fact, that the mortal or "carnal mind," so called, must yield up all belief in any assumed ability to grasp spiritual or metaphysical teaching. The disinclination to deny self, to surrender cherished theories, beliefs, and practices, precludes any seeker from arriving at accurate conclusions relative to Christian Science. If he persists in judging according to sense testimony, if he clings to the belief that a so-called finite mind or intelligence can grasp the meaning of infinity or omnipotent Mind, his sincerity has not yet been tested. When, through a purified faith and an exalted hope, he mentally proclaims the supremacy and allness of the one Mind and rejects all belief in any finite mind, he begins to understand the nature and essence of spiritual truth, and to experience the healing effect of right thought. "I don't understand" voices a state of consciousness which cannot and never will understand spiritual truth. That which believes it does not understand, is the very thing that stands between the individual and the recognition of truth. It is the elimination of this thought that tests one's genuine earnestness and sincerity of purpose.

In entering the strait and narrow way of Christian metaphysics there is something to be surrendered, discarded, put out of consciousness, if Christ, Truth, is to be allowed to enter "with healing in his wings." A mistaken condition of thought cannot understand that which is correct; when a mistake is corrected an erroneous thought has been supplanted by right thought. A diseased or sinful condition of mind cannot understand the meaning of health or purity; when disease and sin are healed, both disease and impurity have surrendered to a sense of health and purity. Whatever is wrong must always disappear, and that which is right takes its place. The true seeker for Truth will strive earnestly and prayerfully to find out what there is within himself that obstructs Christ's coming, and when it is found, he will strive just as earnestly to do away with the seeming obstacle, to overcome it. When he learns that it is the material senses, so called, or material beliefs which shut out all spiritual discernment, he will begin to correct these senses by directing them into new and higher channels of thought, and will no longer look to them for information which can come only through a higher or spiritual sense. The scientific denial or correction of sense testimony must and does discriminate between the genuine and the selfish or careless seeker.

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THE TEST OF SINCERITY

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