Article August 15, 1908 Issue

KEEPING SILENCE BEFORE GOD

CLARENCE W. CHADWICK

The mission of Christian Science is to silence material belief and will-power, and to prove thereby "the unlabored motion of the divine energy in healing the sick" (Science and Health, p. 445). When its divine purpose has been fulfilled, "the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." How this idealistic condition shall ever be realized, is a question of vital moment to every human being. A prayerful study of the Christian Science text-book in connection with the Bible will reveal the answer. In a word, it is the silencing of everything which "worketh abomination, or maketh a lie," the overcoming of all that is unlike God, good. The prophet Habakkuk says, "The Lord is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him;" and the very first step in this great work which confronts the sons of men is to cease thinking evil.

The would-be follower of Christ who imagines that he can overcome evil while thinking that it has God-sanctioned power, presence, and reality, will sooner or later see the folly of trying to extirpate something whose existence and reality he does not question. In Christian Science he learns that wisdom does not warn him against evil, as if it were something, but against thinking or believing in evil. If he is truly sincere and honest in his desire to "know the truth," he gladly makes use of this all-important fact and begins to acknowledge, with at least some degree of enlightenment, the Biblical teaching that God, good, is All-in-all. While believing in evil he had utterly failed to comprehend the significance of such teaching; now it appears to him in a new light, and much to his surprise he finds that he can make practical application of his newly acquired understanding of God in the healing of disease, and he very naturally exclaims, "How simple it is; why did I not see it before?" Why do not thousands of professed Christians understand Christian Science instead of ignoring it? Because they insist upon believing that there is a real opposite to God, endowed with power to defeat the divine purpose, and because they do not go far enough to silence their unbelief by applying the truth of God's allness to the treatment of moral and physical disease,—a test which Jesus referred to as his sole proof that he was preaching the gospel, or "godspell," to the world.

We are told in Revelation that "the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." The Christian Scientist believes this statement, and true to his highest sense of truth, he knows that this declaration of the omnipotence and omnipresence of God, good, gives him absolute authority to silence or deny the belief in any ruling evil power or influence. Since good reigns supreme, he knows that it is the will of God that he cease ot admit the temptation of weakness, weariness, pain, disease, and sin; and by resisting these evil suggestions, their effects upon the body are canceled, a sense of strength, peace, and joy takes possession of human consciousness, and thereby he proves that good is all and evil a negation. There is nothing miraculous about this work, nothing to shock the most orthodox Christian, if he would only be honest enough to put the rule to practical test. He will invariably tell you that it is desirable to be pure in thought, and that he of course believes in the omnipotence of God; but instead of admitting that he does not understand the application of truth to the cure of disease, he is more liable to remark that he does not believe it can be done. What hinders this individual from believing and knowing that it can be done? Simply his belief in evil, which means unbelief in the truth.

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