Article November 27, 1909 Issue

"THE FOUNTAIN OF LIVING WATERS"

VIOLET KER SEYMER.

The straight and narrow way referred to in Scripture is a mental pathway, and Christian Scientists are endeavoring to tread it by abiding in right thinking. They are sometimes looked upon as narrow-minded by those whose broadmindedness consists in indiscriminate study pursued on the ground that "there's good in everything." Although there is gold in a mine, there is dross as well, and the one to whom pure gold has been presented rarely continues to delve for himself into the dross. Those individuals whose search after truth has been impelled by the "divine discontent" referred to in poetry, call forth one's respect, and their reward is sure.

The Christian Scientist, however, convinced by proofs mental, moral, and physical of the truth of what he is studying, has probably abandoned the random following of fiction or philosophy. His aim in reading is twofold: it is to banish false beliefs and to replace them with true and inspired ideas emanating from the one Mind. Knowing that as a man "thinketh in his heart, so is he," the student of Christian Science is careful not to take into his consciousness such thought as later on will have to be denied and cast out as untrue, materialistic, fated to bring forth fruit after its kind. His aim in reading is to learn what real being is, and to unlearn everything else. Does he want to add to his already ample stock of erroneous thoughts? To do so, would be scarcely more sensible than for a housewife deliberately to bring into the room which she desires to sweep clean, relays of dust and debris. Knowing that only the pure in heart can see God, can perceive reality in all its primal beauty, the student seeks to clear his mental vision of all that is unlike good, of all that is untrue, and to arrive at the reflection of pure Mind by the elimination of wrong thoughts, rather than by their accumulation.

As a general rule, individuals peruse a medley of literature which contradicts itself and confuses the reader in the measure in which it is itself confused. Others study one subject assiduously for a time, then grow weary of it, because that theory fails them in an hour of actual need; so they turn again and again, moving in a mortal circle and finding no outlet into that spiritual reality of which they are in search. These ways of being broad-minded are apt to end in a disheartened sense that all is vanity, or else they culminate in a fallacious hope that death turns the key into heaven; but Christian Scientists learn that the way to heaven is paved for us through right thinking, and, since the human mind does not hold within itself the knowledge of salvation, mortals must needs look for redemption to that Mind which was made manifest in the words and works of Christ Jesus. Reality is not revealed through natural science, philosophy, creed, or dogma. To the spiritual minded it is evident that reality is wholly spiritual, and so the author of Science and Health echoes St. Paul's humility when he said, "My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power."

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