Article April 17, 1909 Issue

PUTTING OFF THE "OLD MAN."

VIOLET KER SEYMER.

Prior to our study of Christian Science, most of us attempted to contend with and to reform the "old man," as the Scriptures term the mortal concept. Perhaps we were painfully aware of shortcomings in the flesh, of the weight of heredity, and we endeavored to make ourselves over again. If the struggle oftentimes seemed bitter and fruitless, it was because we were not working along sufficiently spiritual lines. Jesus said to Nicodemus that he must be "born again;" viz., that he must see man as a perfect and spiritual being, and not as an imperfect and mortal concept. Christian Science has taught us two great facts: firstly that the eternal likeness of God has never fallen to the level of mortality, and secondly that mortals "never had a perfect state of being, which may subsequently be regained" (Science and Health, p. 476). Christian Science enables us to see the nothingness of evil, while the truth becomes apparent to us; it likewise causes the error to be self-seen. Thus Christian Science brings hope and regeneration to the veriest sinner and to the most hopeless sufferer. In the ratio in which spiritual reality is unfolding before us, material falsity is receding, and those individuals who are striving to put off the old sense of man and cleave to the true one will find that a sense of peace and life is replacing their former sense of discord and death.

Suppose for a moment that a Christian Science practitioner were to embark upon a case, believing the patient to be a child of God upon whom the blight of sickness or sin has fallen, and that he then called upon God to heal His own sick or sinful image: would not this be asking amiss? Humanity has been praying in this way for centuries, and losing heart because God did not answer. But suppose the Scientist should strive to realize that there has never been but one spiritual creation, intact in God's consciousness now, neither changed, added to, nor taken from, this prayer would be true, and the Scripture promise, "Before they call, I will answer," would be fulfilled. Reality was established before humanity appealed to God. Prayer in Christian Science is initiating its followers into the joy of putting off unreal beliefs, for self-distrust and discouragement are compelled to flee away when we work from the standpoint of the unchanged perfection of the spiritual man, the only man known to God, the only man known to the real men. Perceiving that spiritual man has never been in the slightest degree sick or sinful, how can we do less than put away the old concept of man just as completely as we are learning to put off the old and erroneous concept of God? We are not called upon to change either God or man. Our mental work, in reaching out after perfection, will hereby be at least as thorough and infinitely purer, for we shall be seeking to reflect Truth spontaneously.

Furthermore, this step out of purely personal problems comes to leaven our thought concerning those about us, our thought regarding the spiritual prosperity of the church we have joined, national conditions, and the bearing of Christian Science upon economic questions. It is probable that one who has constantly to be treating himself for some discord or other is in danger of becoming self-engrossed, whereas all around him "the harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few." Instead of remembering our Leader's injunction to "hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true" (Science and Health, p. 261), we are too prone to watch evil and to dwell dismally upon the shortcomings of the old man, rather than with joy to look upon the divine image "which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." John the Baptist, perceiving the immortal idea of God reflected in Christ Jesus, said of himself, as a material concept of man, "He must increase, but I must decrease."

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