Article September 3, 1910 Issue

MENTAL WORK

CLARENCE W. CHADWICK.

To the student of Christian Science, mental work means nothing short of the unceasing prayer of self-denial. It signifies no idle pastime, no mischief-making, no inanity, no aggression. It means the constant subjugation of evil with good. It means obedience to the Ten Commandments and to the Sermon on the Mount.

Where does this work take place? In individual consciousness. One of the distinguishing characteristics of mental work is the knowledge of how to mind one's own business. Mental meddlesomeness is no part of the mental work confronting the true disciple of Truth. The power of Mind cannot be misapplied. It cannot be employed for the accomplishment of any selfish, damaging, or immoral purpose. The man who reflects or expresses divine Mind is demonstrating the will of God, which is a law of mental exclusion to all that is unlike good. Any departure from the utilization of the one Mind necessarily forfeits divine help and falls to the level of human thinking or mental manipulation and interference.

The student of Christian Science knows that power belongs to God, and that this power cannot be made manifest through human will. He will never presume to use the power of God to hate with or to accomplish any other selfish end, since it is susceptible of no such misuse. In so far as a thought of hatred, envy, jealousy, anger, lust, or any other error enters the mental abode of the would-be mental worker, in so far is the door of heaven closed to the accomplishment of any good. It is only the absence of evil in one's own consciousness that enables him to employ the power of divine Mind to bring about harmonious results. Sensuality, ingratitude, and dishonesty are not the avenues through which divine power finds expression. As the sun expresses itself only through its own light rays, so divine Love is expressed only through its own ideas of purity, goodness, compassion, kindness, and unselfishness. "Man's inhumanity to man" is not the exercise of divine power. It is evil thinking and evil doing, and is the absence of mental work that is inspired and sustained by God, the one Mind. It is the erroneous influence of the so-called human or mortal mind, which real mental work would soon extirpate.

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