Article September 3, 1910 Issue

The world is full of kind-hearted, well-meaning people,...

E. M. Ramsay

Kilmacolm (Scot.) Advertiser

The world is full of kind-hearted, well-meaning people, who are striving to reform abuses and to help mankind, but it will be generally admitted that the expenditure of energy, thought, and money is out of all proportion to the results achieved. This lack of success is due to lack of understanding as to the cause of the evils which it is desired to remove, and uncertainty as to the methods which should be employed. Each reformer is working from his own personal belief as to good, rather than from a universal standard of truth. We are all agreed that twice two equals four, because we hold no personal opinions concerning numbers, but know what is true and abide by this knowledge. If on certain subjects we can know the truth and be at peace, why not on other subjects too? Our Lord and Saviour had no difficulty in knowing the will of God, and he told his followers again and again that they too could attain to the same certainty. In the Old Testament we find that all the prophets possessed to some extent this sense of God's nearness and guidance. What was possible in the old days must be possible still,—"As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be."

Christian Science comes forward to explain, in a manner comprehensible to the thought of this day, how we, too, may gain this sense of fatherly protection and guidance. If God is creator, Father, Love, as the Bible teaches, then He must also be Mind, intelligence. All Christians believe God to be infinite and ever present; then Mind, intelligence, must be infinite and ever present. God is infinite, ever-present intelligence. What then of that which we call man's intelligence? What of my mind, your mind? Man is God's child, made in God's image and likeness. All of truth which man knows he receives from God, since God is intelligence, Truth. Our Lord never spoke of having a mind of his own, but ever did the will of the Father.

Christian Science teaches that there is but one Mind, God, and that the intelligence expressed by man is the reflection of that one Mind. This wonderful explanation enables the student to express more intelligence than in the days when he believed that he possessed a limited mind of his own. It opens out illimitable possibilities of good; but no man can avail himself of this power who is not willing to surrender self. He must be prepared to lay aside personal opinions and to sacrifice not merely the thoughts which he has hitherto recognized as unworthy, but even his human sense of good. In this way alone can he be born again and find himself translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son.

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