Article February 25, 1911 Issue

TRUTH UNVARYING

JOHN O. BARTLETT.

Any careful observer can hardly fail to see that the world's belief in causation is largely on the side of evil, and that its sense of effect is proportionately manifested in disaster, disease, and distress. It is, therefore, self-evident that the remedy for this seeming condition lies in that understanding and realization of the omnipotence and omnipresence of divine Love which ever brings forth the manifestation of health and harmony. It is the goodness inherent in the being of God, and the good which is found by all who seek earnestly and persistently, that commends His word to the needy as their source of comfort; as their strength for the overcoming of the false beliefs which are the enemies of health and harmony; and as their guide out of discord into peace. "Divine Science, the Word of God, saith to the darkness upon the face of error, 'God is All-in-all,' and the light of ever-present Love illumines the universe" (Science and Health, p. 503).

Christian Science presents an open field to each hungry and thirsty seeker, whether the seeker turns with confident or with timid steps toward the one loving Father. This field is in no sense one of competitive endeavor or strife, but a field where the contest is with self, and where the victory is gained through the yielding up of selfish interests and the human will, to the will of divine Love, the giver of all good. The Father's will toward His children is as kind and compassionate now as when the Master through his obedience to the divine will healed the multitudes of sickness, fed them when they had no means of getting food for themselves, and preached to them the gospel of a present-day salvation. Do the sick and suffering need to wait for God to become ready to bestow His good gifts? Or are they only closing the avenue through which the divine blessings would reach them, by not being willing to receive of God in His appointed way? In Revelation we read, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come into him, and will sup with him, and he with me."

No one would think of listening to any suggestion to wait until the supposed law of gravitation was ready to act, or until a rule in mathematics was ready to be used. If we raise the gate at the reservoir and disturb the level where the water is resting, it will not cease its activity until it finds another level. And, however many there may be using the mathematical rule at the same time, the rule suffers no more strain than if it were used by only one. Is the divine Principle less potent or unceasing in its action to maintain harmony in man and the universe than is the law of gravitation? Is the operation of the law of man's being and of all creation less capable of demonstration in the affairs of men, or less universal in its adaptation than a mathematical rule? Our Leader says, "All reality is in God and His creation, harmonious and eternal. That which He creates is good, and He makes all that is made" (Ibid, p. 472).

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