Article April 15, 1911 Issue

THE ATTITUDE OF JOYFULNESS

EZRA W. PALMER

The student of the Bible is continually impressed with the spirit of praise, thankfulness, and joyousness manifested by the Scripture characters and which is breathed forth on almost every page of the inspired book. The Bible inculcates a spirit of optimism, of hope, rejoicing, and peace. Its fresh and uplifting joyousness is based on an illumined understanding that sees beyond the fleeting evidence of the material senses and discerns the permanence, safety, and beauty of the spiritual universe.

But the buoyant optimism of the Word has not always been discerned. The records of history show that for long ages the thoughts of men have been so darkened by a materialistic view of the nature of God and the universe, that austerity and formalism, fear of evil and dread of punishement, have largely influenced and controlled men in their thought of God. With the advent of Christian Science and the dissemination of its teachings of a God that is good, and a perfect, a spiritual man and universe, a great change has been wrought in this regard, not only among the adherents of Christian Science, but the leavening influence of its well-grounded happiness has sweetened and purified the thoughts of men even to the remotest bounds of the earth.

Men have puzzled a great deal over the seeming mystery of successive tides of optimism and pessimism which appear in the channels of human consciousness. Why, they argue, should a man be depressed and miserable today and tomorrow be lifted on a wave of sense exaltation, which is followed by a corresponding reaction? Or why should men gradually lose hope, faith, and joy and drift into a confirmed state of discouragement and depression for which the world of mortal sense furnishes no cure? With the ashes of past disappointments to gaze upon, many have been led to believe that the joyousness of the great Bible characters is impossible of attainment, but the exalted teachings of Christian Science solve for all earnest seekers this mystery. The reason for the spontaneous thankfulness of Miriam and Deborah, of Moses and David, the unmeasured faith and steadfast joy of Jesus—all this is made clear to the Christian Scientist, for he receives the gift of spiritual discernment by which he can, even now in a measure, pierce the veil of materiality that would hide God from man, and see the utter folly of being disturbed by the phantoms of mortal belief. As his grasp of the true nature of God's imperishable kingdom strengthens, he can at length exclaim with St. Paul, "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."

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