Editorial December 28, 1912 Issue

A HAPPY NEW YEAR

John B. Willis

It is a pleasant thing to remember that in the whole circuit of the sun the new year is ushered in with that kindly greeting which expresses a native, elemental sense of brotherhood, a bit of that spontaneous good will which is indifferent to all the separations that selfishness and social caste have made. This simple fact is altogether optimistic; it argues for the naturalness of goodness, for the deeply implanted desire of every normal nature not only to be happy but to make happy. All men are entirely at-one in their desire for happiness. Even the love of life is but a manifestation of an instinctive reaching out after what is thought of as good, and this is seen in that so many are ready to part with life when all hope of happiness seems removed. Thus does the good will to all which asserts itself not only on New Year's day, but every day when we are at our best, answer to a universal longing, and both the desire and the disposition to satisfy it speak for the possibility of that ideal experience which in Christian Science is seen to be eternally assured to man in God's image and likeness.

No less interesting and significant is the fact that all who think beyond this mortal plane are agreed in associating the ideal life, the heaven of their hope, with spiritual-mindedness. And this despite their long-time effort to find content in the pursuit of material ends. The material order of things is confused and contradictory; pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow, life and death, are forever chasing each other through its mazes. All have had bitter experiences here, and they can but respond to the appeal of Christian Science, its vision of man as continuously expressing and rejoicing in the wisdom and strength, the beauty and goodness of Spirit, his source. The longing for permanence of being and fulness of freedom is the mark of a man, and in so far as Christian Scientists have learned to recognize and mentally stand for this true man, in so far their "Happy New Year" will bring a healing thought into practical activity.

The mesmerism of the world impels even good men to try to find happiness in materiality, and its rule can never be broken so long as men associate the material order with the thought of real good, for if sense satisfaction is related to happiness by divine law, then obedience to sense impulse must be commendable. Here Christian Science sets up its standard, and declares that materiality cannot satisfy our heart-hunger, because it is not the "bread from heaven." As Mrs. Eddy has said, "The pleasures—more than the pains—of sense, retard regeneration" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 85); they tend to make us content with the rule of materiality and thus perpetuate it.

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