Editorial March 9, 1912 Issue

BELIEF, FALSE AND TRUE

John B. Willis

Writing to the Romans of the significance of belief, and illustrating his point by reference to the prevailing notions of his countrymen respecting ceremonially pure and impure foods, St. Paul said, "To him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean." He thus recognized the significant relation of belief to the phenomena of experience, and in keeping with the same philosophy he might have said, "If any one believes that a given drug has curative power, for him it will seem to have such power." In fact, his statement supports a metaphysical teaching, against the reaffirmation of which in Christian Science, Christian as well as non-Christian materialists have hurled their most caustic ridicule, quite ignorant or forgetful of the fact that in the teaching which has incited their critical levity, Mrs. Eddy is but following the clearly expressed thought of the great and wise apostle to the Gentiles.

In the extent, continuity, and assumed authority of its rule, unwarranted belief is absolutely beyond compare. Dynasties and potentates have their little day and are gone, but the deception of false belief has never ceased to wield a dominion which has proved a disability if not a curse to its every subject. The nature of its hold upon humanity changes somewhat, but the fact of its sway even in this enlightened age is witnessed to by every existing wrong. All the ignorance and degradation, the injustice and imposition, the selfishness and sin, of those to whom the word of Truth has come, is directly traceable to the conscious or unconscious disposition of mortal man to cling to the belief of a lie

One of the first effects realized by the honest student of Christian Science is an awakening to the extent of his past subjection to groundless opinions, his acceptance of traditional ideas which are not sustained by any logical deduction or inference from the fundamental teaching of Christ Jesus respecting God and His universe and law. He sees that the content of these beliefs has been unverifiable and unsustained, hence his so-called faith has been unsatisfying and unfruitful. This disclosure reveals to him the inherent deception and superficiality of mortal sense in a way which makes it possible for him, as never before, to understand that far-echoing cry of old, "All is vanity and vexation of spirit." He perceives that false belief enters into every sphere and aspect of mortal experience, every phenomenon of the social order; that it explains the superstitions and fears which have constituted the warp of mortal history; that it lies behind and impels that haste to be rich, that feverish search for sense satisfaction, which characterizes our modern civilization; and when, in the realization of the truth of Science, he further awakens to the fact that the projection of this false belief constitutes the substance of all so-called material phenomena, he has reached the threshold of a new world, a point in experience beyond which he will be prompted to say with joy, "Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."

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