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Practical Idealism
To be a genuine idealist requires first a practical idealism and then the consistent practice of it. It is to entertain true ideals and bring them into demonstration as rapidly as it is humanly possible.
Although Jesus said "I live by the Father," and "It is the spirit that quickeneth [giveth life]; the flesh profiteth nothing," he also continued to eat material food until near the time when he rose above all material conditions. Although he taught as absolute truth that God is Spirit, and man is "that which is born of the Spirit," he also recognized a relative difference between physical disorder and physical health, and in this he was perfectly consistent. Although Paul taught the unalterable fact that man is inseparable from God ("In him we live, and move, and have our being"), he also recognized the human sense of separate existence and tried to impart the true idea. Although he was able to annul for himself the general belief that the life of man is subject to the bite of a viper, he did not proffer his hand to the viper to have it bitten.
The apostle spoke absolutely of man's essential nature as determined by his relation to God, and yet he also spoke of an "old man" to be "put off" and a "new man" to be "put on," of mortality to be overcome and immortality to be gained. Speaking absolutely, he said, "We have the mind of Christ;" speaking relatively, he said, "Work out your own salvation." In all this he adhered consistently to Christian idealism. His philosophy and theology are described by Mrs. Eddy on page 254 of Science and Health, where she says: "God requires perfection, but not until the battle between Spirit and flesh is fought and the victory won. . . . The human self must be evangelized. This task God demands us to accept lovingly today, and to abandon so fast as practical the material, and to work out the spiritual which determines the outward and actual."
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October 31, 1914 issue
View Issue-
Practical Idealism
JUDGE CLIFFORD P. SMITH
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"Ye have done it unto me"
JULIA S. KINNEY
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Growth
EDMUND K. GOLDSBOROUGH
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Unity with God
EVELYN F. HEYWOOD
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Seeking and Finding
ELLEN WADHAM
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One's Own Business
JOHN M. DEAN
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Compassion
EDITH L. PERKINS
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In the Concord Evening Monitor, recently, was an editorial...
Judge Clifford P. Smith
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The time when religious convictions and beliefs were taken...
Paul Stark Seeley
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The one thing lacking in the sermon reported in the...
Richards Woolfenden
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In a recent issue of the Times, Roger S. Tracy says he...
Robert S. Ross
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Through the columns of your paper I would like to correct...
Thomas F. Watson
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CHRISTUS CONSOLATOR
Rossiter W. Raymond
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"I seek not mine own will"
Archibald McLellan
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Where?
Annie M. Knott
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True Possession
John B. Willis
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The Lectures
with contributions from H. Cornell Wilson, Julia B. Scott, T. E. Potterten, Talmage Jay Bast
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While returning from my work one night, I fell from a...
Henry Trousdell with contributions from Mabel Nelson
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I would like to give evidence of my gratitude to Christian Science...
Auguste Könnecker
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From my earliest childhood up to the time I was healed...
Clara Louise Krohn
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In gratitude to God as the great Physician I should like to...
Ardie Houk with contributions from Laura Houk
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My gratitude for Christian Science is unbounded
Maude L. Hart
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When a child, I suffered a very bad attack of a throat...
Walter F. Petzhold
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It is with a grateful heart that I herewith tell of the blessings...
Rebekka Schweitzer
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"Were there not ten cleansed?" These words of Jesus,...
Addie B. Little
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From Our Exchanges
with contributions from Charles E. Craik