Article October 31, 1914 Issue

Practical Idealism

JUDGE CLIFFORD P. SMITH

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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