Article October 16, 1915 Issue

"Hold fast that which is good"

CHARLES HENRY PHILIPS

It is not an uncommon experience to come in contact with one who, having tried the recommendations and precautions of materia medica up to a point where both endurance and patience ceased to be a virtue, has reluctantly perchance, but determinedly, turned to Christian Science with a faint hope that the relief he has so far failed to obtain in the older and seemingly more pronounced school of healing might be forthcoming in the new, yet reserving to himself the alternative that in an emergency or an apparent crisis he could resort to a highly attenuated material remedy to further the work of metaphysical treatment. In the mental process leading up to the resolution to give Mind-science a trial, the mortal may have grown discouraged with much dosing, though not to the extent of having every least medicinal prop taken from under him. He is willing to know of something which seems to promise a speedier and more lasting benefit, though in a last analysis of his thought he holds to a threadbare belief that in a test case Mind could be helped and strengthened by the application inwardly or outwardly of some mild concoction.

The country tourist, luxuriating in the quiet pastoral beauty of the green meadows and rippling streams, wearies even of these scenes with their monotonous panorama, and turns regretfully perhaps, but longingly, to the hills and the wooded ravines for pastime and relief. Presently he comes upon a situation where to proceed farther would seem to his limited sense gravely hazardous. Then his thought reverts to the easy way of the gentle slope below (for the two have never parted company), and he would retrace his course by the path of least resistance back to the beaten road of clay, even though it lead to the quicksand and the mire, rather than risk his further going up to the broadening vision of the abrupt ascent.

So the mortal, in his checkered experience along the winsome and to material sense not unfascinating way of medical allurement, anon is buoyant, then tires of the lessening prospect, and finally reaches out for newer methods of gaining ease. Under Christian Science treatment he is in a somewhat similar position to the one who has left the apparently smooth surface of the moorland and is beginning the upward climb. While his steps are trending forward and he is measurably rejoicing in the changing view, his thought, and not infrequently his eye, is directed to the less stirring vista of materia medica below, and he realizes, mayhap suddenly, that he has reached a point in the journey when he is unable to go on trusting absolutely to Mind's occur power. In an unguarded moment, just as it might occur to the one on the hillside to reverse his steps or to make them less difficult, the patient thinks of some trivial remedy that had formerly been efficacious, and unknown to the practitioner he avails himself of it. It may be merely a simple thing, an occasional bracer; indeed the thought may have become so minutely diluted as to offer itself in the cloak of a subtle suggestion that certain kinds of food prepared under well-defined culinary regulations (which are always so appetizing) will assist nature perceptibly.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

Relying upon Divine Counsel