Article December 18, 1915 Issue

Truth versus Mental Aggression

CLAUDE A. S. FROST

"Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions." This quotation from Ecclesiastes does not mean that the man created by God has fallen, but clearly the drop in thought from the use of the generic term "man" in the first instance, to the plural pronoun "they," shows the latter to mean the sons of men, termed by Mrs. Eddy "mortals." To one who is attempting to apply his understanding of the Principle of Christian Science in his daily walk and conversation, there sometimes comes the unwelcome sense of mental opposition that he cannot see or account for as emanating from any material place or personality. To such the message contained in the verse just quoted may come as a light and a warning.

Many indeed are the inventions of mortal mind, but always it is the same material concept in new or old guise. In Bible times the Adam—name of this opposer was variously spoken of as "devil" or "Satan;" and the children of Israel, who worshiped the one God, were warned to beware of "wizards that peep, and that mutter." More recently the names given the activities of this so—called mentality opposed to good have been legion,—mesmerism, hypnotism, autosuggestion. Each time it is the same wolf in the clothing of a different sheep, but easily recognizable according to its works.

Surely the material "knowledge" here displayed constitutes no small measure of the "many inventions" described in our text. In his epistle to the Corinthians the apostle Paul said of such so—called wisdom, "Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away." Thereby we know that all false knowledge is nothing, and not something, because the Science of Christianity taught by Jesus, and demonstrated by Mrs. Eddy, shows us that anything which ultimately is seen to fail, cease, or vanish away into nothingness, is seen already to be nothing; for a lie once proved to be a lie, is seen always to have been a lie, and never to have been the truth.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Poem

Love's Prophecy Fulfilled