Article March 6, 1915 Issue

The notion that a satisfying life can be gained by death...

Judge Clifford P. Smith

Boston (Mass.) Sunday American

The notion that a satisfying life can be gained by death is one of the most palpable errors of human thought. It is equivalent to supposing that you can go and get a thing by moving in the opposite direction. Death is a change incident to the belief of life in matter; it is a liability pertaining to the personal and mortal sense of existence. Each person must outgrow or overcome it as he eliminates the false and mortal elements of human consciousness by gaining the true and spiritual sense of Life. With Christian Scientists death has already lost much of its pain and fear; they have discovered the cause of mortality and the nature of that which is subject to it; they have learned the conditions and qualities of immortality; and they have begun to put into practice the Science which is destined to abolish death and its cause, evil and its effects.

This view of the situation dispels fear, gives confidence, strengthens endeavor, and shows that the ultimate victory is certain for all who perceive and are assimilating the truth of being. With them death would be only a momentary yielding to the consensus of belief that man must die. The course of spiritual progress would be immediately resumed, with the evidences of everlasting Life strengthened by the experience. It is not only in the belief called "this world" that we have hope in Christ; the true idea must reign in our thoughts until it wholly excludes the temptations of evil. And though death is called the last enemy, we need to remember that all error is alike,—it has neither Principle, substance, nor reality; it is neither truth nor true, but is like the darkness which disappears in the presence of the light. As Jesus said, "He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life."

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