Article May 15, 1915 Issue

Man's True Constitution

VIOLET KER SEYMER

Christian Science comes with a message of hope to those individuals who from childhood upward have been handicapped by what is termed "a poor constitution." Their state of health, though perhaps not reducing them to actual invalidism, has nevertheless interfered with their legitimate enjoyment of life and prevented them from embarking upon any definite career or profession. Christian Science directs the attention of such as these, as well as of all sufferers, toward the Scriptural assurance that God's creation is the only one that really exists, and that it is "very good." These individuals are not suffering from a poor constitution, but from a mistaken view as to the real nature of their constitution. In proportion as this false belief is corrected, they will manifest more of the true health than those who believe that they have found it in flesh and blood.

"Understanding," Solomon says, "is a wellspring of life unto him that hath it." Even a small perception of Christian Science enables one to drop some of the fears that are burdening him, for fear is always and only the result of ignorance of God or of false notions about God, and this ignorance and these false notions are alike remediable. Humanity's age-long tendency has been to look for health in matter instead of in Spirit; in hygiene, drugs, and diet, which merely serve to divert attention from the true source of health in Spirit. Man's life is no more at the mercy of flesh and blood than is God, and the baseless assumption that innocent individuals are doomed from the hour of their birth will one day be found void, for it is a man-made belief or invention and not a God-made law. In Christian Science we learn and are able to prove that "any so-called law, which undertakes to punish aught but sin, is null and void" (Science and Health, p. 441). In order to compass our legitimate freedom, a radical readjustment of one's habit of thought is required, and the way to do this is made plain in Christian Science.

Many an individual has resigned himself to the verdict that he is physically handicapped on account of the sins of his forefathers; but it is the duty of every Christian to reject and repudiate and every evil legacy, on the ground that it does not come to him from God, to whom alone he is to look for every actual inheritance. This revealed method, carried out with divine energy and wisdom, is destined to burst the bands of evil and dissolve all the fetters of sin and suffering on earth. When Christ Jesus healed the blind man, he was thus questioned : "Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?" Instantly he rebuked this attempt of evil to handicap either generation, and replied, "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him." To the disciples this seemed an occasion for condemnation,—that well-nigh ineradicable habit in mortal mind,—but to Jesus it presented an opportunity to prove the immanence and availability of Spirit as the almighty friend of man.

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