Article August 7, 1915 Issue

Scars Obliterated

DR. EDMUND F. BURTON

Life is often spoken of as a battle. A battle is a conflict between forces opposed in interest and purpose, each of sufficient strength to put the other in peril of its existence. If this be a true view of the life of men, it means that a man must go to his work in the world without any guaranty of safety or success in his legitimate pursuit of happiness, and be constantly filled with uncertainty as to how his days will pass or end. Battles have made all the great blots on the pages of the world's history, for they have to do with death, not with life. Men are wearying of them, and are hoping for their elimination from human experience. Is it really possible to look upon life thus and continue to believe in a supreme power that is good? Mrs. Eddy says (Science and Health, p. 485): "The notion of any life or intelligence in matter is without foundation in fact, and you can have no faith in falsehood when you have learned falsehood's true nature." To the human sense life is made up of trials, tests of faith in God, but they are far from being pain or tribulation when rightly understood. The baby's first uncertain steps are trials of its faith in life; the man who faces new difficulties, and the woman who in the strength of divine Love holds fast her faith, are learning through the trials of their trust in God that life is good.

It is not dangerous to live. Life means joy, as man's every instinct assures him. The one who understood more about life than any other, said that to live is to know; and it is the verdict of all the world's great thinkers that beyond all other pursuits is that of learning, reading the open book of Truth, and that there is no vitalizing happiness surpassing this joy of coming to know. There is a familiar maxim which is even more true when turned about and made to read, To learn is to live. All conditions that go to make up the years of life are truths appearing to the human mind, at first in interrogative form perhaps, yet not with doubtful answers. Failing to perceive the operation of changeless Principle, mortals regard many experiences and conditions as unanswerable puzzles, whereas they are all soluble in accordance with the one great law that there is no other reality than good.

The state of mind that scientifically understands a given condition or problem, is a Christian Science treatment, and every condition appeals to a Christian Scientist as a problem to be solved according to the one rule of life, the one law of the universe, the allness of God, good. Moreover, every condition met with in life, from the most trivial to the most significant, is a demand for such knowledge, an invitation to stand still and see a new evidence of God's presence. The consistent Christianly scientific solution of problems means that the history of each moment is an illustration and evidence of all-governing good as the only activity and reality, and of nothing else,—nothing whatever remaining in the mind of the individual to mar the consciousness of being as perfect harmony and unity.

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