Article November 18, 1916 Issue

Memory

WALTER C. LANYON

In Christian Science we are taught that all conditions, both good and bad, are purely mental states, that the only real is the spiritual, and that we suffer from thoughts, not from things. But sometimes the evidence of material sense seems so real that it is difficult to change things into thoughts and eliminate that which is bad. Perhaps if we stopped to consider the supposed force of memory we could reduce many of our troubles to a state of memory, which we know is without doubt a mental state, and thereby could handle them as thoughts and eliminate them.

Take, for example, what the carnal mind calls a family feud. It may be carried on for several generations, and the apparent cause of it may be removed and absolutely obliterated by time, yet it continues as bitter as ever, purely from a standpoint of memory. Sometimes the opposing parties are unable to tell the nature of the offense, but they remember that there is a feud between them, and being controlled by memory their hatred knows no bounds. It is very often the memory of having sat in a draught that produces a cold the next morning, or of some undue exposure that is followed by sickness. Is it not often the memory of an accident which keeps the cripple in his wheel-chair? If he had obliterated the memory of the accident, would he have the effects? It is largely the memory of some unkind word or action, and not the word or action itself, which hurts afterward.

Then comes the process of the elimination of evil from memory. If God, Mind, is everywhere present and is good, then evil is nowhere present, and no matter how it presents its claims, they are invalid. Man as created in the image of his Maker is indestructible and unable to be hurt by any one, by either word or deed; then it follows conclusively that the memory of these words or deeds cannot hurt us, and this reasoning makes the memory of evil void of any power whatsoever.

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