Article April 15, 1916 Issue

Abiding

MARIANNE IHDE WENDT

HUMAN nature is very prone to accept agreeable statements without question and overlook any condition that may be attached. In nearly every instance the promises found in the Bible are given with a condition, the fulfilment of which determines their efficacy. We all know and love the promise, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free," but we do not remember as frequently as we should the condition upon which that freedom from bondage rests. "If ye continue in my word, . . . . ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." It is conscious, constant abiding in the truth of Jesus' teachings which enables one to apply the truth that makes free. Only as we understand the omnipotence, the allness of God, can we demonstrate the nothingness of that which claims to be God's opposite.

To mortal sense it is not easy to abide constantly in the word of Truth; but even where one seems to be confronted by misunderstanding, criticism, hatred, and malice, these errors disappear as the result of constant and sincere endeavor to realize God's presence and power, and as one knows that where God is there can be nothing unlike Him. We sometimes hear the remark, "Oh, yes, I know that evil is only a false belief, but even that knowing does not always free from bondage." And that is just the trouble. We must know that God never made a false belief, or a man that could believe or be deceived by a lie. The attempt to realize the truth occasionally or half-heartedly will result in little freedom from the bondage of material sense; but by abiding in the word, unshaken, undiscouraged, and as Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health (p. 392), standing "porter at the door of thought," refusing for a moment to recognize the claims of evil, keeping one's mind steadfastly on the rock of Christ, Truth, then freedom is ours, complete, boundless, perfect.

Very often one hears from new students of Christian Science, "Why am I not healed immediately?" "Why do wrong conditions seem to cling so persistently?" I wonder if such a one has ever pondered the saying of Jesus, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness ; and all these things shall be added unto you." Many at first turn to Christian Science only as another form of treatment for disease, and utterly regardless of the truth it demonstrates. It is little wonder therefore that such often fail to find relief as speedily as they desire. The writer has observed that many apparently slow healings in Christian Science were due to the fact that while the patients wanted physical healing, they did not want regeneration, and without the one the other was impossible.

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