Article April 7, 1917 Issue

"Truth is affirmative"

PRISCILLA C. GOODWYN

"Truth is affirmative, and confers harmony," Mrs. Eddy tells us in Science and Health (p. 418); and St. Paul says that "all the promises of God in him [Christ Jesus] are yea, and in him Amen." A negation can have no place then in Truth's kingdom. It cannot be good or real; therefore it is error, to be destroyed by Truth.

Kindness, courtesy, honesty, and the like are spiritual qualities. They are realities, positive in their nature, with power to edify, to strengthen, to bless; their opposites, unkindness, discourtesy, dishonesty, being negations, have no quality of Truth in them, because Truth is always affirmative, and they would undermine, disintegrate. Take the quality of courage in human consciousness,—how fine it is, how inspiring, how full of hope, how ready to meet the foe; while its opposite, discouragement, is a limp, lifeless sort of thing, yielding to every assault. Take courtesy,—how gracious it is when springing from a loving heart, spreading a sweet fragrance of kindliness; while its opposite, discourtesy, condemns and disquiets itself. So it is through the long chapter of negations, which have no permanency in the sunshine of Truth. One finds inspiration and joy in going over in thought the positive qualities that lift consciousness to a sense of security and peace and joy in the everlasting "yea" of Truth, and in knowing with a grateful heart that their opposites, or negations, have no basis in reality.

A student of Christian Science and one who was not a student of its teachings were talking about certain mental qualities. The non-Scientist remarked: "The quality I admire most in man or woman is justice. So few people are really just." She spoke with a warmth of conviction, and the one addressed saw that she was burdened by some sense of injustice against which her thought rebelled. In mentally denying this false sense as having any place in the true consciousness of man, a clearer understanding was gained by the student of the truth, for until one knows the nothingness of injustice one can never be truly just. As we have put out of our consciousness the sense of injustice that so persistently tries to assert itself in our relations with others, we can begin to judge the righteous judgement which the Master commended.

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