Article August 25, 1917 Issue

Purifying Processes

IDA S. KOHL

If to a body of perfectly pure water a drop of impurity were added, in that proportion the water would be impure. The effect of one drop could not be detected at a glance, but if one were to keep adding impurities the water would soon be unfit for any purpose. Water may, however, be restored to its original purity either through filtering or the use of chemicals, or by the activities of nature. The chemical process is illustrated by the methods used in cities where the water supply is taken from other sources than artesian wells. The third process is expressed in the fact that running water purifies itself. The restoration to its original purity through either of these processes proves that the actual constituent parts of the water were never changed by the seeming addition of impurities. The combination of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen, which constitutes water, was never anything but water; nor can this combination ever be changed, no matter how much impurity is apparently added to the water. As an illustration this fact may be taken into the realm of thought, although all material illustrations fall short in a measure when used to convey spiritual ideas.

True thought, which passes from God to man, is composed of all the good and spiritual qualities of the divine nature, and this constitutes man. The material sense of life has seemed to add to man all kinds of impurities,—mortal qualities,—and when we look at what human sense portrays, we say it is a very wicked man, whereas the man—the only man there is, who is made in the likeness of God, and exists for the purpose of expressing God—is never wicked. Nothing can be added to man, who is complete in God. The belief is that error, the error of believing in the reality of evil, is allowed to grow in human thought through self-indulgence from childhood on into manhood, and if mortal qualities predominate we eventually have a mortal morally unfit for good society, hastening on to physical and mental doom.

The same processes which serve for the purification of water may be applied likewise to thought. On page 162 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy states that "the effect of this Science is to stir the human mind to a change of base, on which it may yield to the harmony of the divine Mind." This purification is brought about as human thought is awakened to behold the truth of being through the realization of the spiritual facts in regard to God and man. Many students of Christian Science are apt to think and speak of chemicalization as though it were a thing to be dreaded, or shunned as something causing suffering and confusion. A study of the references to this subject in our Leader's writings, however, unfolds a much higher meaning and purpose, for they bring out the fact that chemicalization should not aggravate disease; that it is a process which eliminates disease and shows that the spiritualization of thought is going on.

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