Article May 25, 1918 Issue

Permanence of Truth

IRVIN DE R. MILLER

In the third chapter of Ecclesiastes we read: "I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: ... That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past." These words have often been an inspiration to the writer, since they shed such a clear light on the reason for the permanency of healing in Christian Science. We learn very quickly, in our study of this infinite subject, that healing, whether of sin or of sickness, is not really the creation of a new state of consciousness, but rather the awakening to a state which, in Truth, has always been, and which God pronounced from the beginning as good. Any seeming condition of mental or physical inharmony, whether manifested as sin or as sickness, is the result of false belief, a belief that there can be joy or good elsewhere than in God, or that a power apart from God is able to alter that which He declared shall be forever.

When this belief has been destroyed by the knowledge of the truth about God and man as His eternal likeness, which comes to us through our study of Christian Science, then the inharmonious condition of which the false belief was the cause, likewise passes from our experiences. There is, therefore, no reason for us ever to fear a relapse, or a recurrence of this evil state, unless we carelessly or willfully permit ourselves to be drawn into the same false channels of thought which originally occasioned it. The past itself, whatever it may have contained of sin or of sickness, has no power over us, nor is it able to resurrect itself; as Mrs. Eddy has said on page 419 of Science and Health, "Neither disease itself, sin, nor fear has the power to cause disease or a relapse."

This may be made clear for us by a very simple parallel. Suppose a man had been taught the multiplication table incorrectly: then everything which he tried to do involving the science of numbers would be wrong; failures would beset him on every hand. If he were to pause and look back upon his past it would seem full of misfortune and mistakes, and seen thus, the present and future might well appear to be shadowed with gloom and discouragement. The moment, however, that the mathematical truth about multiplication was made clear to this man and he proceeded to act upon this basis, he would perceive his ability to solve his present problems, and his future would be brightened with confidence and hope. As for the past, he would at once realize that it was not his past at all, but rather the past of a wrong concept of the science of numbers.

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