Article February 22, 1919 Issue

Alertness

DUNCAN SINCLAIR

Many a time in her writings has Mrs. Eddy spoken with no uncertain voice to Christian Scientists on the subject of alertness. While constantly reiterating the spiritual fact of the omnipresence and omnipotence of good, she was aware of the insidious suggestions of evil; hence her warning words were often heard calling upon all who had caught a glimmering of the meaning of Principle to be awake to the demands of Truth in order to resist the attacks of evil from whatever quarter.

On page 392 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" one of these warnings is uttered. "Stand porter at the door of thought," Mrs. Eddy writes; and a little farther on she explains the import of the words as follows: "The issues of pain or pleasure must come through mind, and like a watchman forsaking his post, we admit the intruding belief, forgetting that through divine help we can forbid this entrance." It is all quite plain. Every pleasure and every pain with which human beings are familiar are beliefs of the human mind. They may be entertained, or they can be rejected, and the method of the rejection is taught by Christian Science, which reveals the way by which divine help can be utilized in resisting the false claims of evil or in rejecting them, should they have been permitted to enter through an unguarded door.

It is a simple truism that a vessel already full will hold no more. Similarly, the individual fully occupied with the ideas of God, or with good thoughts, is immune to the attacks of evil. It is obvious, therefore, that the one who is most occupied in the contemplation and demonstration of Principle is the one best protected against the assaults of error. This is not to say, however, that anyone should be so completely absorbed in the pursuit and practice of spiritual understanding as to find it unnecessary to question himself frequently respecting his alertness in meeting the arguments of evil, those claims which are the very antithesis of the divine Principle he is striving to understand and demonstrate. The Christian Scientist may be said to be one whose knowledge of God, whose understanding of the infinite Principle of being, be the understanding rudimentary or more advanced, has warned him of the rocks and breakers along the shores of human life. He is endeavoring to steer his bark by the helm of spiritual understanding, while the light of Truth streams its penetrating rays full upon the rocky shadows and the whirling eddies, which otherwise might lie undetected in the gloom.

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