Article May 17, 1919 Issue

The Faith of a Child

THORWALD SIEGFRIED

One of the great aids to steadfastness that came to the writer early in his study of Christian Science was a scientific apprehension of the verity stated on page 45 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," where Mrs. Eddy says: "Glory be to God, and peace to the struggling hearts! Christ hath rolled away the stone from the door of human hope and faith, and through the revelation and demonstration of life in God, hath elevated them to possible at-one-ment with the spiritual idea of man and his divine Principle, Love." No longer would the disappointments, distresses, and perplexities of human life have a cumulative effect in collectively proving that life is not worth living; rather, each might henceforth be a rung in the ladder to heaven—conscious harmony.

The explanation of this changed point of view is to the student of Christian Science a very simple one. Accepting, even though only experimentally, the hypothesis that the universe is spiritual and perfect, human expectations are changed from evil to good, even during the experiment and possibly only in a small degree; hence every experience becomes an opportunity to prove the beneficence of God, good. The omnipresence of divine Love justifies the experiment of faith by establishing a happy result where mortal experience would have prognosticated a contrary one, and the new pilgrim gains confidence and skill for the infinite ascent. Having accepted the statement that the real universe is still as "very good" as it was when created "in the beginning," not merely as an experiment but with conviction as a revelation of truth from divine Mind, God, there came to the writer a correspondingly greater expectation of good and an almost complete release from the foreboding of evil so habitual theretofore.

Possibly the greatest test to which this faith in progress was subjected, and, from a human standpoint, the greatest service it rendered, occurred some years later, when an eight-year-old child in the household became stricken with a severe malady, then generally prevalent. At about this time there appeared in the Christian Science Sentinel a poem which very gently unwound the willful tendrils of belief in mere human parenthood, with its anxieties and ambitions, and served to maintain an expectation of good in the face of a persistent threat of physical debility and even of dissolution. It seemed necessary, nevertheless, to ask for help from a Christian Science practitioner unconnected with the anxieties of the family. During the days which followed, the practitioner, with patient trust and prayer, with a calm reliance on the "superiority of spiritual power over sensuous" which is "the central point of Christian Science" (Science and Health, p. 454), and with unfailing courtesy born of love, exemplified how truly and completely the practice of Christian Science fulfills the mission of true manhood.

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