Article January 31, 1920 Issue

Rising Above Limitations

MOLLIE MARGARET HOWE

Christian Science is awakening the world to the needlessness of its self-imposed limitations and suffering. Taught to believe that they are the victims of circumstance, men have tried to be optimistic and "make the best of things." A few have seemed to rise above conditions, but invariably there have been some limitations of heredity, education, or environment, which even these have ignorantly accepted as their own, and hence their continued bondage.

When but a young student of Christian Science, material sense declared a university course an impossibility for the writer because of lack of funds, and later the way seemed blocked by a technicality, but the truth regarding man's heritage as the child of God overcame both difficulties. During the college vacations helpful remunerative positions were found, and a false sense of pride was replaced with a desire to serve. After graduation, while endeavoring to see the next step, an apparently temporary bit of work proved to be the stepping-stone to a permanent position. Humanly, it seemed almost presumptuous at first, there had been so little specific training for it, but day by day through the application of Christian Science the way unfolded. The folly of outlining was seen again and again, and gradually gave way to a growing recognition that Principle "owns each waiting hour" (Poems, p. 4). Mrs. Eddy also tells us in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (p. 319) that "to calculate one's life-prospects from a material basis, would infringe upon spiritual law and misguide human hope." It is for us to declare our freedom from every claim of law or power apart from God, and to understand our inheritance as the reflection of divine Mind.

Realizing that the government is "upon his shoulder" now, we see that the real universe is perfect now, that man is, as God intends him to be, "very good," and is God's own image and likeness. Then what shall we do about the belief that we cannot take our rightful part in the world because we lack the opportunity, the education, the means, the intelligence, the health, deemed necessary. Can we be mesmerized by any argument of "lost opportunity" while we are maintaining the fact that infinite good is omnipresence and omnipotence? Can we blame any circumstance or individual for tangled problems when the Bible tells us that neither "height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God"? We know that God is impartial. What is it then but subtle suggestion that lays the blame on some one else when the error was admitted through failure to keep proper guard at the door of our own thought? Surely God is not "All-in-all" to us if we are believing that we are deprived of any good, or that our real neighbor is less than the perfect idea of Principle.

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