Editorial November 6, 1920 Issue

Accepting the Solution

Gustavus S. Paine

In relying upon Christian Science for relief of one sort or another, one must be willing to accept the true solution which divine Principle provides. The way of spiritual healing can never be confined to human preconceptions as to what it ought to be. In every case, the outcome is bound to be broader in its significance than any mortal could outline in advance. Absolute wholeness of right action is what is to be desired. Just what this involves, the one turning to demonstrable Principle for help may not foresee. The willingness to recognize the right action as it unfolds, though it may be quite different from one's expectation, is rational acceptance of God's will. This is not, however, a mere sense of resignation to catastrophe or suffering but an alert discernment of genuine good, often apparently novel because of its infinite source. It is a joy to prove the nothingness of any seeming limitations through their replacement with understanding of the truth. One depending on Principle finds happiness in all circumstances by working out what really is vital to immortal Life.

The fatuity of watching for material symptoms to change or disappear is clear when one understands the force of Mrs. Eddy's statement beginning on page 124 of Science and Health: "The elements and functions of the physical body and of the physical world will change as mortal mind changes its beliefs. What is now considered the best condition for organic and functional health in the human body may no longer be found indispensable to health. Moral conditions will be found always harmonious and health-giving. Neither organic inaction nor overaction is beyond God's control; and man will be found normal and natural to changed mortal thought, and therefore more harmonious in his manifestations than he was in the prior states which human belief created and sanctioned." Thus one needs to watch for the change of thought, for the unfoldment of divine intelligence and its harmonious idea, purely spiritual in substantiality, in place of human belief. On this, one's whole attention must be fixed. The state of man must always be learned from Mind, not from supposed matter.

In any case, then, a seemingly new phase of action should not be alarming. What if the pulse beat, for instance, is faster or slower than past medical experience has considered normal? Medical theories as to normality and abnormality are continually variable. The true standard of order is the spiritual consciousness of order. As long as one knows that the only consciousness there really is necessarily is orderly, and demonstrates that he is accepting only this as his experience, he need not be concerned in the slightest about the vagaries of mortal theories or mortal symptoms. There will be, indeed, a satisfactory adjustment through the disappearance of any sense of disorder. The point is that one should not be merely looking for this disappearance nor be disturbed by any unexpected developments. As Mrs. Eddy indicates on page 373 of Science and Health, "When the blood rushes madly through the veins or languidly creeps along its frozen channels, we call these conditions disease. This is a misconception. Mortal mind is producing the propulsion or the languor, and we prove this to be so when by mental means the circulation is changed, and returns to that standard which mortal mind has decided upon as essential for health."

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