Editorial December 11, 1920 Issue

Timidity

Gustavus S. Paine

It is remarkable how many words there are in the English language to denote various states and stages of fear. Timid, shy, alarmed, frightened, terrified, doubtful, anxious, afraid, and many other more or less familiar adjectives are used to describe the condition of one who believes in some other power than Principle. On page 410 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy says, however, "Christian scientific practice begins with Christ's keynote of harmony, 'Be not afraid!'" "Always begin your treatment by allaying the fear of patients," she advises on the following page. Sureness that the divine Mind governs man is, of course, all that will ever take the place of any form of fear or timidity. The sureness that God is, "and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him," is, therefore, the starting point for all right work.

If one has seemed too timid to reason very thoroughly for himself or to come to his own decisions, the first point to reason about and decide is how one really knows that God exists. Too many people have either taken God for granted or left Him out of account. Asked to state any proof of the existence of God, or divine Principle, people of either sort may turn attention to the wonders of the physical universe and postulate some creator for them. Yet the evidence of the physical senses is so often mistaken that it will be readily granted that many of these so-called wonders may be wholly illusory. In any case, the creator of mere matter would have to be material; and on such a basis one could never suceed in setting up more than a hypothesis of a mechanistic universe. That is just what the physicists are trying to do. In their attempts they succeed, however, only in arriving at the conclusion that all there is to matter is a concept of some kind of a supposed mind and thus admitting the unreality of matter. The mind which they suppose, is, in fact, simply what Christian Science calls mortal mind, or, in other words, not true Mind at all, not an entity, not the provable reality which is the cause for immortal living.

When, on the hand, the one who is perhaps timidly seeking the proof of God's existence and availability is told that God's healing goodness manifest to man is the proof, such a one may possibly question still furthe as to whether such healing goodness has yet been experienced. The doubting one needs a positive foundation from his own standpoint and quite apart from any human evidences. Just to be alive is really a demonstration of the existence of the animating creator. There must be some cause for living, and, since conscious living is not dependent, in the last analysis, on the physical senses in any way, the true cause must be entirely separate from supposed sense testimony. It is the very being conscious that is fundamental to conscious living. The being alive proves the existence of Life, or, to put it in other words, the being conscious proves the existence of causative Mind. This provable Mind actually is the cause of all real living or experience.

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit

Timidity

We'd love to hear from you!

Sign up for unlimited access