Editorial June 5, 1920 ISSUE

Going Forward

Gustavus S. Paine

What is real progress? In the very midst of a process of turning and overturning, it may seem hard to estimate the good that is unfolding. At many a point in the war, for instance, only those who truly understood the irresistible power of Principle were sure of what was rightly going on. And now, when the treaty of peace has been ratified by only a part of the nations and has not, of course, automatically solved all the difficulties of the world, it is even more necessary to consider with the utmost consecration what activity in accord with Principle is. Any seeming doubt as to this is, after all, merely a seeming. There is the truth here and now to depend on with perfect certainty. In the presence of this truth understood and demonstrated, any illusion of limitation or complexity is really nothing whatever. Indeed, nothingness never has succeeded in constituting itself something to be dealt with.

In order to see clearly one's progress in relying on Principle, one must first of all know the essence and nature of Principle as the source of all intelligent action. On page 2 of the Message for 1901 Mrs. Eddy says, "Absolute certainty in the practice of divine metaphysics constitutes its utility, since it has a divine and demonstrable Principle and rule—if some fall short of Truth, others will attain it, and these are they who will adhere to it." when one reasons surely and joyously that the divine Mind is the only possible source for genuine living, one has to that extent turned forever away from any belief that matter could be actual. Once a man catches even a glimpse of the all-inclusive reality of the divine Mind and idea, there is no going backward. That insight, being eternal, must endure through no matter what seeming trials. It is always available for practical use.

To rejoice in this, is to experience what going forward is. If one looks back, for the moment, and compares the goodness of this sure knowing with the vacuity that there would be without it, one is glad just to be alive, to be feeling the true divine Life, which expresses itself in all that may rightly be termed activity. There is no getting away from this one basic fact. It is of no use to ask one's self or any one else, "Why have I not gone forward faster?" or "Why can I not be healed?" Such questions are a waste of time, since there is no answer whatever for them. There is the answer, however, for the questions, "Why am I going forward?" and "Why can I be healed right now?" This answer is simply that, here and now, the one infinite Mind is the cause for all the action there is, ceaselessly unfolds, and absolutely requires the whole substantiality which is veritable health, in every meaning of that broad term. As each one asks himself the question as to what positively is, he remains undisturbed through any seeming, whether of so-called physical body or of world conditions. "So," as Mrs. Eddy tells us on page 281 of "Miscellaneous Writings," "whatever we meet that is hard in the Christian warfare we must count as nothing, and must think instead, of our poverty and helplessness without this understanding, and count ourselves always as debtors to Christ, Truth." It is ever a joy to do what may seem the hard things.

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