Article June 12, 1920 Issue

The English word, compromise, is found, upon reference...

The Christian Science Monitor

The English word, compromise, is found, upon reference to its sources, to come from a Latin verb, promitto (to promise), and a prefix, com (together); while promitto itself is compounded of mitto (to send) and pro (forth). Structurally at least, then, the English word seems to mean to promise together, or to send forth together. Only so far will dissection take the inquirer, and definition is of little further assistance. To find revealed the truth about compromise, one must seek beyond the material word in language to the spiritual fact of which any and all language can be but the crudest expression.

To guide the searcher for the truth about words, Mary Baker Eddy, Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, has written on page 338 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," "The dissection and definition of words, aside from their metaphysical derivation, is not scientific." Therefore the student of Christian Science, who is learning to seek first "the kingdom of God, and his righteousness," often finds inspiration in renovating old words by applying his understanding of spiritual fact to their worn-out definitions. The Old Testament from Genesis to Malachi is full of the promise of unfoldment of God, good, and His idea, man and the universe—and the New Testament is that unfoldment. To Abraham is promised the increase of those who live by faith; to Moses the sight of the promised land; to the psalmist the joy and companionship of awaking "with thy likeness;" to Isaiah the "Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace;" to Malachi the "messenger of the covenant;" while in the New Testament the Christ is revealed. The student of Christian Science sees that the seeming time separation between the Old and New Testaments, between promise and unfoldment, is but an illusion of the so-called human mind, to be overcome in his own experience by increased understanding of God's omnipresence and omnipotence in the eternal now. Thus he sees that the reality of creation is the first and one great promising together—the sending forth together of His idea by the creative Principle, Mind, God.

The false view of creation given in Genesis from the sixth verse of the second chapter onward, which enters into the narrative only as the supposititious opposite of the true, is the immediate entrance of false compromise. Following "mutual concessions" between the serpent with his inherent dishonesty and Eve with her disobedience, the forbidden fruit is eaten, with the consequent results to humanity: the flood, the forty years in the wilderness, the sufferings of Job, the lamentations of Jeremiah, the slaughter of the innocents, the bondage of the "woman whom Satan hath bound," the Dark Ages, the fears that beset modern society; from which gloomy summary it must be clear to the alert thinker and seeker for Truth, that, as Jesus said, "Ye cannot serve God and mammon." If, in other words, a man makes promises together with evil, he cannot share the promise of good; if he yields one iota from his understanding of Principle, he cannot stand with Principle and cannot expect the absolute perfection of result that follows at-one-ment with Principle.

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