Editorial July 3, 1920 Issue

"Misguided emotions"

Gustavus S. Paine

The only right feeling is that which is impelled by the divine Mind and coincides with calm though vital reasoning on the basis of Principle. How is a man to know when he is rightly actuated? The innate consciousness of good, as understood in Christian Science, is unmistakable. In all its manifestations it is constructive, sound, rational, and its whole nature is quietly exhilarating. The buoyancy of real wisdom has at the same time stability and infinite range. To be moved by Principle alone is to be endlessly gratified in the best possible way. True dignity must ever accompany the true ardor of spiritual demonstration. That is why the practice of Christian Science is forever differentiated from any form of human emotionalism.

Human emotion is unreliable simply because, in all its attempted counterfeiting of genuine feeling, it is supposed to be merely a limited subdivision of psychological experience. Now obviously a fragmentary touch of mortal ecstasy is not the downright knowing of illimitable divine Love. Whatever is inordinate wears itself out because it is not based on Principle. From its very nature the mortal is destructible and exhaustible. Actually, then, it never has been anything of which true consciousness could be cognizant. The so-called mortal mind never has had any part in the realm of the real. With all its seeming likes and dislikes, its sensations and its beliefs of every sort, it has always been an imposter, utterly lacking even in power to suppose itself anything. Of what possible use can it be, then, to temporize with emotionalism, when all such belief must fade out before spirituality?

On page 79 of "Retrospection and Introspection" Mrs. Eddy writes, "If beset with misguided emotions, we shall be stranded on the quicksands of worldly commotion, and practically come short of the wisdom requisite for teaching and demonstrating the victory over self and sin." Neither mortal emotion nor mortal commotion exemplifies the guidance of unerring Principle. On any occasion, whether it be what is called a meeting of people or a case of physical disease, emotional disturbance must be resisted by the firmness of intelligence. Right action is swayed by the divine Mind alone, not by suggestion. As the idea of this Mind, the real man can never be misguided in reasoning or feeling. It makes little difference what falsities try to beset one so long as one does not accept them. The immortal idea of living, of course, accepts God as its only cause, and hence as the only influence.

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