Article July 17, 1920 Issue

Ideas

SARAH WOODALL

On page 88 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy says: "Ideas are emanations from the divine Mind. Thoughts, proceeding from the brain or from matter, are offshoots of mortal mind; they are mortal material beliefs. Ideas are spiritual, harmonious, and eternal." The student of Christian Science does not always find it easy to separate from himself or others the "offshoots of mortal mind" in the shape of discordant, sick, or sinful beliefs, but one student has found it easier to do this when comparing the real or spiritual man with the correct working out of a problem in mathematics. It is self-evident that there is only one correct answer to any problem. It may be that the correct answer can be achieved by working out the problem in different ways, but the working out of the problem must in each case be carried out in accordance with the rule or law of mathematics that forms the basis of the solution. This problem may be worked out by a number of students, but only those who are employing the rule or law will gain the correct answer.

Some students may, perhaps, either through ignorance or erroneous concepts of this Principle, have come to a wrong conclusion. What difference does that make to the correct answer? It does not affect it in the least. If a hundred pupils in a class after much labor and study had failed to grasp the truth underlying that particular problem in mathematics, and no one had arrived at the correct answer, the truth about it would remain perfect, demonstrable, and unaffected in any way by ignorance or misapplication, and the teacher would know this and be undisturbed by the failures of the pupils to give the correct answer.

In the same way God's idea remains spiritual, harmonious, and eternal in spite of the mortal material beliefs that arise through ignorance of the Principle of all true being. It does not matter how many people believe that a man is blind or deaf or lame,—it does not make the slightest difference to the real man, who is now and always has been the image and likeness of God. The forever fact remains true and nothing can change or alter it in any way. "Now are we the sons of God" is the absolute truth, no matter how many mortal material beliefs try to reverse the fact. It should also be remembered that as God expresses Himself through His idea, this idea is necessarily perfect and expresses the nature of God, for man apart from God would be nothing. But the man of God's creating is the only man there is, and that man has never been able to express anything but God.

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