Editorial July 31, 1920 Issue

The Ideal Platform

Gustavus S. Paine

The platform of a political party is an attempt to phrase certain opinions and theories about government. The only platform that could ever be ideal does not consist, however, of mere opinions and theories but must be absolute Principle expressed. This ideal is possible of statement in Christian Science, and has been stated over and over again with the variety of infinity by Mrs. Eddy throughout her works, which are altogether correlative with the Scriptures. The truly righteous platform must be a platform of healing, and healing is simply the consummate wholeness of Principle manifest as right activity. Anything less than the healing which comes about through the understanding of divine intelligence is not real relief from any false condition, whether it be called political, physical, economic, or moral. Hence any seeming condition, to be rightly dealt with, must be considered in the light of what the divine Mind knows about it, for the divine consciousness knows the whole idea to take the place of any sense of limitation.

On page 226 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy says: "God has built a higher platform of human rights, and He has built it on diviner claims. These claims are not made through code or creed, but in demonstration of 'on earth peace, good-will toward men.' Human codes, scholastic theology, material medicine and hygiene, fetter faith and spiritual understanding. Divine Science rends asunder these fetters, and man's birthright of sole allegiance to his Maker asserts itself." Complete allegiance to divine Principle as the one truly governing power is what is always primarily essential. One who understands and practices in accord with Principle finds his rights fully protected and proves ceaselessly unfolding success in all righteous endeavor. Thus he has nothing whatever to fear, because he has turned away from human methods to the divine way.

There is just one infinite Principle which governs all that is real of labor, of suffrage, of cooperative activity of every sort. The knowing and demonstrating of this is the only remedy for supposed difficulties, whether they be of treaty making, of law enforcement, of provisions for revenue, or of whatever else concerns the public welfare. The whole solution for any problems lies in the truth that the divine Mind is the one source of action. It is infinite intelligence, God, the one spiritual cause of all real effect, that must be discerned, understood, and manifested in order that harmony in vigorous living may be proved as the constant experience of the true man. The one relationship, revealed through Christian Science, is the relationship of man, spiritual idea, to the infinite Mind, which alone is Soul. In other words, the spiritual man cooperates perfectly with divine intelligence. This is the cooperation which is immensely better than any human sense of cooperation that has ever been devised. As Mrs. Eddy says in "The People's Idea of God" (p. 11), "Above the platform of human rights let us build another staging for diviner claims,—even the supremacy of Soul over sense, wherein man cooperates with and is made subject to his Maker."

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