Editorial August 7, 1920 Issue

The New Earth

GUSTAVUS S. PAINE

EARTH is so often thought of as matter, as a type of gross materiality, that some may have lost sight of the fact that there must be the true idea of earth as well as of anything else. Any seeming mortal sense of things is but counterfeit of the infinite idea created and sustained by divine Mind. There could not even seem to be a counterfeit without there being first of all the genuine. The spiritual fact is, of course, that the genuine is simply omnipresent Mind manifested. All the presence and substance there is or ever has been, divine Mind and its idea, could not really be counterfeited, could not allow even a suppositional opposite actually to exist. The very supposition of an opposite to infinity is from its nature mere supposition of an impossibility,—in other words, utterly nothing, than which it could never be less nor more. In place of this supposititious nothingness, the divine Mind with its boundlessly varied idea is always the present and eternal verity. This Mind's substantial activity must, therefore, be all there is to the true earth, to the "new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness."

On page 585 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy defines "EARTH" as: "A sphere; a type of eternity and immortality, which are likewise without beginning or end." Then she explains even more fully: "To material sense, earth is matter; to spiritual sense, it is a compound idea." There need be no fear whatever, therefore, that anything that earth truly means or includes will ever be destroyed. The true idea is as eternal as its divine source, though necessarily quite apart from any belief in matter. The belief conceived of by a wholly suppositional mortal mind is what dissolves and leaves the perfect idea intact as what it always has been, the expression of Principle. If we substitute any other word for "earth" the same truth remains true. The divine idea is what God knows of anything, instead of the human belief.

Take, for instance, the word "summer." The summer which divine intelligence knows is the eternity of joyous fulfillment. Of the true idea, there could be neither too much nor too little. Immortal Mind is ever conscious of just the right season for all activity. This true season is not limited to any human sense of seasons but unfolds perpetually as idea, altogether separate from supposed matter. The spiritual season which is the product of Principle is exactly right in quality and tangible unfoldment. It is, of course, endlessly varied, simply because it is the effect of infinite divine consciousness. Nothing less than the one Mind, which is all the Mind there is, could possibly be conscious of this perfect season of activity, and nothing less than the one Mind could be conscious of anything else, for there is nothing else either to know or to be known. In other words, the spiritual fact is that even now the true season which God knows as perfectly satisfactory in every way is the only season of true experience. This is the joyous eternity of the true earth, as idea, not as matter.

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