Editorial August 14, 1920 Issue

Language That Heals

Gustavus S. Paine

THE healing power of the right statement of Truth consists simply in the fact that the idea caused by the divine Mind is always whole. As this wholeness of the true idea takes the place of any human sense of lack, what is called healing comes about. Really, of course, the health that is of Spirit, not matter, always has inhered in the man who is God's image and likeness. Robust action is the only state of real being. To the extent, though, that the surety of this proves the utter nonsense of any fear of seeming limits, just so much of even the dream of evil is vanquished so that it ceases to suppose itself in any fashion. One reason for stating Truth is that this process may go on, for every word of true good shows that the counter lie, called evil, always has been void. Then too, the word of Truth is good in itself because it reveals with constant freshness the boundless Mind that is ever joyous. The student of Christian Science, therefore, is eager to know and to use the richness of right language.

In order to last, the words of Christ Jesus had to be inspired by the divine Mind. In a number of places Mrs. Eddy reminds us that "his words were articulated in the language of a declining race, and committed to the providence of God" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 163; see also pp. 100 and 121). "In no one thing," she goes on to say, "seemed he less human and more divine than in his unfaltering faith in the immortality of Truth. Referring to this, he said, 'Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away!' and they have not: they still live; and are the basis of divine liberty, the medium of Mind, the hope of the race." It is, indeed, the fact that what is expressed by the divine Mind alone is real that preserves the very statement of the true idea, in all sorts of varied phrases, to declare the Christ, who is present even unto the end of the world.

When one really knows God as the only Mind, one can speak the truth in the simplest words and heal by so doing. Words as arranged in common speech make up what is known as prose. The best and most truly healing written language is that which most nearly equals the best spoken language. All will admit that the spoken words of Christ Jesus, as the four gospels record them, are a model of clear and forceful language for those who are eager to prove constant healing through both wise speaking and wise writing. "Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always;"—surely no words could be simpler than these, and yet surely no words could more truly state the healing wholeness of right knowing. As they stand in quiet prose, they state the exact truth to bless the many of all times and places. An attempt to work them over into a sort of verse, charged with mortal feelings, would not improve them. It is the merely mortal feeling that one needs to turn away from in order to know and to prove the simple goodness of God.

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