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.

Thus by far the most of one's daily language, either in speaking or in writing, is prose rather than verse. As a means for stating the truth, clear, straight prose gives one a freedom that many verse forms surely could not provide. In prose, one can round out his subject with the needful detail, express in full what one has to say, and thus heal through giving wholeness in place of any seeming lack. Much of the verse that is so common in the world to-day consists of mere flashes of mortal feeling, and therefore can state little of the entire idea of good. Human feeling, at its seeming best, is the very reverse of the true feeling of the divine Mind. Hence it has to subside before the calm force of reason that proceeds from Mind and is ever apart from the belief in matter. For the healing logic of Christian Science, Mrs. Eddy herself used mainly prose.

Rightly to enjoy the verse that Mrs. Eddy has written one has to be alert to the import of every word that she has used. Consider, for instance, her poem "Easter Morn" (Poems, p. 30), which is dated, "Pleasant View, Concord, N. H., April 18, 1900." Here she is voicing the truth in every line, with a sure touch and a healing motive that wholly succeeds. Each stanza is packed with meaning; yet the effect of the whole is simple when one is really looking for the truth. Mrs. Eddy had a high regard for the value of verse as a form of writing, so high a regard for it that she maintained in her own writing of poetry an exact metaphysical diction equal to that of her prose. The exact statement of what the divine Mind knows must be the ideal in all writing. Thus, though one may most often do well to use prose, if he does write verse he must do so with quiet sureness that the divine Mind alone uses the true language.

The work of each one, then, is simply to express the divine Mind. As one proves what this Mind is and how it acts, one's whole language is sure to show forth more and more of the true idea. An attempt to copy what someone else has said will never suffice, however, to prove God's boundless way of healing. The one divine Mind and its idea is the only real pattern. How this Mind and idea must be applied to take the place of every mere seeming is an endless subject for clear speaking and clear writing, at the right time and in the right way. Each one must know for himself that his every word is a message of healing for the blessing of all, when it is inspired by Truth. As Mrs. Eddy says on page 454 of Science and Health, "Love for God and man is the true incentive in both healing and teaching. Love inspires, illumines, designates, and leads the way. Right motives give pinions to thought, and strength and freedom to speech and action." This, of course, is the kind of language that heals.

Gustavus S. Paine.