Article September 4, 1920 Issue

The study of Christian Science at once emphasizes...

Christian Science Monitor

The study of Christian Science at once emphasizes the fact that Mind and its idea is in reality all there is, that this idea is nothing less than the exact and perfect expression of the infinite, reflected in illimitable variety of harmonious experience. This true image of God is forever untouched by the seeming suggestions of false belief. By insistently replacing erroneous belief with the declaration and understanding that man is the complete expression of consciousness, of the one Mind, the discordant lie will give place to the acknowledgment of man as the altogether harmonious representation of Principle. Intelligence expressed is the hereditary right of man. To manifest this intelligence expressed in every detail of living requires constant watchfulness and persistent effort, and necessitates the continual recognition of Principle as the source of all activity.

In the art of etching, one of the most exacting of all the arts, owing to the care and accuracy the etcher must use to insure a perfect impression, the analyst finds that the process is not unlike the effect on his life of a man's thinking. Beginning with a smooth copper plate, the artist etches thereon his interpretation of life, which results, in conformity to his standards, in a cold, unlovely print or in a faultless and beautiful representation. Take for example Rembrandt's famous etching, "The Three Trees" and the copy by Captain Baillie; both men started with the same copper plates, the same tools, but Rembrandt's genius originated one of the greatest of all landscapes, exquisite in tenderness, perfect in composition. The magnificent impressions are the exact reproduction of the etched lines. So it is with the experiences of a man's life; they are the true expression of his thinking. Of the light or shadow, the happiness or sorrow, each one is the master, delineating exactly the result of his own lines of thought. Any one, by conforming his reasoning to the ideal of Christian Science, can manifest perfection. In reality another can never control one's thinking; if such a condition seems present, one is not thinking, he is but accepting a belief of thinking, which in turn will make of his life a barren counterfeit. Even after a faulty and inartistic print, painstaking effort will eradicate false lines from the copper plate and replace them with true and perfect lines, so that the impressions of different "states" are as dissimilar as differing states of consciousness that manifest in experience aspects totally diverse.

On page 261 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy admonishes us, "Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts." If the student, through the apprehension of Truth, humbly, honestly, and resolutely seeks to put Principle foremost in his thinking, his resultant understanding of Truth so purifies him that seeming manifestations of disease and sin spontaneously disappear and he will find man expressing what in reality man always has expressed, the perfectibility of idea. One can no more think both good and evil at the same instant than one can believe two times two equals five at the same moment in which he reasons that two times two equals four; therefore, to continue the parallel of the etchings, it is a question for the artist of constantly choosing whether he shall accept as models the suggestions of fear, envy, jealousy, and hate that present themselves or whether Spirit and its attributes, goodness, mercy, kindness, and the like shall have dominion. One can and should accept as consciousness only that which is true consciousness, infinite good, God.

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