Article November 5, 1921 Issue

Let the Truth Operate

LOUIS J. LEWIS

If the majority of people on this earth are confused over world problems, it is not because the problems are not already solved. If they continue to argue that existence itself is an inexplicable mystery, it is not because Truth has yet to be revealed. When Mary Baker Eddy declared in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (P. 255), "Eternal Truth is changing the universe" she not only gave the world the reason for its unusual activities to-day but at the same time delivered a profound warning to all spiritual thinkers to let Truth operate. No other religion or science takes the radical stand for the supremacy of Truth or Principle that Christian Science takes. And does the taking of such a radical stand mean anything but emphasizing the First Commandment to have no other gods? A world conflict with its et ceteras of famine and pestilence is not surprising to those familiar with Mrs. Eddy's prophecy of these very conditions, which we find in Science and Health, beginning on page 96.

These disturbing conditions may mean more or less to the individual according to his spiritual understanding. It was clear to the writer of the ninety-first psalm that the one who dwells "in the secret place of the most High," or whose thoughts are of Truth, Principle, or Love, is immune from evil. He did not promise that we would not see these things, for we read: "Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked," or as a Christian metaphysician would understand that, it is only sense testimony of what befalls the wrong thinker, whether it be plague, famine, or destruction. In reality, the scientific thinker knows that existence is harmonious in God's kingdom. And so it is to-day that we seem to find ourselves confronted with a world of discord filled with sin, disease, and sorrow on the one hand, and Christian Science or the Science of Life on the other explaining the great first and only cause and creator. This cause is revealed as Principle or Truth that made and includes all. It is therefore all-powerful and has no opposition, and is all-intelligence and, therefore, incapable of making a mistake. Such is the nature of God, who can be understood as absolute, infinite good named Love.

To any one open to the truth and willing to reason logically it is clear that Truth never created, authorized, or cognizes the disruption, evil or discord witnessed to-day in the world. Yet many well meaning theological teachers would have us take quite an opposite view by quoting from Isaiah as authority: "I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things." This passage coming form such a spiritual thinker as Isaiah is food for thought to those who are experiencing upset conditions in the home, church, business, or government, but hear Mrs. Eddy on this passage (Science and Health, p. 540): "In Isaiah we read: 'I make peace, and create evil. I the Lord do all these things;' but the prophet referred to divine law as stirring up the belief in evil to its utmost, when bringing it to the surface and reducing it to its common denominator, nothingness. The muddy riverbed must be stirred in order to purify the stream." How truly does this apply to the present day situation. But are we to place the responsibility for evil with God? Not according to the concluding sentence of the passage just quoted, where Mrs. Eddy adds, "In moral chemicalization, when the symptoms of evil, illusion, are aggravated, we may think in our ignorance that the Lord hath wrought an evil; but we ought to know that God's law uncovers so-called sin and its effects, only that Truth may annihilate all sense of evil and all power to sin."

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