Editorial December 17, 1921 Issue

"Half-way stations"

Gustavus S. Paine

In order to prove actual freedom and happiness, one cannot be satisfied with any half-way acceptance of the fact stated by Christ Jesus, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Either the Christ is completely present now or this promise is null and void. As revealed through Christian Science, the Christ is the infinite idea, effect, or spiritual expression of the one infinite Mind, which is God. The Christ, in other words, is man and not God, for infinite idea is the true man, which is inseparable from its cause. In fact, cause and effect cannot be thought of as separate entities, since Mind is continuously manifesting itself as idea or spiritual truth. If the divine Mind is called by the Scriptural name, I am, and idea is understood as the only "you" which Mind knows, then it is clear that the I am is always with its idea, even while the human sense of the world and all materiality is proved illusion and swallowed up in victory.

For all who will turn to the truth, the Christ is omnipresent in another sense also, in that infinite spiritual reality is here in Mind to be proved by all who will take advantage of this fact. On page 46 of "Unity of Good" Mrs. Eddy says, "The scientific man and his Maker are here; and you would be none other than this man, if you would subordinate the fleshly perceptions to the spiritual sense and source of being." As human beliefs are rejected and the spiritual idea of being is accepted, the illusion of mortality diminishes and disappears, and the belief that the Christ is absent is overcome by the understanding of the real presence of all good. To comprehend what this means and involves is to comprehend the metaphysical significance of Christmas.

While the belief in mortal mind, which never has been really existent, is disappearing, the changed condition may be humanly interpreted as a better belief, but this is because the false belief is to that extent lessened, being replaced by the true idea. Mere belief is at its best but falsity and illusion without any basis. The elimination of falsity by the truth cannot be arrested nor can it be limited by human concepts considered to be necessary evils to be suffered to be so now. There is no real authority whatever for a belief that the presence of the Christ cannot be fully demonstrated in the now that is eternal. To the plodding seeker, the spiritual fact may seem like the mountain top around which the mists are playing, but as he goes on he finds that all the reality of his living and doing is grounded on the spiritual expression of divine Principle, and that this stable foundation is the Christ in his experience. His whole real living unfolds on the basis of Christianity practiced in Christian Science, and in this practice he proves both true rest and true progress.

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