Editorial January 21, 1922 Issue

In Terms of the True Universe

Gustavus S. Paine

When a man looks at a flower, a mountain, or at the cattle upon a thousand hills, and sees beauty, he may well think: How much more beautiful is the infinite spiritual idea which all these earthly things but counterfeit. As a matter of fact, whatever he truly perceives of beauty or any other satisfying quality must be the spiritual idea, and not the seeming earthly concept, for the former is the allinclusive expression of the one Mind, the infinite, All-in-all, whereas the latter is, strictly speaking, nonexistent. Earthliness, the belief in matter, is mere belief in utterly supposititious mortal mind. Even where it appears to the human senses to be, there all the while is really infinite Mind with its infinite spiritual manifestation. As the Christian Scientist understands this truth, he recognizes that nothing has been taken, away from him by his turning to Principle, but that actual good is being revealed to him as never before.

Thus, on page 87 of "Miscellaneous Writings" Mrs. Eddy says: "In our immature sense of spiritual things, let us say of the beauties of the sensuous universe: 'I love your promise; and shall know, some time, the spiritual reality and substance of form, light, and color, of what I now through you discern dimly; and knowing this, I shall be satisfied. Matter is a frail conception of mortal mind; and mortal mind is a poorer representative of the beauty, grandeur, and glory of the immortal Mind.'" Spiritual reality is, of course, far more than emotionalism and far more than the human senses can give a hint of, for it must be boundless, actually infinite in variety, free from all limits of mortal outlining. Neither human feeling nor human intellect is sufficient to comprehend it; but the understanding of Principle discerns and realizes it fully.

The work of the Christian Scientist is always to understand spiritual idea as the truth of the universe, or of that which appears as any phase of activity in the universe. In order to think metaphysically, he must think in the broadest possible terms, in terms of the true idea, which is universal, and not in terms of his mere personal sense of anything. As his thought broadens he learns that only what is universally true is valuable to him in the working out of what present themselves as his own problems or the problems of the world in general. Since the one infinite Mind manifests itself as one infinite action, this infinity must take the place of any sense of limitation, and, therefore, the proving of freedom in any one respect shows that freedom in every other way is just as possible, for the one divine Principle has only one complete manifestation, the nature of which is not altered in the slightest by any name that may be given to it, or by any point of view from which it may be perceived.

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