Editorial January 28, 1922 Issue

At the Breaking Point

Gustavus S. Paine

Mortal belief will never be less than it is now, for, as Christian Science shows, it is now and always has been nothing, mere effect of a supposed mind for which there is no room in the allness of the one divine Mind and its idea. Good we must find as all that exists, while evil simply is not. This does not mean that what seems to be wrong in human doing can ever rightly be looked upon by any subtle twists of thought as good and real, but it does mean that even where evil seems to be, there divine Spirit with its action is the only presence. Trouble of any sort, whether of morals, of body, or of the world's affairs, appears as if it were in mind, presents itself as a concept of supposed mortal mind, and, no matter what place it seems to be in, whether it is conceived to be in a person, in a group, or in something else, it is always merely belief in the so-called carnal mind, which does not really exist. All the while, the one true Mind does exist here and now and is conscious of boundless right action, leaving no room for any belief opposed to its allness. This is the truth which Christian Science explains so clearly that each one can prove it for himself and thus rejoice in what may seem to him fresh instances of the divine fact which always has been.

If one seems depressed, harried by doubts and alarms, weighed down by human work, and cramped by all sorts of mortal limits, it is good to know that the breaking point is indeed at hand. This statement is not meant to be startling but simply to turn thought to the divine fact that the time for the breaking up of that which never has been true is the present, and that the breaking up of error is good, since through it the truth must stand revealed. It was this knowledge of good as really present that showed to the three Jews in the burning fiery furnace that the Son of God was with them, and that led the psalmist to declare: "Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold thou art there. . . . If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me."

The heaven of Mind must dispel and displace the belief of a hell in matter, as the sunlight disperses the mist. Yet even this figure of the light and darkness is hardly exact, for to the one Spirit there is no lack of Spirit to be replaced. A figure drawn from any earthly sense of things cannot give the full nature of Mind and its idea, nor, in fact, can any human language express Truth's perfect action, which now and always disrupts any supposed sense of things opposed to its real allness. As the human belief yields to the divine fact, it is proved that the one Mind, with what this Mind knows, always has been the solid substance. On page 261 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy writes: "Detach sense from the body, or matter, which is only a form of human belief, and you may learn the meaning of God, or good, and the nature of the immutable and immortal. Breaking away from the mutations of time and sense, you will neither lose the solid objects and ends of life nor your own identity." This breaking away from that which is false must mean, in the words of the hymn:—

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