Article November 1, 1922 ISSUE

Be Not Troubled

WILLIAM W. PORTER

On page 380 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy writes: "Many years ago the author made a spiritual discovery, the scientific evidence of which has accumulated to prove that the divine Mind produces in man health, harmony, and immortality." Since these words were written, it has come about that many no longer believe sin and sickness to be natural and unavoidable. On the contrary, as the result of the practice and teaching of Christian Science, to-day thought is rightly informed as to the divine Mind, or God, and His perfect spiritual creation, and men look with confidence and expectancy for the manifestation forthwith of health and harmony. The era of better thinking introduced by Jesus in the first century, which corrected the wrong thinking exemplified in the religious hatred expressed by Saul of Tarsus in his persecutions of the early Christians, finds a counterpart in the era of right mental activity wrought by Christian Science in the twentieth century, which corrects the wrong thinking implicated in the indulgence of the senses.

Saul, afterwards called Paul, with all mankind then as now, possessed the capacity to think; and, because of this, the teachings of Jesus were a rebuke to him. They demanded attention and thought; they would not be brushed aside by mere ecclesiastical assertion. Despite these assertions the works, which confirmed the teachings, remained stubbornly in evidence to arouse and quicken thought. The theology and medicine of the day were unable either to equal or to refute the works of the Master. Having lived for years in the atmosphere of ecclesiastical dogma, and having been taught to reverence form and ceremony as an essential of religion,—to accept the symbol in the place of the substance,—and possessing at the same time the capacity to think, it was in the nature of things that the time should come when Paul exercise this capacity in the right direction. The time came to him, specifically, with the Damascus experience.

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