Editorial May 6, 1922 Issue

A Few Rules

Ella W. Hoag

All Christian Scientists desire to demonstrate their unity with God, good,—to find their real selfhood. In order to do this it goes without saying that there must be a continual work of purifying—the rejection and relinquishment of evil beliefs—going on in their consciousness. In all Christian Science churches each Sunday we hear John's statement: "Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." The question naturally follows: What, then, is the specific method of rejection and relinquishment?

One simple rule is: The instant a thought knocks at our door and is seen as error, it should be denied and refused entrance. It may begin to argue as though it were already within, but, if we are on guard, we can always speak with authority to an error which we have not been indulging. We can insist it is not within; we can know definitely that it does not belong to our consciousness and has no entity, intelligence, or power to claim to be there. If this is insisted upon, and the door kept shut to the belief that the error is ours, or that it is real, we shall be able to cling to the truth which has shown us the error as error and so to prove its unreality; for one can never see evil as evil unless the truth of that situation has first been discerned. The truth which has uncovered the error is always at hand to rebuke and to destroy the error.

So long as an evil of any sort is not indulged, however arrogant or detestable it may claim to be, we may reject it from the standpoint that since it does not belong to God it therefore cannot belong to us as the children of God. Even if we have seemed to indulge an error of belief by permitting it to hold sway in our thinking until it has apparently governed our word or act, we can even then refuse to admit that it is ours, if we are willing to condemn and renounce it. It is only when we are unwilling to condemn an evil that we must see ourselves as the sinner, and that the sinner and the sin are one and inseparable. Take, for instance, the claim of some form of self-will. Suppose we see that the thought we are indulging is a self-willed one; if we are unwilling to examine it in the light of Truth and recognize it for just what it is, if unwilling to rebuke and renounce it, we shall probably go on cherishing that sin until suffering awakens us to its false nature. The test of our right mental attitude is always this: Are we willing to let the light of Truth in to show us whether the thought is of God, good, or of evil? Every problem worked out along this line will open the door for the solving of many another. It is the use of right mental activity which advances spiritual growth. Mental inaction tends to mesmerize and stupefy, and should be always guarded against.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Editorial

The Aim of the Christian Scientist