Article September 16, 1922 Issue

The Science of Right Thinking

WILLARD M. GRIMES

Christian Science is the Science of right thinking. Its teachings set forth plainly that man's troubles are due to wrong thoughts, to be remedied only by the correction of the processes of thought that produce the discordant conditions. This solution of human woes seems such a simple one that the average individual is sometimes skeptical regarding its efficacy, or turns away from it because he is reluctant to abandon habits of thinking which he has, perhaps, served for years.

Jesus once healed a case of blindness by sending the person who was afflicted to a certain pool to wash. The story of Naaman, the captain in the Syrian army who came to Elisha to be healed of leprosy and was told to wash seven times, also presents an interesting lesson. Naaman, having made great preparations for his healing and undertaken a long journey in order to obtain it, was much displeased to be told that what he needed was a thorough cleansing; however, he obeyed the direction of Elisha and was healed. In both these cases, the context indicates that it was the obedience and greater sense of purity—expressions of right thinking—which helped to accomplish the healing work.

Mankind has for so long developed the faculty of wrong thinking, through the acceptance of uncorrected sense testimony, that there has grown up a prejudice against, and in some cases an actual fear of, serious or fundamental thought. "Think, and die," said a friend of Antony in "Antony and Cleopatra." How different is this concept of thinking from that of the Bible teaching! "How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God!" joyfully exclaimed the psalmist, "how great is the sum of them!" And, again, hear the promise which we find in the twenty-sixth chapter of Isaiah, "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee." Christian Science has come to restore the Bible rule of thinking, to bring "into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." Mrs. Eddy has declared in the textbook of Christian Science, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 261), "Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts."

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