Editorial September 30, 1922 Issue

Health

Ella W. Hoag

Were the average person asked to define health, he might find it difficult to comply, so indefinite seems to be the understanding of what health really means. More or less generally, it is supposed to concern the human body, and consequently to be dependent on physical conditions, and under the control of material laws. To be sure, mankind has also talked sometimes of health of mind and soul; but, even then, the thought has been attached to materiality, since human belief has said that brain thinks and that soul is in body. Mortals have also believed that health could get into matter without their knowledge, and get out of matter without their desire or consent. Try the best they might, study and search as earnestly as they knew how, obey as punctiliously as possible all the latest material methods for securing and retaining health,—still, rarely could one be found who seemed to possess much of the coveted treasure. Certainly, there is nothing more sought after than health; and nothing has seemed more illusive in its nature; for witness a whole world seeking, and how few finding!

That men have been looking to matter, instead of to God, for health is one reason for their having failed in such large measure to find it. Christian people have prayed long and loudly to God to give them health, since they have felt that without it they were practically helpless and hopeless. But in spite of praying thus, they have still looked for it in matter, and have believed it was dependent on matter. The Bible has always been proclaiming to men that health is of God; that it can only be realized in proportion as God's laws are obeyed. It is true that Christian men and women have believed this in some degree; but the difficulty has been that while they have prayed to God to show them how to obey Him, in order that they might thereby win health, they have at the same time believed that His laws in regard to health were material, and they have expected Him to give them healthy matter in answer to their prayer. Consequently, they have continued to look to matter to discover both the laws they were to obey and the health they hoped to receive. In other words, they have prayed to God, and then have looked away from God to find that which is only of God. Is it any wonder that while working from such a standpoint they have failed in their quest?

It was into the darkness of such a disappointed world that the light of Christian Science came, showing not only the true nature of health, but the way to secure it. When Mrs. Eddy states in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 120), "Health is not a condition of matter, but of Mind; nor can the material senses bear reliable testimony on the subject of health," she immediately places health where it belongs, and opens the way for all to understand and demonstrate it. Immediately, thought is turned away from matter to God, divine Mind. Finding that health belongs to divine Mind, the infinite God, it is readily seen that it must always be found therein, existing as a divinely mental attribute. Every child of God, therefore, must reflect it, and can never be separated from it; hence, the glorious truth must be deduced that all mankind can and must demonstrate it.

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