Vision

JESSIE G. CALDWELL

"Where there is no vision, the people perish," we are told in Proverbs. Truth and error are direct opposites; one is real, the other illusion. Since the mist arose and clouded the vision, as recorded in Genesis, mankind has been struggling to reconcile the one with the other, until to-day, wrapped in a shroud of illusion, men often cry out in the agony of fear and suffering, "Lord, save us: we perish."

Vision is recognition of Truth through spiritual perception. Obviously, true spiritual vision, which is the perception of God's omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience, must appear to man. Through the study of Christian Science the truth is unfolded, and man's divine inheritance is revealed. Men thus learn to separate the real from the unreal. They see that their experiences are the direct results of their own thinking, outward manifestations of their inward thoughts. No two mortals see the so-called material world in the same way; and this proves that it is a varying mental concept with no other basis than material belief; that the whole material system of living is the result of finite thinking.

The one Mind is exact and unchangeable, and nothing unreal can either enter it or proceed from it. In making the necessary separation between truth and error, one may easily follow a mistaken belief that his erroneous thinking has produced an actual condition to be overcome; whereas the condition itself has no foundation, and is no more real than the belief which has claimed to form it. God made all and made all good; therefore, He did not create an erroneous thought or an evil result therefrom.

Each thought and its origin must, then, be examined, to determine whether it be false or true. Any inharmonious condition which seems to arise is but a false mental picture of which so-called mortal mind is the artist. It is the outward manifestation of false thinking; and the correction rests with the individual. As each one strives to gain the true idea, the vision of the perfect will become more apparent, and the error will cease even to seem to exist, because of lack of fertile ground.

Any thought which is filled with the right idea of God and man, and their coexistence, cannot fail to send forth healing. Each individual is responsible for his own thinking; therefore by the correction of it is his progress determined. People and events do not govern divine Principle or the activities of divine Principle. Evil is not the master of good; and fear cannot disturb Truth. Whatever is based on the true foundation of Spirit is going on continually. As Mrs. Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 283), "Mind is the source of all movement." Then what can hinder it?

Mrs. Eddy, through her clear vision or recognition of divine Mind and spiritual law, gave us the rule of right thinking, a rule which must be spiritually discerned and applied. The accurate mathematician does not learn a rule and then go about trying to solve his problem in some other way than by applying it. He has absolute confidence that it is correct; he uses it persistently, until the right result is obtained. So must it be in Christian Science. It has been proved over and over again that God's law is perfect; and Christian Scientists must apply that law, constantly knowing that any seeming error cannot stand against it.

God does not use error as a channel to bring blessings to His children. Only by forsaking error do we apprehend good. Mrs. Eddy has said in Science and Health (p. 252), "A knowledge of error and of its operations must precede that understanding of Truth which destroys error;" but she does not say that this knowledge includes an admission that error has any power or reality. She does say, however (Science and Health, p. 357), "We sustain Truth, not by accepting, but by rejecting a lie."

There is no more variation in the truth of God's government than there is in the fact that two times two are four. Regardless of conditions or opinions, two times two always are four. God's kingdom is universal, perfect; and the activities of divine Mind have never been disturbed. A realization of this fact silences error whenever it argues for place and power.

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Walking in the Right Way

December 15, 1923

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