Editorial July 7, 1923 Issue

"The calm and exalted thought"

Duncan Sinclair

Every student of Christian Science knows something of the peace which the understanding of God bestows. Before hearing of Christian Science he may have been living almost entirely in the wilderness of mortal mind, a sufferer, perhaps, from some disease, or maybe enduring the tortures of a life distorted by the sinful material beliefs that fret mankind. The student has been awakened by divine Science, to some extent, out of the material dream. The awakening has often meant a healing; and with the healing a measure of the peace of God has come to him. He has caught more than a glimpse of the harmony of real being. The spiritual vision has calmed his thought and exalted it; and now peace reigns, sometimes beyond his fondest hopes. He has proved the truth of Mrs. Eddy's words in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 506) : "Through divine Science, Spirit, God, unites understanding to eternal harmony. The calm and exalted thought or spiritual apprehension is at peace."

It is a necessity that the thought of the Christian Scientist should be "calm and exalted" in order that he may bring consolation and healing to his fellow-men. As Christian Science shows, every case of sickness and sin is, primarily, a wrong mental condition. The afflicted one is alienated, in belief, from good; believes he is separated from the source of all good,—omnipresent God; and this false belief shows itself in inharmony of some kind or other, in unhappiness, sorrow, or pain,—in a mental condition the very reverse of harmonious. The point to be particularly noted is that the condition is mental. Consequently, if one would help the condition, one must be able to approach it with "the calm and exalted thought," which is the result of spiritual understanding; one must bring to it "the peace of God, which passeth all understanding."

In her writings Mrs. Eddy not infrequently refers to the great value of the calm and exalted mentality. On page 366 of Science and Health she writes, "The sick are terrified by their sick beliefs, and sinners should be affrighted by their sinful beliefs; but the Christian Scientist will be calm in the presence of both sin and disease, knowing, as he does, that Life is God and God is All." There we have the secret of the calm which every Christian Scientist desires to possess. He knows "that Life is God and God is All." Could there be a firmer foundation for steadfast, enduring peace than that, ruling out, as it does, all that is unlike good? As Christian Science maintains, the fact that God is All-in-all denies reality to whatsoever appears to be unlike good. Evil in every form—fear, disease, sin—is unreal, supposititious mortal belief without a trace of true being about it, since God, good, is All-in-all.

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