Editorial February 7, 1925 Issue

Spirit or Matter?

Albert F. Gilmore

One of mankind's strongest desires is to maintain an harmonious condition in the flesh, to establish a normal state of existence in order the better to enjoy life at its full. The materially-minded, it seems, have missed the point of Jesus' words, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." Abundant life with such materialists means a larger measure of sensuous living; with those of heavenly vision, more abundant life is a larger concept of the Life which is divine, gained not through increasing sensuous belief, but rather through replacement of material beliefs by the spiritual concept of Life as God.

The so-called mortal mind is never desirous of relinquishing its own sense of security for something which it regards as ephemeral, insubstantial, and unreal. It is unwilling to exchange its own sense of substantiality for spiritual consciousness and the kingdom of heaven, of which it can have no adequate knowledge. It is wholly satisfied, it seems, to revolve in its own orbit, to remain at ease in its own area of consciousness. Why? Because it knows no better. Of the ignorant idolatry of mortal mind, Mrs. Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 186): "Mortal mind is ignorant of self, or it could never be self-deceived. If mortal mind knew how to be better, it would be better. Since it must believe in something besides itself, it enthrones matter as deity."

The carnal mind, then, is the consistent worshiper at the shrine of material beliefs. As it is, it does the best it knows. Its ideals and aims being "of the earth, earthy," and all its gods being material concepts, it has no range of vision which reveals the heavenly demesne. Mortal mind's highest concept of true bliss is of a garden of Eden in which materiality would flourish to the utmost, and in never failing abundance. To be at ease in the flesh, that is, to remain a happy habitue of the garden of Eden, is mortal mind's keenest desire.

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