Editorial October 15, 1927 Issue

The Knowledge that Satisfies

Ella W. Hoag

How men reach out for satisfaction! How they strive and struggle, how they search and seek to find something that truly satisfies! The whole trend of earthly experience is supposed to be towards some goal or other which will supply a hoped-for good, which will afford the peace and comfort, the pleasure and happiness, that bring absolute content. And yet how far short of attaining true satisfaction is the world at large! When the Psalmist prayed, "I have called upon thee, for thou wilt hear me, O God: . . . keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings. . . . As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness," he showed the only place where and the only manner in which true satisfaction can ever be found.

What do all the efforts after good in matter amount to when good is in reality of Spirit and Spirit alone? Why should men spend their years in a vain effort to advance themselves materially, when "ye cannot serve God and mammon;" when "it is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing"? Mrs. Eddy tells us what really counts when in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 510) she writes, "How much more should we seek to apprehend the spiritual ideas of God, than to dwell on the objects of sense!"

What gratitude we as Christian Scientists feel for the glorious revelations of "the spiritual ideas of God" which are set forth in our beloved Leader's writings! How constantly our hearts are filled with thanksgiving that the way to attain the perfect knowledge of these ideas, which alone satisfy, is made so plain therein that the honest in purpose can never fail to see how to walk in it. Just to awaken to the first gleam of "the light that never was, on sea or land,"—which was never discerned materially, but is ever the divine intelligence emanating from God, Mind,—is to commence to progress out of the darkness of dissatisfaction into the contentment which always belongs to God and His son.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Editorial

Humanity's Helper