Article February 25, 1928 Issue

Christly Patience

ELIZABETH H. HUNT

There are few qualities more fraught with happiness and well-being for mankind than patience. It has always been exercised by mankind in some degree; but it has been so frequently misapplied and misunderstood in its true nature, that its beneficent effects have been greatly limited. Jesus, the Way-shower, gave to it its true significance, and made possible its possession by all who should follow his example. He showed its source to be the understanding of divine Love; and his whole life was a demonstration of Christly patience, born of spiritual understanding, which enabled him to destroy fear and heal every manner of disease and inharmony among the people.

Christian Science has come to interpret to this age the meaning of Christly patience. Of the way to demonstrate this quality Mrs. Eddy has said in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 20), "St. Paul wrote, 'Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us;' that is, let us put aside material self and sense, and seek the divine Principle and Science of all healing." The patience required in this healing work Science reveals as neither condoning evil nor condemning its victim. It enables its possessors to be compassionate with themselves and with others, since the understanding of which this Christly patience is born is unfolding to them man's at-one-ment with his Father-Mother God, giving rest to the weary and heavyladen, and setting free the captives of sin and disease. With the patience and compassion of the Master they may destroy the false claims of sin and disease, however loathsome their forms, through the perception of man's real nature as a child of God. Only with the help of this Christly patience is this task possible of accomplishment.

When the vision of the possibilities of the liberating truth first dawns in human consciousness, mortals would fain stay upon the mount; but like the apostles of old they must come down, keeping the vision ever with them, and patiently begin the work of applying this great truth to every detail of their lives. Do they find pain and discord very much a part of this self which they have been taught to accept as their real self? Then each time these falsities present themselves they must patiently reiterate the truth that pain is no part of man's experience, and that discord has no place in the eternal harmony of the divine Mind, in which man lives, moves, and has his being. Do quick, adverse judgment, the harsh word, the discouraging and skeptical verdict, come frequently to the thought and the lips? Then let patience have its perfect work, revealing to the consciousness the Christ-model, until we awaken more fully to the meaning of what Mrs. Eddy declares in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 262): "God creates man perfect and eternal in His own image. Hence man is the image, idea, or likeness of perfection — an ideal which cannot fall from its inherent unity with divine Love, from its spotless purity and original perfection." Do old fears persist, past experiences of sorrow and suffering and wrong continue to overshadow the unguarded thought? Then let us remember that ever present Love casts out fear; that all man has been, is, or can be is what God made. God is good, and man reflects omnipresent good. This truth clung to, will destroy the false image of fear, and enthrone in its place the Christ.

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