Editorial June 22, 1929 Issue

Steadfast Faith

Violet Ker Seymer

Steadfastness is a quality of spiritual understanding, and it includes unshaken hope and faith. The various arguments of the carnal mind designed to weaken right expectation or lower one's moral standard cannot enter consciousness if steadfast obedience to good guards the entrance. The Psalmist rebukes the lack of this quality when he speaks of "a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God." One who trains his thoughts to stay steadfastly with God, good, reflects the strength of divine Principle. But thoughts which stray from God, good, are inevitably unsteadfast, deflected from Truth, unprincipled, faithless. Hence, one who would be spiritually steadfast must maintain his mental outlook clear and true to God; and this necessitates turning mentally away from the evidence presented by the physical senses.

In the case of a certain cripple from birth it is written in the Acts of the Apostles that Paul "stedfastly beholding him, and perceiving that he had faith to be healed, said with a loud voice, Stand upright on thy feet. And he leaped and walked." In this healing, steadfast faith was in evidence on both sides. There was no timidity or unbelief on the part either of Paul or of the cripple. On the part of both there was active faith. Hence, the elements of unbelief, which would weaken steadfast faith and the expectancy of good in practitioners and patients, must be cast out of consciousness, else they will hinder demonstration. Unquestionably Paul's attention was riveted on the cripple's spiritual faith, rather than on his physical infirmity. Can it be doubted, then, that what Paul steadfastly beheld was the very reverse of the apparently crippled body of a mortal? Was it not the pure, perfect, and complete idea of man, the resemblance of Mind and not the dissemblance of matter, which Paul steadfastly beheld?

If one finds himself believing that he has not faith enough to heal, or to be healed, he needs to repudiate this carnal suggestion promptly and totally. How may this be done? By declaring and realizing that faith is a spiritual quality derived from Spirit, and that faith is therefore both limitless and steadfast, for Truth is unaffected by error.

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