Editorial July 27, 1929 Issue

Profitable Exchange

Violet Ker Seymer

The word "exchange" means giving up one thing in order to receive another; and in the business world equity rightly requires that a just equivalent should accompany this exchange. Lifting one's thought from the interchange of material things into the realm of consciousness, what is found to be the effect of Christian Science in human experience? It is a mental change of base from the material to the spiritual and, consequently, a constant gain of higher standards of health, morality, happiness, and usefulness.

A dictionary defines "exchange" as the "act of substituting one thing for another; as, an exchange of grief for joy;" and Mrs. Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 531), "The human mind will sometime rise above all material and physical sense, exchanging it for spiritual perception, and exchanging human concepts for the divine consciousness." What is the human concept of man and the universe? Even taken at its best, it is always of a temporal and limited nature. Moreover, there inevitably is some fear entertained in connection with the belief in materiality. To some, sickness and pain seem unendurable, and the sufferer looks to death for release. Others, believing that their happiness and prosperity center upon persons and possessions, are haunted by the dread of being parted from them.

What is gained through exchanging physical sense for spiritual perception? In spite of the seemingly overwhelming evidence of materiality and mortality, a spiritual conviction of security, purity, eternality, unalterable harmony is apprehended. This spiritual exchange enables the Christian Scientist to find happiness and satisfaction not outside of himself, or in merely outward ways, but within his own consciousness. It enables him to outgrow fear and selfishness by proving his real relationship to God, and the dominion this gives him. So he daily exchanges finite sense, with all its torments, for spiritual sense, with all its blessedness.

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Editorial
On Resisting Evil
July 27, 1929
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