Article July 12, 1930 Issue

From Faith to Understanding

ISRAEL PICKENS

WITH the wisdom and the understanding born of divine revelation and of a glorified and ripened experience, Paul wrote these words: "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." It is obvious that the "childish things" to which the great apostle referred, were phases of thought which include the errors of ignorance, weakness, and limitation; for in the true child nature there are many qualities worthy to be retained and nurtured through all the years. Thus, the adult may discard the fears and the false beliefs of the child; but, on the other hand, he cherishes the child's faith and trust, its humility and teachableness, its innocence and purity.

Mrs. Eddy writes, "Until belief becomes faith, and faith becomes spiritual understanding, human thought has little relation to the actual or divine" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 297). These, then, are the footsteps one must take in order to attain the complete demonstration of unity with God. The child's faith, its complete confidence in its parents' tender, loving care, has no tinge of doubt or distrust. It cannot explain, but yet it has unbounded trust in its parents' goodness, love, and understanding. With each little hurt it ever finds a tender caress or comforting word.

So, with the newborn spiritual idea unfolding in faith-filled consciousness, the young student, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, finds much need of comforting reassurance, often given by a more advanced student. Time and again there may arise in the young Scientist's experience the need of the helping hand, the need of some loving friend or practitioner to help him in holding aloft the light of his new-found faith, that its beam may illumine his pathway.

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