Article May 9, 1931 Issue

What Is in Thine House?

THOMAS W. DIXSON

A nation's consciousness consists of the varying mental concepts held by the individuals constituting its citizenship. Mental causation is more and more being recognized as a factor in the peace and prosperity of countries as well as persons. This recognition of the power of thought is encouraging, and Christian Scientists particularly rejoice in it, for they regard it as a step in the right direction. They are found in the vanguard of any right movement, patient, hopeful, and expectant of good, and doing their share to bring it to fruition.

But though the public view of causation is slowly changing from a physical to a metaphysical basis, yet it is spiritual causation, the only true causation, that should appeal to enlightened thought. As our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 170), "Spiritual causation is the one question to be considered, for more than all others spiritual causation relates to human progress." We can be certain that whatever permanent good may be accomplished by peace conferences, disarmament commissions, efforts to restore business prosperity, or measures to relieve unemployment, the best results will be brought about through a better understanding of God as the one and only cause, and of man as God's likeness, who is not at the mercy of chance or the victim of evil, but is governed and protected by the universal and unerring law of good.

The Bible affords numerous instances of the protection and deliverance of God's people when, in times of threatened peril or disaster, they relied solely upon Him. Among other experiences is that of Hezekiah. When Sennacherib, king of Assyria, threatened destruction to his kingdom, and Hezekiah humbly called upon God to save them out of his hand, Judah was wonderfully delivered. But after God had healed Hezekiah of sickness and had given him much substance, He "left him, to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart." The narrative relates that, in a spirit of vainglory he showed the Babylonian ambassadors all that was in his house—the silver and the gold and all that was in his treasures. With what bitterness of heart, then, must Hezekiah have heard the words of the prophet that his kingdom was to fall a prey, not to Assyria, but to Babylon itself.

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