Editorial January 2, 1932 ISSUE

Daily Newness

Violet Ker Seymer

With the coming of the New Year the thoughts of Christian Scientists press still more eagerly forward, anticipating fresh progress, clearer vision of reality, and a higher standard than they had even yesterday.

On page 204 of "Miscellaneous Writings" Mrs. Eddy writes, "The baptism of the Holy Ghost is the spirit of Truth cleansing from all sin; giving mortals new motives, new purposes, new affections, all pointing upward." This baptism, these new motives, purposes, and affections, we should seek daily, in order to conquer "all sin." Each day of the coming year we should gain more fluency in the new tongue of Spirit, that is to say, in thinking without lapse, fluently, from the standpoint of universal spiritual perfection. It should be perfectly natural for the Christian Scientist to think with God, good, unhaltingly, and to be spiritually energetic in excluding erroneous suggestions from the holy temple of his consciousness.

If, during the past year, we have at any point procrastinated in overcoming what should be overcome, we can do the very opposite throughout this coming year. We can awake to more and yet more righteousness. Paul writes, "It is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed." In effect, salvation is as far from our experience as false belief induces us to think it is, or as near as we spiritually know and humanly prove it to be. In the working out of his own salvation, each one is equally spiritually equipped by God, and this equipment is above any seeming handicap. Salvation is won mentally, through a change of thought and not of place, through overcoming mortal mind by reflecting divine Mind. No obstacle can delay us but the mental obstacle of our own consent to be deceived by some erroneous argument, some excuse, or self-justification of material sense.

It may be that false theological views, material theories of inheritance, or a sense of personal disability have not yet been honestly dropped. Jesus pointed out the impossibility of ingrafting spiritual ideas into false beliefs or of bringing anything good out of anything evil when he said that we could not put new cloth on to old cloth, or gather figs from thistles. If the views on religion, on health, on inheritance and intelligence which we have held in the past are false, we cannot afford to carry them with us in the present. Progress is primarily mental. Christian Science, faithfully practiced, can lift us out of all the old mental ruts, fears, and failings into which we had fallen inadvertently or advertently; but this teaching requires us to resist every influence which would cause thought and expectancy to gravitate downward. The altitude of our demonstration is measured by the altitude of our expectancy, and our spiritual realization.

Christian Scientists are learning to think in terms of Christliness, not of calendars. They are turning from the successive pictures of birth, maturity, decay, and death, because these are a denial of immortal, spiritual existence. If we should admit the reality of any one of these material and temporal pictures, we should have to admit them all, but spiritual understanding contains none of them. Every law of the living God is a law of eternal life, a law of coexistence with the creative divine Principle, a law of endless spiritual unfoldment.

Newness of vision, and consequent growth beyond old thought-standards, is independent of chronology. That which counts is not the passing of time, but the use which we make of it. There is nothing temporal in God's creation. Time is not the forerunner of eternity any more than the flesh is the forerunner of Spirit. Absolutely true thinking is now linked with eternal spiritual being. Nothing can cause spiritual existence to cease or be impaired, and there is no other existence.

Jesus said, "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another." And Mrs. Eddy writes, "The new commandment of Christ Jesus shows what true spirituality is, and its harmonious effects on the sick and the sinner" (Message to The Mother Church for 1902, p. 8 ). This "new commandment" impels us to purge out the old leaven of selfishness, self-engrossment, and all pettiness. Christian Scientists are not willfully disobedient, but they may be apathetically so, because of the lack of fresh spiritual vision. We must hasten from self-condemnation and repentance to the expression of man's true individuality. Then throughout each calendar day we shall demonstrate more of the day of spiritual understanding and progress. In each sunrise we shall see symbolized more of the glory of spiritual revelation; and we shall irrefutably prove the increase of spiritual dominion and the vanishing of subjection. "Christian Science appeals loudly to those asleep upon the hill-tops of Zion. It is a clarion call to the reign of righteousness, to the kingdom of heaven within us and on earth, and Love is the way alway" (Message for 1901, p. 35 ).

Violet Ker Seymer

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