Editorial November 12, 1932 Issue

A Lively Hope

Violet Ker Seymer

Hope, as the teaching of Christian Science instills it, is unflagging, progressive. It reaches out for the true knowledge of God, which transmutes hope and ushers one into the realm of spiritual understanding, where God's image is seeing the Father face to face. This inspired hope is an expanding quality, augmented according to each hour's need. It is strong, pure, nourished by spirituality, and warmed by divine Love. This hope which unceasingly moves on to victory must be nurtured, shielded from the roughness of cynicism, the smart of sarcasm, or the mental darts of doubt, for hope is a precious transparency through which the light of Truth shines. Hope centered on matter is godless, lifeless, fruitless, and obscures the goal of perfection; but hope grounded in Spirit is godly, fruitful, lively; and a dictionary defines "lively" as "rebounding quickly." It is this exalted hope which the Christian Scientist claims, fosters, and manifests as his own.

Of Christ Jesus, Mrs. Eddy writes "Miscellaneous Writings" (pp. 162, 163), "Panoplied in the strength of an exalted hope, faith, and understanding, he sought to conquer the three-in-one of error: the world, the flesh, and the devil." As the Christian Scientist holds fast to the inspiring trinity of hope, faith, understanding, he is armed against self-deception and finds the reward of his spiritual fidelity in multiplied proofs of the power of God to exalt human thought above the lowlands of material belief.

If at times the Christian Scientist seems acutely in need of renewed hope and strength, he turns to such a message as this in the Bible: "The hope of the righteous shall be gladness." But, argues material sense, why gladness in the midst of apparent sadness or badness? That is just when gladness is needed and can be had, because God—Life, Love, divine Mind—is unfailing, untouched by "the world, the flesh, and the devil." When one pauses to consider the healing and regeneration which Christian Science is accomplishing hour by hour, hope and gladness go hand in hand. As one ceases to concentrate thought on his own as yet unsolved problems, and considers this wider fruitage, he finds himself borne along by the tide of upright thinking, and gratitude for others' demonstrations quickens faith for his own.

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