Editorial April 16, 1932 Issue

Protection

Duncan Sinclair

The human race, liable as it believes itself to attack by material or evil forces, seeks in many ways to protect itself. In consequence, it is continually having to devise ways of guarding itself from the operations of even its own inventions. Think, for example, of the various laws that have had to be enacted since the automobile came into such general use, to regulate traffic in our cities in order that the safety of the people may be assured. Wherever people live together in a community or a state there is the necessity of protecting them; and to this end laws are enacted by their representatives. While many of those laws deal with protection against material hazards, still more of them are meant to be a barrier against intentional evildoing. On the whole they may be considered successful, but how pathetically true it is that time and again they are found inadequate to defend the person against the criminally-minded. Is there no certain way, then, whereby protection can be ensured?

Christian Science shows that there is a way of certain protection—the divine way. But to understand this way it is necessary first of all to know the fundamental truths of being—the nature of God and man and the relationship between them. Now, since God is Mind, His creation, man, must be idea; and since God is the all-knowing Mind, He must ever be conscious of His own idea. This can mean only that man is absolutely protected by God. Mrs. Eddy says on page 151 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," "The divine Mind that made man maintains His own image and likeness." Nothing that material sense may argue to the contrary can in the least degree alter the fundamental relationship between God and man; nothing that it can suggest can ever annul the law whereby the protection of man is eternally assured.

That may be true of spiritual man, someone may say, but how are we to regard a mortal who, as it has been noted above, is in frequent need of protection? Christian Science makes plain the fact that until mortals learn to think rightly regarding God and man, His idea, they will continue to seek protection in the imperfect manner to which they are accustomed. They believe in matter as real, whereas Spirit is infinite—All. They believe in evil as real, whereas God is infinite good. They believe that man lives in matter and is supported by matter. It is such erroneous beliefs as these that give rise to apprehension and fear on the part of mortals, and which are responsible for the many troubles that afflict them. They must learn the truth about real being as opposed to the false material sense thereof. They must learn that the real man is spiritual, and not in any degree subject to so-called matter. Then they will be certain of that protection which God ever exercises over His creation, and prove it for themselves.

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