Truth Knows No Defeat

MARTHA MAY SMITH

HOW comforting it is to know that Christ Jesus always solved the varied problems presented to him! His efforts to prove God's allness and goodness never failed. No matter how real a phase of falsity claimed to be—tossing, angry waves, sick bodies, sin-enslaved thoughts, or the taunting evidence of mortal mind decalring that those who had followed him must go hungry—the master Christian serenely lifted his thought above the dismal picture to seek and prove the facts of spiritual existence.

In God, whom he knew so well to be his Father, and as such the provider of harmony, health, and abundance, Christ Jesus unfailingly found understanding to quiet the turbulent waters, power to heal frightened, sick humanity, and substance to feed even the five thousand.

There is no record that Jesus ever accepted defeat. What a marvelous career! Even his apparent surrender to the cross led to his greatest victory, to his resurrection and ascension, enabling him to prove man's spiritual dominion; to prove that the false concept of matter disappears before the realization of real spiritual selfhood. Through this loving service he gave to his followers for all time the assurance of eternal life, and of the consequent powerlessness of death.

To the beloved Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, we are indebted for a ringing statement that has heartened many a traveler from material sense to spiritual being. "Truth is always the victor," she affirms on page 380 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." And how bravely she applied this declaration to her own problems as she permanently established the healing ministry of the Christian Science movement!

A student of Christian Science was confronted with a serious problem of unemployment. She had accepted a position in a city far from where she had been living, but upon her arrival there found that her new employer, in the face of less active business conditions, had decided not to add another to his group of assistants. Regretting the circumstance, he kindly offered to inquire about another position for the student, who felt herself especially fitted for the work he proposed; but word was brought back that the place offered no opening.

The student then turned to God with the assurance that she need not accept mortal mind's verdict of defeat. Persistently, lovingly, a clearer understanding of God as divine Principle was sought. This study was undertaken because the word "Principle," as a synonym for God, was not well understood by her. There came the answer, the student's thought being uplifted to behold the glory of God as infinite Principle, always actively imparting harmony to the children of divine Love.

Holding to this vision and still firmly refusing to accept a verdict of defeat, the student went to the business firm where, it had been reported, there was no opening, since it was felt this place offered opportunity for the particular service she was able to render. With what joyousness and gratitude was Principle again acknowledged when, after an interview, she was accepted as a member of the staff, with a promise of satisfactory remuneration!

When we are tempted to believe that there is no use in going father, no use in trying again, no use in expecting an answer to our prayer of faith and joyful affirmation of Love's provision, may we remember our Leader's words, "Truth is always the victor." Paul encouraged the early Christians to refuse defeat. He wrote, "Let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not." How many grateful Christian Scientists are proving this today!

Mrs. Eddy reminds us that Truth does the defeating, when, in pointing out the triumph of the eternal facts, she says (Science and Health, p. 122), "The evidence of the physical senses often reverses the real Science of being, and so creates a reign of discord,—assigning seeming power to sin, sickness, and death; but the great facts of Life, rightly understood, defeat this triad of errors, contradict their falsewitnesses, and reveal the kingdom of heaven,—the actual reign of harmony on earth."

O earnest seeker for Truth, O needy one longing to behold the Father's abundance, there is a message for all. It is a message of courage, an answer reversing defeat. Taking every footstep humbly, striving to keep one's mental home a place of pure motives, one gets a clearer view of divine Principle, actively unfolding harmony, health, supply. "Be of good cheer." Truth and Love can never be defeated.

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