Article June 4, 1932 Issue

Purity

DELLA M. WHITNEY

It was the purity of Jesus' understanding that enabled him to utter the words, "The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me." It is this understanding that begets dominion and fearlessness. When God is understood aright, it is seen that His omnipresence and omnipotence constitute all the refuge that is needed by those living in conformity with His law. If purity, honesty, and consecration to God are governing our daily activity, no situation which may present itself can cause us to fear.

Because of the purity of Daniel's understanding, his immortal words have come ringing down the centuries, "And also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt." Daniel's freedom from error enabled him to stand the crucial test which he underwent, and to come through it unharmed. One outstanding factor in this experience was his ability to emerge from it with the gracious words, "O king, live for ever." What assurance his pure thinking gave him—what realization of the powerlessness of evil! No resentment there; no belief that he had an enemy!

Attaching the belief of evil to another mars our own purity. It is a proof that we are seeing mortals instead of God's ideas. Many times the honest effort to see the unreality of evil and to rise superior to its tormenting falsity is hampered or prolonged by the belief that we have enemies. We may readily and with a measure of honesty claim that we have no feeling of enmity for another, but may still believe that another feels enmity towards us. In this case, our acceptance of this belief is the enemy. In an article called "Love Your Enemies" in "Miscellaneous Writings" Mrs. Eddy says (p. 10), "Even in belief you have but one (that, not in reality), and this one enemy is yourself—your erroneous belief that you have enemies; that evil is real."

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

The Giving That Is Rewarded