Keeping the Door Shut

CONSTANCE HEWARD

In an old fairy tale the story was told about the mother of the family going to town and leaving the children alone to keep house ! Always she told them never to open the door to any stranger while she was away, and always the children replied that they would keep the door tightly shut. Very soon a stranger would come along, however, and promise the children many nice and pleasant things if they would open the door to him; and somehow or other the children opened the door. Then they found that the stranger was not a friend but an enemy!

Perhaps we may never be left to keep house alone, but there is one house which each one must keep for himself; that is the house of his thoughts. And there is a stranger to whom we must never, never open the door; and it is just a make-believe lie which seems to tell us that there is something else besides God, good.

In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 392) Mrs. Eddy says: "Stand porter at the door ofthought. Admitting only such conclusions as you wish realized in bodily results, you will control yourself harmoniously." To admit means to let in, and we know that a porter lets in only those who have a right to come in. The only thing that has any right to come into our own thought-house is the truth, and that is the only visitor to whom we must open our door.

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