Article September 7, 1935 Issue

The Presence and the Power

DOROTHY THODY

In Christian Science we learn there is only one presence—only one power—God. We learn, furthermore, how to apply this truth to all the problems that confront us from day to day. The Bible says, "Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations," and in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, has written (p. 471), "God is infinite, therefore ever present, and there is no other power nor presence."

Most of us have accepted in theory the statement that God is omnipresent, but have not taken this as hard and literal fact until Christian Science began to show us how to take our stand upon this statement and how to translate it from theory to practice. We have accepted countless lies about presence. We have seen sickness and sorrow and sin, injustice and fear and ignorance, and have been mesmerized into believing them real, into giving them a place in which to be. When we begin to realize that the only place there is, is the "secret place of the most High," we begin to ask ourselves, What is the location of all that troubles us? Certainly it is not within that "secret place," for the presence of God is the law of annihilation to every claim of any other presence. Mrs. Eddy tells us (ibid., p. 466) of the significance of the prefix "omni," and asks (ibid., p. 287), "How can there be more than all?"

Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is within you," that is, within thought, or consciousness. And that, too, is the only place where the lie about presence can claim to be. We begin to see, then, that as we learn more about omnipresence and fill our thought with it, and claim it as fact, rejoicing in it, and refusing to be beguiled by the lies about presence that come to us from mortal mind we can triumph over the difficulties which we frequently encounter.

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