Article November 7, 1936 Issue

Working Out Problems Rightly

DELLA M. WHITNEY

The writer heard the statement made by one who had experienced a physical inharmony, "I just went to work and worked it off." Since its source is mental, sickness could never be worked off, but must be worked out of—that is, destroyed from the standpoint of its nothingness, in view of the omnipresence of God. When it is realized that sickness is the result of an erroneous state of thinking, the remedy becomes obvious, namely, to replace wrong thinking with spiritual thinking. In the Christian Science textbook an unfailing remedy is given in these words (Science and Health, p. 201): "The way to extract error from mortal mind is to pour in truth through flood-tides of Love." Corresponding admonition may be found in the Scriptures, where we read, "Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind."

Jesus' remedy in all cases of healing was to destroy in the consciousness of those whom he healed the belief in the reality of the discordant material condition. The man at the pool of Bethesda believed that if he could get into the pool, he would be healed. Jesus, recognizing the utter fallacy of such false belief, and realizing the allness of God, bade him arise and walk.

The same mental process must be applied in the healing of sin and sickness. Many people have believed, and many still believe, that in the correction of children corporeal punishment, harsh condemnation, threats of some deprivation would prove a corrective. Reffering to this problem our Leader writes (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 51): "If you make clear to the child's thought the right motives for action, and cause him to love them, they will lead him aright: if you educate him to love God, good, and obey the Golden Rule, he will love and obey you without your having to resort to corporeal punishment." Let us again refer to the tender words of the Master. In reading with the adulterous woman he said, "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more." Prayerful contemplation of these words convinces us that the beloved Master healed the woman not by condemning her or affixing the error to her, but by realizing her true status to be sinless and spiritual, and by seeing the error as a false state of thought, entirely separate from the woman.

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