Article February 15, 1936 Issue

The Open Door

PAUL MARSHALL ALLEN

Suppose a householder is asleep when a night watchman discovers the door of the dwelling to be wide open. He rouses the householder and, together, they examine the dwelling to ascertain whether it is free from those with thieving and malicious purposes who may have entered through the unguarded doorway. The householder, having expelled any possible intruders, shuts his door and fastens it securely.

We are all householders, keepers of our mental domain, our consciousness, our thinking. Alert to the situation confronting us, to the subtle suggestions and fears which would enter our mental dwelling place through the doorway of our thoughts, we have a ready defense against their pleas for admittance. The strength of our defense depends upon the measure of our alertness, the clarity of our recognition of the truth which automatically expels and destroys all error. The only plea that error can put forward is that we accept it as truth, as coming from within our mental home rather than from without; that we accept it as reality instead of detecting it as false suggestion. Then, and only then, can it enter our dwelling place.

Truth corresponds to light; and error, the opposite of Truth, corresponds to darkness. It is only when we are lulled into slumber by the mesmeric suggestions of error— indifference, apathy, sloth—that erroneous beliefs can slip through the unguarded doorway left wide open for their entrance. At this point there comes a call which startles and awakens the dormant thought. The truth, revealed in Christian Science, has come to us, bidding us awake, arise, search out and clear out the error in our thinking, and permanently expel it from our consciousness.

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