Editorial March 20, 1937 ISSUE

"An angel entertained unawares"

Duncan Sinclair

Christian Science radically changes many of the viewpoints of its students. For example, it entirely alters their thought about matter, teaching them that since God is infinite Spirit, matter is an unreal or false concept. Further, it makes known to them the fact that because God is infinite good, evil is unreal. And when the truth is brought home to one that matter and evil are unreal, numerous adjustments necessarily take place in one's thinking with regard to the things which pertain to matter and evil—one is forced to see them as unreal also.

The belief that evil is real holds mankind in all manner of bondage. It is the cause of fear, sorrow, sickness, suffering, and sin. If mankind understood, and realized, that God is Love, infinite good, and that evil is unreal, it could not possibly fear, be sick or sorrowful, sin or suffer. Obviously, then, the effort should be made to realize the truth so clearly that these afflictions will cease to appear. Christian Scientists are earnestly striving to put what they understand of spiritual truth into practice; and, unquestionably, they are reaping the reward of their faithfulness in an increasing measure of freedom.

Can it be said that suffering may be of value to him who appears to suffer? It can be said at once that suffering of itself is never of value. To admit that it has value of itself would be to entertain an absurdity, namely, that evil, which is unreal, has merit. What a sense of suffering may do, however, is to awaken to his mental condition the one who in belief is afflicted, and to cause him to search for a way out of that condition. And the search, if it be pursued in the light of Christian Science, will lead him to the truth about the perfection of God and man and the unchangeable relationship existing between God and man. And when he finds this truth and learns of man's perpetual unity with infinite good, he will understand that man is ever under the law of divine Love, never under a law which produces suffering. Thus, while suffering has a human significance, it has no relation whatsoever with the divine.

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