Article June 19, 1937 Issue

"Know thyself"

MARIE S. LINDHE

Christian Science reveals that God is indeed a "very present help," and the student soon learns to make his understanding of this fact practical in daily life. The Bible and the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, show us how to gain this practical understanding; and therein can be found the fundamental rules which, when properly applied, solve our problems. One soon learns also that the battleground is always within the individual's consciousness, and that any inharmonious condition touching his experience must be worked out in his own thought.

Sometimes, the tendency may be to look at what others are expressing, or perhaps to be disturbed by what we think they are failing to express; and so we allow criticism, resentment, or indignation to enter our consciousness. Our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, gives the remedy for such a state of mind when she says on page 571 of Science and Health, "Know thyself, and God will supply the wisdom and the occasion for a victory over evil." It may not always seem easy, and it may be necessary first to pray earnestly for willingness to cast out of our thinking all sense of criticism and resentment, and let that Mind be in us "which was also in Christ Jesus." Are we allowing our thought to be misled by suggestions of evil from within or without? It is not another person, but impersonal evil, that would try to make us believe that man, the image and likeness of God, can express any quality unlike Him. NO matter what evil may claim, the rule, "Know thyself," honestly applied, will uncover what is wrong in our thought and destroy it, and so restore harmony.

Should others be unwilling to do what appears to us the right and just thing, the suggestion may present itself that our individual right thinking among many opposing, fearful, or unjust thoughts will not do much good. An earnest desire to apply the teachings of Christian Science, however, brings the realization that "one with God is a majority," and that the situation offers an opportunity to prove that as one knows oneself, God will indeed "supply the wisdom and the occasion for a victory over evil." The first tenet of Christian Science reads (ibid., p. 497), "As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life." Turning to this source we cannot fail to gain the light and guidance required to meet our needs.

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