Editorial May 27, 1939 Issue

Strength and Courage

George Shaw Cook

When Joshua, the successor of Moses, undertook the leadership of the children of Israel, this reassuring message came to him from God, divine Mind: "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee withersoever thou goest."

It is plain that the kind of strength demanded of Joshua was not so much physical as spiritual. Indeed, viewed from the standpoint of divine metaphysics, strength is seen to be mental, or spiritual, rather than material. Looking at strength in this light, it is easy to understand what Mary Baker Eddy said in her dedicatory message to the church in Concord, New Hampshire (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 162): "Strength is in man, not in muscles; unity and power are not in atom or in dust."

It will be readily seen, then, that, strictly speaking, strength is as essentially mental as faith, intelligence, wisdom, or any of those qualitites which are obviously spiritual. Therefore, whether one manifests a sense of strength, vigor, and vitality, even in a physical way, depends not upon material conditions, but upon what one thinks or knows.

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