Article February 3, 1940 Issue

The Determining Factor

LUCIA C. COULSON

GREAT demands are being made upon individuals and nations today. Many are realizing the need of self-discipline, and are responding to the call. Everyone is girding up his loins, so to speak; conserving his energies and intensifying his activity.

What, then, is the role of the thinker, the attitude of the student of the Science of Mind? On the first page of the Preface to "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy we read, "The time for thinkers has come;" and on page 10 of "The People's Idea of God" she writes, "Thought is the essence of an act, and the stronger element of action."

From this standpoint we see what a tremendous call is made upon us as students of Christian Science to discipline our thought; to watch, as we have never watched before, that, no erroneous suggestion pass our guard; to refuse to let our thinking wander, or be passive, and to bring every thought into subordination to divine reality. This is no light task; it demands an alertness, a mental and spiritual activity, such as is implied in Paul's injunction to "pray without ceasing." The eagerness of the human mind to prompt one before all else to do something with one's hands in times of need, rather than to submit primarily to a continuous mental discipline, shows that its basis is material sense.

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