Article August 24, 1940 Issue

Sincerity

WILLIAM E. BOGERT

THE experience of the student of Christian Science should be a happy one, and the way is opened for this when he gains a right concept of sincerity and lives it. Mary Baker Eddy has said in her Message to The Mother Church for 1900 (p. 9), "Sincerity is more successful than genius or talent." The student may at times be called upon to stand his ground firmly in the presence of misunderstanding on the part of those about him regarding Christian Science, but its teachings show him how to do this peacefully and lovingly. Only through the good example which he sets others may he expect to help them change their mistaken views about Christian Science and recognize the good which its teachings are bringing into his own experience.

One of the early tests which a student of this Science may experience is that in which his newly gained concept of sincerity is put into active use. A dictionary meaning of the word "sincere" is "being in reality what it appears to be; genuine; true; real." He finds, however, that not everything which seems to be, is real in the Christianly scientific sense of being spiritually or actually real. Having found that God is good only, he has to admit that evil, in the form of sin, sickness, disease, and death, must no longer be looked upon by him as having a place in God's plan for man, His image and likeness. Then it is learned that Truth, good, is real and evil, though apparently real to material sense, is unreal.

So, with this concept of sincerity, the student tests the thoughts which come to him. If they are from God, good, he knows they are real, and therefore worthy of expression. If they are not good, they are to be seen as unreal, unworthy of use or of being allowed to remain in his consciousness. He learns that, because God is good only, spiritual good is ever at hand, ever operative, and therefore just as effective at the present moment as it ever could be in the future. His declaration that health is real and sickness unreal, even while he may be striving to overcome a discordant physical condition, tests his sincerity and affords an opportunity to expect the good to be made manifest. He is guiding his mental course by what he has learned in Christian Science to be true in the sight of God, and if sincere he holds to that consciousness of good to displace the discord, which is false and unreal. With the dismissal of error from his thought, he proves God, good, to be the real and only power, and the evidence of the senses to be unreliable, unreal, having no power to resist the truth.

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