Editorial May 16, 1942 Issue

The Value and Availability of Joy

Alfred Pittman

What is the answer of Christian Science to the suggestion that the happiness of virtually everyone has been, and is, at the mercy of a few aggressive national leaders? It is that the happiness of one individual is not, in fact, subject to the actions of others; that genuine gladness, with all that is necessary to support it, is available for everyone always. And Christian Science enables its students to prove these facts, under even the most adverse conditions.

When one is unhappy, this Science shows clearly, no circumstance outside himself is responsible, trying as his circumstances may seem to be. The trouble is in what he is thinking. He is allowing his thought to linger on material appearances, and accepting them as real. He is trusting the material senses, which are always untrustworthy. The cure of the unhappiness depends, therefore, not on a change in an external condition, but on a change in his thought. The healing comes, as always, through the rejection of mistaken sense testimony in favor of spiritual reality, in which God, good, divine Mind, Life, and Love is All, and man is His image and likeness.

Only to the littleness of material sense can trouble seem big. If one takes what might be figuratively described as the worm's-eye view of such a sense, the difficulties before him may well appear overwhelming. But if one turns instead to spiritual sense, and persistently claims as his own the perfect and unlimited vision of Mind, evil in any form dwindles, and finally disappears.

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