Editorial September 12, 1942 Issue

Aspiration

Evelyn F. Heywood

Great and noble were the aspirations of David. Continually he lifted his eyes and knew the joy of victory; but then the disappointments and failures of mortal existence, and his own incapacity to deal with them, blotted out the hilltops, enclosing him again within the shadowed restrictions of the valley.

How clearly did Mary Baker Eddy see that divine aspiration alone, sustained by Principle and unhampered by the fluctuations and disabilities of personal sense, upholds men at all times. Writing to those who were called upon to take her message of Truth out into the world, she thus reminded them of where their strength and permanence were to be found. "You soar only as uplifted by God's power, or you fall for lack of the divine impetus," she writes on page 248 of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany." Only as men attain to the understanding that uplifted thought is not at the mercy of event or personal feeling, but is maintained by Principle, do they realize that aspiration is not something beyond and above continuous attainment, but is forever unfolding within them.

Mind sustains its own idea. Something of this did the prophet Isaiah set forth when he wrote: "A vineyard of red wine. I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day." Men lifting their eyes to what appears so far beyond their grasp and power of possession, except in brief and glorious glimpses, have pressed on through dark and desperate days in the face of setbacks and dire failures, light in their hearts, because they believed that in the measure of their fidelity and consecration they would be nearer to and worthier of their goal. They have known that if they ceased to look up, then they ceased also to be spiritually alive. Thus did Browning's words in "Andrea del Sarto" set forth human aspiration and endeavor:

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