Article January 9, 1943 Issue

The Science of Living

[Of Special Interest to Youth]

MARJORIE B. BANER

A Student of Christian Science, while in high school, received a very helpful lesson one day in her French class. In the endeavor to show the pupils the proper approach to the foreign language, the teacher said: "Don't try to translate English into French word for word. It can't be done. You must think in French."

This counsel probably meant more to the Christian Scientist than to any of the others in the class, because she realized how true that counsel was in relation to everything she did. On page 445of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy says, "You render the divine law of healing obscure and void, when you weigh the human in the scale with the divine." And Paul advises, "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit." As the student pondered the substance of her teacher's remark she likened it to some of the rules of Christian Science. She recognized that one cannot translate sick matter into well matter, a bad mortal into a good mortal, an unhappy mortal into a happy one; but that one must think spiritually, look away from mortal man entirely to the reality of man as presented in the first chapter of Genesis and on page 591 of Science and Health, where Mrs. Eddy defines "man" as "the compound idea of infinite Spirit; the spiritual image and likeness of God; the full representation of Mind."

When viewed in this light, we realize that the healing of disease, the overcoming of wrong in oneself or in one's associates, or the gaining of victory over a sense of joylessness is not a doubtful, unfamiliar, or strange task. The student can as surely think in the realm of Spirit as think in French, or in the terms of mathematics. He does not have to struggle with the sense of being out of place, because he does not indulge false appetites, or be deceived by the belief that evil is more attractive than good. He does not have to bow down to the limitation of a smug "set" which excludes all but a chosen few. He can realize that in the realm of Spirit, His only habitation, he is surrounded with love, perfection, goodness, in which there is no desire for stimulation—no desire, indeed, because no need. He can know that the man of God's creating, his only associate, could not know evil and therefore could not be attracted to it; that divine Love envelops all mankind without prejudice or partiality, unmoved by the limiting beliefs of race, color, or creed. He can see that any thought which does not measure up to these standards is to be rejected, wiped out as quickly and as effectively as any ill-computed sum from the blackboard.

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