Article January 23, 1943 Issue

Good News

GUY HALDANE DEMPSTER

Throughout the ages good news has been what humanity has earnestly longed for. How readily the human heart responds to the announcement, "I have some good news to tell"! Everyone wants to hear good news, and this is natural and right. However, news which is good to one may be bad to another, the explanation being that the word "good" is used in accordance with human standards and in a limited sense. Christ Jesus gave the correct definition of good when he said, "There is none good but one, that is, God." Mary Baker Eddy points out in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p.286), "In the Saxon and twenty other tongues good is the term for God."

Since God, good, is Truth, good news must be truthful, and no news of good can be "too good to be true." It is good because it is true, and vice versa. On the other hand, bad news, error, is false. For that reason news which is based on material standards and premises tends to elate or depress unwarrantably because its basis is unreliable, material.

Especially at the present time when the world is full of "wars and rumours of wars" should the correct sense of good news, or news of good, be emphasized. Materially there appear to be many degrees and standards of good. Spiritually, that is in truth, there is but one standard, namely, that of Truth, God. All who are spiritually-minded long to assist in the realization of human hopes of good. To that end we as Christian Scientists, who have been privileged to begin to learn of the allness of God, good, and of the consequent nothingness of evil, can do much. Through prayer and study we can face our daily experiences gratefully, welcoming as true all evidence of good, God's kingdom, and denying the pretesions of evil to place or power, in whatever form of so-called bad news or lying propaganda. The fact that good news is true, in so far as it conforms to the standard of Truth, is the basis of our justifiable hope. We do not shut our eyes blindly to evil, saying, "Peace, peace; when there is no peace," but recognizing evil's fundamental falsity we are enabled to rise in a degree above the fear and depression it would instill. In this way not only shall we gain our own peace of mind and encourage others by our example, but we shall also make a definite contribution to the effacement of the erroneous thinking which underlies what we call bad news.

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