Article October 23, 1943 Issue

Instant and Constant News

CONSTANCE F. BURNHAM

Many thousands of parents are longing for news of beloved sons and daughters who are stationed today in far corners of the globe. They are agreeing with the proverb which says. "As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country."

Wonderful and comforting unfoldment comes from praying earnestly to understand what "news" really is, and where it may be found. In the early days of the present conflict, an eager seeker for comfort concerning a son, from whom no word at all had come for over four months, found reassurance and joy, in place of distress and fear, by resolving to work at the problem until a blessing was gained. Kind and loving friends kept inquiring whether any news had been received, and the answer always had to be in the negative. At last it was seen that constant watching for the mailman, hurrying home between appointments to see whether a letter had come, and the resultant disappointment when none was waiting in the post box, only bred an increasing brood of worries as the days passed into weeks.

With consecrated work, however, it was finally realized that all the news about the son was available every instant, since all the news there ever could be about him was in divine consciousness. Mary Baker Eddy, in giving us in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" the beautiful and correct concept of man as he is and forever will be had already written the news for which so many fruitless trips to the post box had been made. It was clearly seen that a cablegram or letter containing either good news or bad news from a material sense standpoint would be but a human opinion about conditions of human belief, and that it had nothing at all to do with the one true selfhood of her son. When the son was seen as individual spiritual consciousness, rather than as matter the perception came that the only news about this spiritual selfhood called a son, was that he was "the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever."

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