"Rejoice evermore," wrote Paul to the Thessalonians. One might with good reason paraphrase this command to read, "Think evermore," for contemplating one's existence after the manner that God teaches us is certainly cause for rejoicing. As mused the brook in the familiar poem,

so likewise is right thinking an activity which has gone on and will go on throughout eternity. Whether they be good or bad, helpful or harmful, loving or fearsome, our thoughts are, ever active. In fact, our thinking is our very existence, for it is obviously that which motivates our every act.

We must here make a distinction, however, between the so-called human mind, appearing to motivate a human body, the withdrawal of which would leave that body inert, lifeless, and divine Mind, which is infinite, never in mortal flesh.

Actually, there are not two minds, nor even two kinds of thinking, one human, one divine, one mortal, the other spiritual, though incorrect reasoning would have us so believe. Since, as Christian Science teaches, God is Mind, and God is All, the one and only entity, it follows that Mind is the one and only entity, the entire cause and effect. The only right thinking, then, must be an expression of this Mind, a divinely mental knowing. God being all good and intelligence, such thinking must be good and intelligent, bringing forth joyful, practical, noble fruits. Such thinking is loving, for God, Mind, is Love.

Since man lives to reflect God, Love, his only capability is to do just that—constantly to reflect and express the perfect nature of Love. St. John gives us the beautiful assurance of why we love God when he says, "We love him, because he first loved us." The fact is that man must love because God always loves. The reflection cannot depart from the activity of its cause. Thus is indicated the beauty of a love which does not require a human object, but is universal in its scope. What a cause for rejoicing! For with such unselfed love the whole world is embraced and protected. What a liberation from the limited concept which, while including certain persons in its affection, at the same time would exclude others, and if losing those within this fold, would fear to have lost all!

Another mistake of the so-called human mind is to believe that life is made up of duality, the action of positive and negative forces, continually attracting and repelling each other. Since the human mind is itself a false supposition, all its seeming reasonings are theories which are counterfeits when the fact of one ruling Mind or Principle is accepted. Mrs. Eddy explains this in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," on page 126, where she states: "Human thought never projected the least portion of true being. Human belief has sought and interpreted in its own way the echo of Spirit, and so seems to have reversed it and repeated it materially; but the human mind never produced a real tone nor sent forth a positive sound."

If we were always to have to deal with many minds, we should be in a constant state of confusion, worry, and conflict and would look forward to an existence of endless doubt and uncertainty. Then, what an assurance it is to learn that divine Mind is the only Mind, manifesting itself in positive, safe, and correct thinking, individualized in man! This is joyous and joy-manifesting.

Students of Christian Science who practice and prove its healing power are often heard to use the expression "know the truth" about a problem presenting itself for solution. This is the instruction that Jesus gave when he admonished his disciples thus: "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." At the present hour it is more evident than ever that mankind wants to know how to be made free. But what is the truth that Jesus promised would do this? How can we "know the truth"?

The answer is realized when it is seen that Truth is another name for God. To feel God's nearness, not as a finite presence, but as infinite good; to sense His now-ness, not in a temporal span of time, but as eternal Love; to be aware of His absolute nature as pure, divine entity with no material selfhood—this is to know something of the Truth which is God. Such consciousness requires spiritual sense, which alone discerns Truth and Love and results in healing, for it understands man to be the reflection of all-powerful Truth.

The freedom which the world so greatly desires and the permanent end of war will be gained through right thinking. The belief of many minds tends to a multiplicity of conflicting suggestions, which in turn make for confusion, as was illustrated in the tower of Babel. Conflict is war, whether it be a mental entanglement of opinions and ideologies or the more visible form of violent opposition of arms. Conflict within oneself is the most continual warfare in history.

A mild, but nonetheless insidious form is worry. If the impersonal evil which is waging war against the divine idea of Life can succeed in making one worry, and hence unwittingly doubt God's allness, it has thereby gained a victory in the mental war going on in that individual consciousness. Right here is where divine Science asserts its authority and wins the victory. There can be no worry in the human mind if the individual is realizing his oneness with the divine Mind. Mrs. Eddy says, "We shall obey and adore in proportion as we apprehend the divine nature and love Him understandingly, warring no more over the corporeality, but rejoicing in the affluence of our God" (Science and Health, p. 140).

The author was healed of a temporary state of depression and sense of futility when, in a Christian Science Reading Room in a distant country, the one in charge lovingly sent her on her way with the cheerful command, "Rejoice!" The librarian did not know the cause for the seeming "blues," but she knew their unreality; and her unspoken knowledge of the truth of man's well and happy being constituted her thinking and liberated the depressed one.

To think, then, in the only way we can truthfully think as God's divine idea is to walk in joy; and to walk in joy is to live.