Editorial December 28, 1946 Issue

Do It in the First Instance

Paul Stark Seeley

Frequently the student of Christian Science finds the auxiliary verb "must" in the writings of Mary Baker Eddy. "Must" means to "be obliged to (do)." Mrs. Eddy uses it to indicate what are the imperative and inescapable demands of divine law on each individual.

She says to each of us. "You must control evil thoughts in the first instance, or they will control you in the second" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 234). Here is a truth the individual has to accept and put into practice as a prerequisite to gaining enduring freedom from sickness, sin, and human discord. The requirement is also expressed in our Leader's imperative statement (ibid., p. 390), "Suffer no claim of sin or of sickness to grow upon the thought."

Persons become sick and sinful, critical and catty, they complain or nag, condemn, resent, hate, quarrel at home, at church meetings, or elsewhere because they do not control evil thoughts "in the first instance"—that is, when they first present themselves to their consciousness. Then these thoughts forthwith control them.

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