Article August 16, 1947 Issue

"PAINLESS PROGRESS"

BESSIE MAY TEOREY

"There should be painless progress, attended by life and peace instead of discord and death." This pertinent statement by Mary Baker Eddy on page 224 of her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," has been read and pondered by many, some with the hope of seeing it fulfilled, others with the conviction that they have to learn their lessons the hard way, or that their spiritual growth is not painless.

Our Leader's words imply that painless progress is a present possibility. And under the marginal heading "Scientific purgation" she writes (ibid., p. 296): "Progress is born of experience. It is the ripening of mortal man, through which the mortal is dropped for the immortal. Either here or hereafter, suffering or Science must destroy all illusions regarding life and mind, and regenerate material sense and self. The old man with his deeds must be put off."

Each experience we have, then, may, if rightly utilized, contribute to our progress, which is painful or painless according to our willingness to put off false material sense and self—self-will and self-justification—in other words, the old man. The whole dream of life in matter must be destroyed. That is, every illusion regarding material living and thinking must be denied reality, whether it be a sick, sinning, unhappy illusion or a pleasant one. Human thinking must be purged of dispositional and temperamental tendencies and replaced with the qualities of God, Spirit.

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