Article September 20, 1947 Issue

FAITH BASED ON UNDERSTANDING

GLADYS E. MARTIN

"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee," we read in Isaiah (26:3). When Daniel came forth unharmed from the lions' den, when the three Hebrews emerged from the fiery furnace with no "smell of fire" on their garments, they exemplified the perfect peace and protection available to the individual who trusts in God, in other words, the individual whose faith is established on the understanding of Truth.

In our time Mary Baker Eddy also walked in perfect peace through humiliation, poverty, and cruel taunts of mortal mind. And she too emerged not only with no "smell of fire" upon her garments but with the fragrance of love for all mankind, even her persecutors. So full a faith must be based upon understanding.

Mrs. Eddy explored the road from blind faith in God and false belief in all that is material and temporal to enlightened faith and spiritual understanding of God, Spirit, and the eternal verities of Life. She was therefore able to give us the following instructions in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (pp. 285, 286); "It is essential to understand, instead of believe, what relates most nearly to the happiness of being. To seek Truth through belief in a human doctrine is not to understand the infinite. We must not seek the immutable and immortal through the finite, mutable, and mortal, and so depend upon belief instead of demonstration, for this is fatal to a knowledge of Science. The understanding of Truth gives full faith in Truth, and spiritual understanding is better than all burnt offerings."

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