Article January 1, 1949 Issue

A CHALLENGE TO YOUTH

[Of Special Interest to Young People]

MARY LOUISE GAMMAGE

No one understood better the problems of youth, or offered young people more genuine encouragement, than did Mary Baker Eddy. In the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," she writes on page 236, "While age is halting between two opinions or battling with false beliefs, youth makes easy and rapid strides towards Truth."

One false belief, or habit, which challenges alike both young and old is the use of tobacco. The young metaphysician is not overwhelmed by the smoking habit. That many of his non–Scientist friends or acquaintances have succumbed to it makes it no less easy for him to see the unreality of its claim to power. He dares to be different when it is a question of being on God's side. He handles the desire to smoke as he would any other suggestion of mortal mind, by denying the error and declaring the truth. He replaces the claim that tobacco satisfies with the understanding that satisfaction is to be found only in God, Soul, where man abides, and that man's senses are spiritual and pure. This Soul–satisfaction is not fleeting or momentary, but it is permanent and complete and is forever reflected by man.

The student knows, too, that true stimulation originates in Spirit, not in material sense. The consciousness of man's oneness with Mind, the source of all courage, intelligence, and spontaneity, is the only stimulation one needs. With one sweeping stroke Mrs. Eddy disposes of the so–called attractiveness of tobacco. She says (Science and Health, p. 407), "Puffing the obnoxious fumes of tobacco, or chewing a leaf naturally attractive to no creature except a loathsome worm, is at least disgusting." The student of Science gains release from the claim that the use of tobacco is habit–forming by realizing that man has, through reflection, dominion over every false belief; that he lives under divine control, under the law of Love, which confers immunity from the bondage of material sense. Through demonstrating these truths the young Scientist proves that the use of tobacco is not in keeping with the teachings of Christian Science.

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