WRITING A DEATHLESS PAGE

On the first of January, 1868, a year or two after her discovery of Christian Science, our revered Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, wrote (Poems, p. 28 ):

As we stand at the threshhold of another year in the Christian calendar, can we, the grateful followers of Mrs. Eddy, do less than pray this comprehensive prayer and keep on praying it? A deeper spiritual challenge for each dawning day, as well as each dawning year, could not be found. Before us is a clean page. It is for us to say what shall be inscribed thereon.

How blest, how worth while, has been the day when nightfall finds some such record as this: This day I have been more devoted to Truth than yesterday. This day the study of the Lesson–Sermon in the Christian Science Quarterly has been more productive of good fruit, for I have carried with me and proved some of its truths. This day I have had a definite overcoming of selfishness, and consequently I know more of God as Love and of my real selfhood as the expression of Love. Should not the writing of a better page be assured for him who starts and ends his day with God, the Alpha and Omega of all being?

Speaking of the mercies and compassions of divine Love, the Scripture states (Lam. 3:23 ), "They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness." And how the Psalmist rejoiced with the coming of a new day, with its opportunities for fresh conquests over evil, with its assurances that while "weeping may endure for a night" (Ps. 30:5 ), joy surely comes in the morning light of Truth.

Let us note Mrs. Eddy's words in the verse quoted above. She prays that we may "write a deathless page of truth." Paul shows us that death is not alone that which may be called the termination of existence. He indicates that many mortals apparently physically alive are making bosom companions of death. In his great letter to the Romans (8:6, 7 ) he writes: "To be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God." Here we see that if "a deathless page of truth" is to be written, the record must set forth only continuing triumphs over the carnal mind, with its arguments of fear, hate, selfishness, sensualism, and all the unlovely etceteras of animal magnetism, or the mesmerism of materiality.

If at each day's close our page may show the wiping out of some resentment or the silencing of some unkind criticism because a greater sense of divine Love has entered our hearts, we are learning to live, and the first step towards banishing the so–called last enemy has been taken. If the day's experiences record a definite turning from the carnal mind to God, the divine Mind, for strength and for guidance, we are beginning to taste real Life. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 239 ) Mrs. Eddy has written: "If divine Love is becoming nearer, dearer, and more real to us, matter is then submitting to Spirit. The objects we pursue and the spirit we manifest reveal our standpoint, and show what we are winning."

Someone may ask: "But how may I know that divine Love is becoming nearer and more real to me? Can one force himself to love God more?" No, but when the truth dawns upon human sense that God, Love, infinite good, is the only Mind and that man reflects this Mind, one is certain to find one's thoughts lifted to a higher plane. Such habits as losing one's temper will begin to plague him and will bring a sense of shame and regret and a desire for correction hitherto unknown. Social drinking, the rightness of which may have never even troubled his moral scruples, will begin to seem questionable for one taking his stand for the highest good. Gambling, even though one salves his conscience by wagering only small amounts in games, races, or other contests, will prove distasteful to him. George Washington once wrote this sage advice to a relative: "It [gambling] is the child of avarice, the brother of iniquity, and the father of mischief." What business has a Christian Scientist with any activity involving so–called luck? The Scientist is learning to turn to God as divine Principle, changeless good, for his health and his supply. He must not admit even the possibility of chance when he looks to divine Love for the meeting of his human needs. And as for his frequenting doubtful places of amusement, the following words of his Leader are pertinent (Science and Health, p. 452 ): "Never breathe an immoral atmosphere, unless in the attempt to purify it."

Does someone find these demands on the scientific Christian unduly strict? Talk to a student of Science who has experienced a clear–cut physical healing through the tender ministrations of Truth, and whose thought is being awakened to a higher, happier sense of things, and ask him if he finds the exactions of Principle peremptory. He will undoubtedly tell you that through the teachings of this Science he is finding less and less pleasure in the indulgence of drinking, smoking, gambling, and the like; in fact, they are giving him up, and his "deathless page of truth" can record many happy occasions when he has "come out from among them," to use the Bible phrase.

The apostle asks (II Cor. 6: 16–18 ), "What agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God." Then follows this comforting promise of the Christ, Truth: "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." How the world today needs Christian Scientists who daily are writing deathless pages of truth! It needs men, women, and children whose thought is being spiritualized and unselfed, and who therefore are showing the way to the kingdom of harmony on earth. It is a happy path the spiritually–minded are mapping out. It involves a closer walk with divine Love, a more childlike leaning on Mind for strength, a daily looking to the joys of Soul instead of the vagaries of material sense and sensation, and finding one's individuality not as material personality but as God's spotless, joyous reflection.

As we write this deathless page of truth, are we not joining the poet Tennyson in his call to the New Year's bells to