Article January 15, 1949 Issue

Since man's title to harmony is God-bestowed,
he cannot be evicted from "the house of the Lord"

PARADISE RETAINED

W. RALPH ROCKHOLD

From time to time the press carries a sad account of some recluse who, though possessing ample material wealth, seems to relish a life of poverty. Perhaps a sumptuous home has been abandoned or allowed to fall into disrepair. Society, comforts, even necessities are unaccountably shunned, while hoarded resources lie idle and unproductive. This attitude of preferring rags amid riches, the world rightly refuses to regard as a healthy, normal outlook on life.

But do we not experience the mental counterpart of this situation when we fail to maintain the spiritual altitude of thought which, Christian Science reveals, characterizes man's genuine consciousness? Is it not just as incongruous to forsake the lofty chambers of Soul for the tawdry hovels of materialism? Christian Science declares and explains the divine fact that God is the only Mind, and that another synonym for this Mind is Spirit. Then, within the all-inclusiveness of Mind's knowing there is no point of view from which existence can be considered as material, limited, or discordant. Pure and perfect Mind, Spirit, must forever express itself in its reflection of purity, perfection, intelligence, and spirituality. Man, as the embodiment of these qualities, cannot fail to show them forth at all times, cannot exhibit opposite or unlike qualities. Nothing less than the self-completeness of Spirit is man's heritage.

He who first discerns, then demonstrates, the nature of true manhood as opposed to the counterfeit human sense of man indeed dwells "in the house of the Lord" (Ps. 23:6). He has taken up his residence in that wholly spiritual structure of which Jesus spoke to his disciples when he said (John 14:2), "In my Father's house are many mansions." Man, the un-fallen image of his Father, has eternal title to this paradisaical abode, wherein are harmony, health, happiness. Each one may prove for himself the eternal fact that paradise, which human usage calls a consummate state of bliss, is not something to be regained. Rather is it that God-bestowed consciousness of harmony which man ever retains.

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