Article October 21, 1950 Issue

THE JOY OF OVERCOMING

BENJAMIN WELLS SELBY

The task of overcoming the sins, ills, and false appetites of the human mind has always been a function of true Christianity. Our Master, Christ Jesus, assured us that through the knowing of the truth we could rightfully expect complete mastery over the enslaving habits and weaknesses of the flesh. He not only intimated, but demonstrated, that the right practice of the Christian religion provides a sure remedy. He summed up the results of his lifework in the following familiar words: "In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). This hints the rightness of man's complete freedom from whatever enslaves or inhibits. The Apostle John, writing in the third chapter of Revelation, twenty-first verse, points out that salvation itself is contingent on the degree of our overcoming. He says, "To him that overcometh will I [the Christ] grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne."

Christian Science, being a restatement and re-evaluation of Jesus' words and works, brings to its adherents the same message of freedom and dominion that was manifested in the lives and acts of the early Christians. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, states in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 446), "Resisting evil, you overcome it and prove its nothingness." Perhaps no greater joy can be experienced than that which comes to the individual when he feels some bad habit or false appetite fall from him and he lives on in complete freedom from its tantalizing repetitions.

One such false appetite from which Christian Science promises complete freedom is the tobacco habit. In fact, it goes farther and demands an overcoming of it before the student can be properly classified as an adherent of Christian Science. At this point one might intelligently ask, "Is it really possible for a person who has been in bondage to this habit for many years to experience prompt relief through the study and application of Christian Science?" The answer is an emphatic "Yes." It is not necessary for anyone to continue another day in subjection to the tobacco habit if there is a real and deep-seated desire to be healed. The experiences of literally hundreds of Christian Scientists confirm this statement. Tobacco is not a power that can align itself against the supremacy of God. A habit is never a power. It is a mortal mind acceptance. It can be dropped as readily as it was acquired, but only through the operation of divine law, which is infallible.

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