Editorial December 16, 1950 Issue

"HAVING DONE ALL, TO STAND"

Richard J. Davis

To the followers of Christ in Ephesus, Paul writes (Eph. 6:13), "Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand." It is the ability to stand in the face of seeming difficulty that reveals where one is mentally and spiritually. Having discerned, perhaps, to some extent intellectually the allness of God and consequent nothingness of evil, the test comes when one is called upon to stand courageously for the truth of being in the face of sense testimony to the contrary.

This is particularly true when one finds himself confronted with the argument of physical disability, disease, and pain. This mental picture, and it must be seen as such, would if it could turn one away from the consciousness of real being, turn one away from the realization of man's incorporeal and perfect identity, and cause thought to be centered on a material body. Mary Baker Eddy in her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," says (p. 261): "Look away from the body into Truth and Love, the Principle of all happiness, harmony, and immortality. Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts."

In Christian Science we see that it takes study and growth to break the habit of believing that we are dealing with something physical. But it is never physical. Never are we concerned with physical causation or physical evidence, even if and when it calls itself disease. The more clearly one sees this, the more certainly will he be working scientifically in Christian Science. Divine Mind being the only cause, cause will never be found in so-called mortal mind or its externalization, the material body. Then, it may be asked, why look to matter or to the beliefs of materia medica for the answer? In Christian Science we see that we are always dealing with belief, not matter. And where is that belief? In a physical body? No!—in thought, in what we call the human consciousness.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Editorial

BELIEF OR UNDERSTANDING