Editorial April 28, 1951 Issue

REACHING OUR IDEAL

Helen Wood Bauman

Because individual lives are essentially different, we must conclude that each of us brings out his own ideal; that one's experience, his health, environment, success, or failure, is the objectification of his thoughts; that thought, and not matter, is the substance of existence. Each one, then, is responsible for his experience, because each is master of his own thinking. "The tree is known by his fruit," said Christ Jesus to his opponents, who blindly resisted acknowledging that his good works were proof of his lofty idealism (Matt. 12:33). He warned them, "Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment." Just as idle words judge our hearts, so unfruitful lives judge our spiritual barrenness. And the reflection of divine power is proof that our ideal of God and man is high and true.

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science, which interprets the Master's teachings and life, says in her "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 223), "Science proves, beyond cavil, that the tree is known by its fruit; that mind reaches its own ideal, and cannot be separated from it."

One meaning of ideal is a standard of perfection. Christian Science reveals the true standard for all things: God's divine ideal, the perfect concept of man, who includes by reflection all things as Spirit creates them. The more nearly our ideal of Deity, of man, government, home, occupation, relationships, as well as that of such graces of life as music and other arts, approaches the truth of God and His creation, the more distinctly will harmony and progress appear in our human lives. Order and beauty are the natural sequence of holding Spirit, rather than matter, as our model. Morality and spiritual power follow the comprehension of God as pure Mind and of man as Love's perfect conception.

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