Editorial November 27, 1954 Issue

UNDERSTANDING AND BELIEF

Helen Wood Bauman

In Christian Science, understanding and belief are words used with special care. For one reason, they mark the distinction this Science makes between the actual comprehension of God and His spiritual universe of ideas and a merely human admission of their existence. One who understands Science demonstrates its verities; and he lives what he knows. He is not tempted to respond emotionally to the errors that confront him, nor is he led to revert to material means for healing. Because he knows that God is All and includes all reality, he is convinced that mortal existence is unreal. The Adam-dream, in which matter seems to be substance, cannot make him either hate or fear its material illusions.

The Christian Scientist is constantly occupied with the translation of these mortal illusions into the spiritual ideas which they counterfeit. He knows when he is making this translation really by the spiritual purification which comes to his character and by the tangible illumination of Spirit which is evident. He is not only benefited by better health and by more harmony in his affairs, but he is a better individual. His affections are purified, are enlarged in their scope, and are more constant. He becomes more meticulously truthful, is more just. His capacity for intelligence increases. Personal animosities and prejudices drop away.

These are the signs of spiritual understanding that one needs to watch for, perhaps even more than for physical evidence of progress. They are proofs that one's name is "written in heaven" (Luke 10:20), to use Christ Jesus' words.

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