Editorial June 26, 1954 Issue

MAN'S ANIMATING PRINCIPLE

Helen Wood Bauman

When Christ Jesus said (John 6:63), "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing," he was teaching that the source of man's activity and life is not to be found in flesh but in Spirit, man's only creator. Christian Science takes the Master's words literally. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy defines "creator" in part in the following words (p. 583): "Spirit; Mind; intelligence; the animating divine Principle of all that is real and good."

Christian Science has released great activity to human thought by revealing God as the only Mind and His creation as purely spiritual— not made up of inert matter, but of conscious spiritual identities, which Mind unfolds in ceaseless animation. There are no elements or periods of inertia in the unfoldment of divine identities, or ideas. And man, who is Mind's highest idea, acts perpetually under the divine impulsion of the Principle whose knowing gives him existence.

The Christian Scientist claims for himself the impetus of divine Principle in all he undertakes to do that accords with Principle. He identifies himself not as a sluggish mortal, but as the idea which Mind ever sustains and animates. This right identification will dispel moods of inertia that would sometimes assail him, cutting down his efficiency and limiting his accomplishment.

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