Keeping one's "cool" under stress would seem a stern discipline if one didn't know the sublime naturalness of calm. The Bible offers this knowledge. It teaches that God creates man in His likeness; therefore everyone's true identity reflects the divine quietude.

Actually, there is nothing to disturb or disquiet God's all-harmonious creation. He neither causes nor coexists with evil, turbulence, or disease. God, the one and only creator, is purely good, and His creation is perfectly at peace. Because unprecarious calm is natural to God, divine Mind, Spirit, Truth, and Love, it is mandatory for His likeness, spiritual man—your true selfhood and mine.

We can awake to this heavenly calm by defending our thoughts from intrusive suggestions of a creator other than God or a creation apart from Him. In proportion as we understand that good alone is true, we can realize the holy presence of imperturbable calm. And as we consistently choose to remain undisturbed, we can experience the consistent healing effects noted by Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. She writes, "Human mentality, expressed in disease, sin, and death, in tempest and in flood, the divine Mind calms and limits with a word." ^{The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 106.}

Christ Jesus, who more than any other man on earth claimed the divine Mind as the only Mind, exemplified the calm of that Mind and demonstrated its calming effects. When a windstorm tossed and threatened to swamp the ship in which he and his disciples were sailing, Jesus peacefully slept. The others, afraid for their lives, woke him. "And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm." ^{Mark 4:39.} Then they moved unhindered toward their destination.

Jesus later said to his followers: "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." ^{John 14:27.} And even as Jesus promised, Christ, the eternal, incorporeal ideal that he exemplified, is ever available to reveal and restore calm on the human scene. And the spiritual calm that Christ brings is not just the momentary lull that the world would occasionally permit. It is an abiding, God-maintained, inner serenity that enables one to set and keep a steady course of Christian discipleship. It is Christ's answer to the human plea for freedom from motion that is mere commotion—freedom to express meaningful achievement.

Christly calm inheres in the true selfhood of each one of us, and we can claim and experience it. Turmoil is a false, often suffering sense—an erring belief of intelligence, life, and substance apart from God. As we awake to spiritually understand reality—God and His ideas—that false sense vanishes. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures Mrs. Eddy says: "Spirit's senses are without pain, and they are forever at peace. Nothing can hide from them the harmony of all things and the might and permanence of Truth." ^{Science and Health, pp. 214–215.}

Mrs. Eddy so well understood the Science of Christ she discovered, the divine law that underlies Jesus' demonstrations, that she could demonstrate for herself and others the divine quality of calm. A Boston newspaper once printed an account of such a demonstration.

This paper said that Mrs. Eddy was called to the home of a man who had enteritis and stoppage of the bowels. Two medical doctors had just left, certain that the patient was dying. According to the newspaper, he was writhing, "using violent language, and almost cursing God." Still, Mrs. Eddy must not have thought him to be unreceptive to spiritual healing. She "asked him to cease, and said, 'If you will be calm, I can heal you.' "

The patient did as she evidently knew that he could and would do. He calmed down; and he was completely healed in one prayerful treatment. The newspaper went on to say, "Remarkable as was the man's physical healing, even more remarkable was the transformation in his thought and life." He began to express affection for his family, something he had never before done. His wife later said to Mrs. Eddy, "'Oh, how I thank you for restoring my husband to health, but more than all, I am grateful for what you have done for him morally and spiritually.'" ^{Irving C. Tomlinson, Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy (Boston: The Christian Science Publishing Society, 1966), pp. 48–49 .}

Of course, the man who was healed did not have a monopoly on the calm that settled over him. We, too, can feel and know such sacred quietude. It is found through studying and practicing Christian Science, Christ's revelation of Truth to this age. Mrs. Eddy writes: "O glorious hope! there remaineth a rest for the righteous, a rest in Christ, a peace in Love. The thought of it stills complaint; the heaving surf of life's troubled sea foams itself away, and underneath is a deep-settled calm." ^{Message to The Mother Church for 1902, p. 19.}

Christian Science expresses the almightiness of its healing power wherever it is meekly received. Because Science is what the Scriptures call the "still small voice" of Truth, it is most clearly heard and heeded in sacred calm. Therefore the greatness of calm lies in its oneness with Truth, its openness to spiritual progress. In proportion as we understand the divine necessity for infinite progression, we can demonstrate the eternal reality of calm.

CAROLYN B. SWAN