ECHOES

AARON F. GREENE

One of the amusements of childhood days is that of experimenting with echoes. It makes no difference where or how they are produced, the children know that whatever sound is sent out is returned in echo,—a laugh is answered by a laugh, a groan by a groan. In my younger days I lived in a valley with hills a quarter of a mile away on the north, while a half mile off to the west were other hills. One of my experiments then was to make different sounds to produce different echoes; another was to see how much time would elapse between the original sound and its echo. An interesting thought to me was that the echo was nothing but sound. There was no boy over there by the hills, although a sound came from there exactly like the sound I had made.

The reader can hardly understand with what force the recollection of these boyish experiments came to me, as I pondered the teachings in our text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy. I saw that the pains and diseases which seem so real to mortal sense, all the sorrows and discords among men, are only echoes, and if they are only echoes what starts them? where do they come from? It was a revelation to me that these are echoes of wrong thoughts. All my supposed sufferings were explained in an instant. I saw that a thought of pain, or an expectation of it, brought its corresponding echo in seemingly real pain. In other words, it was as though I had really believed there was another boy over by the hills making sounds just like mine. I discovered that if I wanted to stop the echoes I must stop calling out.

Here the question arises, How is it that sometimes the pain comes when one is not thinking of it? To this it may be answered that there never was an echo that had not its original in some sound, although there is sometimes an interval between the original sound and its reproduction; so there may be a considerable period between wrong thoughts and their resultant effects or echoes. Further, these echoes may not always be the manifestations of your own thinking, though they must have originated from some one's thoughts; but you listen to them and believe them real, just as, if you are in the vicinity, you hear the echo some one else has produced. The impression may have been made unwittingly by loving parents or by a trusted doctor, but the thing to do, when we know the truth, is to hold the right thought always, and thus get the right manifestations,—the right echoes.

When we give up wrong thoughts for right thoughts and wait for the echoes, what comes? Smiling faces in place of sad ones; elasticity of step in place of dragging feet; sweetness of temper in place of acerbity; peaceful sleep in place of insomnia; cordiality in place of aversion; confidence in place of suspicion; love in place of hate. Are not these conditions worth having? What meant the divine teachings, the works, the victories of Christ Jesus, and those of the apostles? What mean the labors, the patience, the selfless love of our revered Leader? It means that we must change our thinking from evil to good, send out only those thoughts that will result in good health, good morals, good, pure, loving lives; and thus bring all to that state in which "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."

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