CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND THE "ARTISTIC TEMPERAMENT."

MARY C. FRANCIS.

Dissatisfaction with human life and conditions often means intense longing for the ideal. The dissatisfaction and the longing are common in a greater or less degree to the entire human race, but when manifested to a marked extent it is commonly known as "temperament;" and if the unhappy possessor happens to be one of the world's producers, a musician, a writer, a sculptor, or a painter, it is still further alluded to as the "artistic temperament." Under this treacherous disguise depths of anguish have been hidden, known only to those who have suffered, for pride always goes hand in hand with mental pain.

In the misdirected effort of the human mind to change the environment or the conditions on the material plane, it forever breaks its long, moaning waves on the sands of time, striving to pass the bounds of the infinite. Yet all the unhappy ones are only looking for peace. The most excitable persons secretly yearn for poise. The victim of a highstrung nature is always longing to be "understood." The lonely eat their hearts out for lack of sympathy and companionship. The loveless and unloved seem to perish for lack of love, and starved wanderers needlessly sob themselves to sleep in the cold dawn.

Moods, temper, hysteria, nervousness, headaches, sleeplessness,—these are merely a few of the torturing brood of evils that swarm in the trail of the artistic temperament, until it has come to be accepted as a matter of course that any one with productive ability in the realm of art, music, or literature must necessarily be subject to them—and to still worse things. But for over forty years Christian Science has steadily drawn recruits from the ranks of the temperamental, and within the past few years the large number of artists, musicians, actors, authors, newspaper people, and others who deal with the plastic thought of the world, who have turned to this teaching, has attracted much attention; and the question is often asked, Why is it?

Almost the first thing we learn in Christian Science is the true relation of man to God—that man is His child, created in His image and likeness, reflecting the divine perfection in the real or spiritual man. This is the coming of Christ to human consciousness, and with it comes also the dawn of peace. Every Christian Scientist has experiences in which he is fully conscious of the all-presence of God, so that, as we sometimes hear it expressed in our testimony meetings, "there is nothing anywhere but God." This experience is an actual knowledge, and has no relation to emotional or imaginary states which are chiefly due to imagination. On the contrary, this pure and blissful spiritual consciousness is the direct result of Christian Science work according to divine Principle, and is as much a certainty as the solving of a problem in mathematics. What could more surely provide for peace of mind than this? It is not strange that the tempests of discordant sense are stilled. Christ has spoken to the tempest, and the waves of human passion smooth into calm under the Master's benediction: "It is I; be not afraid."

This is the larger healing of Christian Science. It annuls the material law that "action is equal to reaction, and in a contrary direction," and teaches us instead the law of Principle as shown by Mrs. Eddy, "There is no death, no inaction, diseased action, overaction, nor reaction" (Science and Health, p. 428). The uplifted sense then ushers in a new activity. The heart that sees all its ideals possible goes about its work singing. The old sense of loneliness is replaced by the constant knowledge of God's ever-presence, and the assurance that we are never for one instant deprived of the presence of Love. The craving for companionship is answered by the privilege of our fellowship in the Christian Science churches, and our new friends and associations confer a larger idea of the social relation. The desire for a higher class of reading-matter is granted by the daily study of the Bible, and our realization that an appreciation of the literary value of the Bible never saved one, but that one ray of spiritual light means salvation. The whole field of pure literature is opened to us in our text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," and in the Lesson-Sermons and all the different publications of our Publishing Society. The old human sense that clung persistently first to this personality and then to that, turning from one false god to another, only to be deceived by each in turn, is replaced by the glorious freedom of each as the sons and daughters of God. Soaring upward on strong wings, our Leader has written of this: "The divine Ego, or individuality, is reflected in all spiritual individuality from the infinitesimal to the infinite" (Ibid., p. 336).

Thus freed from its prison-house of the old belief that life, mind, and intelligence are in matter, the liberated thought rises to the realization that divine Mind governs and protects all its ideas, as they go "from strength to strength," finding ever more true companionship along the way. These are a few of the reasons why Christian Science appeals to the "artistic temperament," and is merely a glimpse of the many ways in which the desire for order, beauty, peace, harmony, is gratified with full, overflowing measure. When we read, "I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star," and then read again that wonderful promise to those who are faithful to the end, "And I will give him the morning star," we realize that there is nothing anywhere that can ever swerve us from the truth. And then some bright morning,—it matters not whether here or on some other plane of consciousness,—when we have met and conquered every lie of life in matter, we shall arise as did one of old, of whom it is written: "And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him."

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