Shutting the Door

ETHEL S. EVANS

Two little children were playing one day, when the older, aged seven, began to describe her aches and ills. "I have an awful cold," she said, "and my tooth hurts, and I'm just sick." The five year old, who had been listening gravely, replied: "Why don't you shut the door in its face?" This voicing of the truth was of course effectual, and the error so scientifically rebuked soon vanished into nothingness.

We are told in one of Faber's hymns that—

If our love were but more simple,
We should take Him at His word,

and this was what the trusting little one had done; his thought, so pure and unfettered by theories of disease, has dispelled many a cloud of error from his home. The Master's declaration, "Except ye . . . become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven," is easily understood by the Christian Scientist who is closely associated with little ones. Their ready acceptance of truth, when it is presented to them, gives children the ability to shut the door in the face of error's din—and really that is all we are ever required to do. The breath of truth sweeps away each vestige of evil, and thus destroys its asserted power.

There is nothing to dread when fear, that busy and subtle instrument of evil, is met with the divine declaration, I am God, and there is none else." When we see God's allness we can unfailingly see the falseness of error's arguments. On page 252 of Miscellany Mrs. Eddy affirms this truth : "Have one God and you will have no devil" and we can do this when we constantly realize the omnipotence of God, all-conquering good.

Each right thought can displace a thousand evil ones, thus shutting the door on error's attempted entrance and forestalling an evil deed. Like a stone cast into a lake, which produces ripples that go far and wide until they gradually pass beyond our sight, so an act (which was first a thought, either good or bad) may reach not only beyond our vision, but go down the ages to bless or harm mankind.

It is only when the door of our consciousness is opened to mortal mind, that cruel impostor designated by Christ Jesus as "a liar," who "abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him," that we are affected by false beliefs or thoughts which would separate us from the one Mind. When admitted into our mental dwelling how often are these beliefs of evil externalized as sickness, self-righteousness, resentment, and their attendant brood of evils, which are ever ready to enter, unless our thought rests upon the rock of spiritual understanding.

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