Practical Help

ELSA CROSS

One of the hardest points about the practice of Christian Science for the inquirer to understand is what he usually terms "lack of sympathy." Whatever the trouble may be, however great the disaster, however desperate the stratis, his friend, the Christian Scientist, endeavors to meet them with the same peaceful serenity which he shows toward harmonious conditions. The inquirer who is accustomed to look for a display of material effort to assist, or, at the very least, an emotional utterance of deep concern, is perplexed when the practitioner apparently does nothing to help. But as time goes on he sees that the discord is replaced by harmony, sometimes at once, sometimes by degrees; and he thus learns that the belief in an unsympathetic attitude was really an illusion of the senses, for the consecrated practice of the Christian Scientist is the extension of the most practical help which can possibly be given. What seemed to be a lack on the part, of the Christian Science practitioner was not so at all, for something far better was given, which the needy one might not at first perceive.

A Christian Science student having a supersensitive disposition, easily touched by the manifestation of suffering, poverty, or helplessness, has sometimes many steps to take out of mesmeric sympathy to that true sympathy which is able to unsee material evidences and discern the real, spiritual substance of man in the likeness of divine Love. The arguments of material sense, as they beat upon his false sympathies, would lead him, if it were possible, to take the attitude of mere emotional pity instead of that true sympathy which is expressed in the divine compassion which enabled Jesus to still the tempest, and to say to Lazarus, "Come forth." Our dear Leader makes this plain when she says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 153), "Neither sympathy nor society should ever tempt us to cherish error in any form, and certainly we should not be error's advocate."

Consternation, false sympathy, and distressful pity only aggravate the situation, and do nothing whatever to heal or help. They are emotions which indicate ignorance, helplessness, and fear. In any department of human activity, the same truth holds good. The one who is ignorant as to how to right wrong conditions will always be thrown into a state of disturbance by discord; but he who has the knowledge of the way to bring practical help will come to the rescue with peace and comfort.

All discordant conditions are the result of erroneous thinking; and when such a case is intrusted to the care of a Christian Scientist, he knows full well that the only way to heal the case is to possess the spiritual understanding which knows that man is made in God's likeness. This knowledge can come only from acquaintance with divine Principle; and it never fails to bear the fruit of goodness in improved conditions and a more wholesome mentality.

To demonstrate the truth of being we must turn away from the offending error and see only the great reality of Life, Truth, and Love. Mrs. Eddy says: "We must close the lips and silence the material senses. In the quiet sanctuary of earnest longings, we must deny sin and plead God's allness" (Science and Health, p. 15). "Sympathy with error should disappear," our Leader also tells us (p. 211). "Sympathy with error" indicates a belief in its inevitability, and is a denial of God's power to heal; whereas wholesome confidence in the protecting care of divine Love invariably brings practical help.

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