The Digestion of Truth

Ella W. Hoag

There is, perhaps, no statement of our beloved Leader, Mrs. Eddy, which is more familiar to all earnest Christian Scientists than the one which is found on page 559 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." There, after counseling mortals to "obey the heavenly evangel" and "take divine Science," she says further: "It will be indeed sweet at its first taste, when it heals you; but murmur not over Truth, if you find its digestion bitter. When you approach nearer and nearer to this divine Principle, when you eat the divine body of this Principle,—thus partaking of the nature, or primal elements, of Truth and Love,—do not be surprised nor discontented because you must share the hemlock cup and eat the bitter herbs."

There is no question but that multitudes have tasted of the sweetness of divine Science when they have experienced the blessed results of its healing ministrations. Those who have then accepted this Science as the truth have often imagined that their future was to be filled with the uninterrupted bliss of partaking of this sweetness. Have they not found the truth? say they; and with nothing to do but to eat of it, how can they fail to find their existence one triumphant succession of instantaneous proofs of the power and presence of good?

Thus students argue for a smooth journey heavenward! So firmly, indeed, have many of them believed that their demonstration should be attended only by that which is harmonious and pleasant to the material senses that, unless harmony prevails immediately, at all times and under all circumstances, they are frequently tempted to yield to discouragement. When results such as they have desired have been slow to appear, they have even been heard to question the validity of Science itself. All this in spite of the fact that our Leader has so plainly said, "Do not be surprised nor discontented because you must share the hemlock cup and eat the bitter herbs."

The material senses are always crying out for "peace, peace; when there is no peace." They are ever asking, "Art thou come hither to torment us before the time?" They look for comfort and satisfaction in matter; and since it is quickly seen that Christian Science stands for the reality of good and good alone, students may believe therein has been found that which will always insure immediate relief from all that is discordant and unpleasant in matter, while allowing them still to rest in the belief of good in matter. They are therefore more or less loath to enter upon that digestion of the "primal elements, of Truth and Love" which uncovers the entire falsity of materiality, and which is necessary before the reality of spiritual good can be realized.

In "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 230), in an article entitled "Mental Digestion," Mrs. Eddy writes: "Scientific pathology illustrates the digestion of spiritual nutriment as both sweet and bitter,—sweet in expectancy and bitter in experience or during the senses' assimilation thereof, and digested only when Soul silences the dyspepsia of sense." Here is the reason why all must eat the bitter herbs and drink the hemlock cup! Because nothing to which the material senses testifies is true or anything like the truth, every claim they present must be uncovered as false, and rebuked and annulled by Soul, by that spiritual evidence which reverses the lying suppositions of both good and evil in matter. This of course human belief resists; hence the bitterness!

It is easy to perceive that Christian Scientists seem to have to learn this lesson over and over again, this lesson of partaking of Truth and Love and assimilating them, even while they are bringing evil out from under cover and destroying it. The temptation still to look for good in matter; to be satisfied with some material evidence which spells harmony to a present sense of things; to be content with less than the understanding of Soul—these temptations appear to occur and recur. The wise Christian Scientist, however, will never consider his mental work in any instance completed until he has so assimilated and digested the nature of divine Principle that he shall have seen the "dyspepsia of sense" silenced by the all-satisfying senses of Soul—those senses which our inspired Leader tells us, in Science and Health (pp. 214, 215), "are without pain, and they are forever at peace." Then she adds, "Nothing can hide from them the harmony of all things and the might and permanence of Truth."

Ella W. Hoag

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Christian Character and Healing

February 6, 1926

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