"Radical reliance"

Violet Ker Seymer

THE fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of the second book of Chronicles portray the opposite results of reliance on Truth and on materiality. There we find that during a certain period of his reign Asa relied on God, Spirit, and that he "renewed the altar of the Lord." Later, his worship of materiality caused his return to idolatry and his consequent downfall. Hanani, the seer, endeavoring to help him, pointed out to Asa his former triumphs over "a huge host," when, as he said, "Thou didst rely on the Lord." But the seer did not find the king teachable, for it is written that "then Asa was wroth with the seer, and put him in a prison house; for he was in a rage with him because of this thing."

As in our day there are those whose undivided trust in Christian Science is rewarded, so there are others who resist the vision of Truth and continue their matter worship. To some it seems puzzling to know why they should not obtain the healing of sickness by mixing material methods with Christian Science. One reason is that, in the practice of medicine, which is consistent with its material basis, sickness is usually regarded as having a physical cause and therefore requiring a physical cure. With equal consistency Christian Science diagnoses sickness as primarily mental, and therefore as needing the power of divine Mind to restore health to the sufferer.

Whereas medical systems center thought on the body, Christian Science turns the patient's thought away from corporeality to God, infinite Mind, the unfailing source of life and harmony. While all normal care is taken of the body in the practice of Christian Science, no attempt is made to heal matter through matter. Christian Science is not an accessory to physical healing; it is the Science of Christ-healing. Hence Mrs. Eddy's statement (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 167), "Only through radical reliance on Truth can scientific healing power be realized." When it is seen that both life and health are spiritual, not organic, there will be no fear entertained in connection with either life or health.

Christian Science equips one with spiritual understanding, whereby creation, as scientifically stated in the beginning of Genesis, is acknowledged to be spiritual and perfect, in conformity with Spirit, God, the one creator. Spirit has not created matter, and no law exists in divine Mind to produce or perpetuate the sins and the ills of either mortal mind or body. Christian Science also eschews the notion of "fallen man."

The effect of this teaching is to illumine human consciousness and so blot out of mortal thought its fear, its dense materiality, its consequent sickness, in present-day fulfillment of Isaiah's inspired statement, "The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light." Hence Christian Science does vastly more than heal sickness. It brings to mankind the needed spiritual enlightenment and comfort, and for material medicine substitutes the healing medicine of spiritual regeneration. On page 268 of "Miscellaneous Writings" Mrs. Eddy says, "God's preparations for the sick are potions of His own qualities."

Unreserved reliance on the power of divine Mind brings forth abundant fruits, spares us many a thorny road, many a backward step, and hastens in our lives the fulfilling of God's high and holy purpose for one and all. So the Christian Scientist loves divine Principle too well to forgo the blessings of radical reliance on Truth's healing power. He attributes to God, good, every evidence of progress and realizes more and more clearly that intelligence, being spiritual and not material, calls for complete reliance upon omnipotent divine Mind, God.

On page 115 of "Miscellaneous Writings" our Leader writes, "The increasing necessity for relying on God to defend us against the subtler forms of evil, turns us more unreservedly to Him for help, and thus becomes a means of grace." In spiritual reflection is one's safeguard from any and every sense of discord which the carnal mind would impose upon human consciousness. Should one find himself fearing any calamity or yielding to suggestions of discouragement he should quickly renew "the altar of the Lord;" that is, he should be true to the highest he knows, avoiding adulteration of methods, and striving for the higher vision of spiritual Truth which Christian Science holds out impartially to all. Mankind's real need is metaphysical, and as that is supplied, the physical need is cared for; but to place the physical need first is to give second place to Spirit, God.

Unlike Asa, the unseeing mortal who cast the seer into prison and was enraged by the divine rebuke, the Christian Scientist opens his thoughts to receive the healing vision of Truth, whether it reaches him through another or through his own communion with divine Mind. With humility he seeks to draw nearer to the divine ideal of man in God's likeness, the man who is now and forever "every whit whole." The fact that life and health can be sought and found by mental regeneration is indicated in these words from Proverbs: "My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. . . . For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh."

Violet Ker Seymer

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