"The model for human action"

Evelyn F. Heywood

The accepted purpose of the education of mortals in human knowledge is so to awaken their thought that they may lay hold of true values and be able to refute the worthless and defective. Material instruction, based as it must always be on premises and conclusions in themselves often speculative and contradictory, provides neither for teacher nor for student anything but the opportunity to select that which appears nearest right and most conducive to progress.

When, through spiritual understanding, men have come to recognize the erroneous and wholly theoretical foundation of all mortal reasoning, they are no longer affected by the contradictory and fluctuating nature of what results therefrom. They are able to observe the ebb and flow, the temporary establishing and reversing of mortal standards, without alarm, knowing that by such means error is uncovering and destroying itself.

On page 306 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy writes, "Undisturbed amid the jarring testimony of the material senses, Science, still enthroned, is unfolding to mortals the immutable, harmonious, divine Principle,—is unfolding Life and the universe, ever present and eternal."

The Christian Scientist, knowing that where Science is enthroned, there man is enthroned also, takes his stand amidst all that is challenging and revolutionary, continuing, in the measure of his fidelity to the Christly method, undisturbed, while there unfolds in his experience a conscious oneness with Principle, maintaining and sustaining him in the overcoming of evil. "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee," declared Isaiah. Stayed! This is the demand of Principle, that thought not only contemplate and acknowledge spiritual enthronement, but that it be stayed thereon.

The Science of Christianity alone can provide men with the spiritual ideal upon which to model their thought; it alone can provide them with the logical reason for tranquillity amidst all that claims to be able to disturb and to destroy. He who seeks to be guided by spiritual, not by material sense, knows that intermittent staying upon God is not sufficient. Human existence, with all its jarring, distressing elements, is the outcome of thought which has developed its premises and conclusions apart from God, and has accepted them as inevitable. To recognize that nothing that is material, however beautiful it may appear, is the right model for action, is to seek always that which is not outside the realm of true being, but is enthroned, royally governing from within. In this way peace and poise are preserved, whatever be the conflicting elements that rise up in jarring and strident self-assertion. As men come to understand the true meaning of the spiritual ideal which is theirs, and identify themselves with it, they find that the false mental pictures, lowered standards, and aggressive arguments which surround them on every side have no longer the power to produce either fear, suffering, or resentment.

On page 93 of "Retrospection and Introspection," our Leader has given us an exact and practical recipe for the treatment of all jarring testimonies of the material senses, whether they be individual or collective, national or international. She writes, "The best spiritual type of Christly method for uplifting human thought and imparting divine Truth, is stationary power, stillness, and strength; and when this spiritual ideal is made our own, it becomes the model for human action."

Earnestly contemplating the spiritual facts of being which alone express reality, men bring into action that which quiets fear and restores tranquillity. In this stability, this quietude of thought, this consciousness of spiritual power, their outward lives, their divinely directed destinies, will unfold, ennobled and inspired by that which must likewise uplift and encourage those with whom they come into contact. Excitement and emotionalism, magnetic attraction and control, the forces engineered and marshaled by human will, are not strength but weakness; erected upon the crumbling standards of personal sense, they last just so long as they can deceive mortal man into believing that to be true which is untrue. The Christian Scientist, observing the continuous unfolding of Mind's infinite ideas, will remain undisturbed by all such mock and mimic sovereignties.

He who has begun to see that Truth is enthroned in the teachings of Christian Science, whereby man's dominion as the son of God is manifested, knows that he has the right to claim for all creation that it is stayed on God, uplifted, strengthened, at peace. The absolute, scientific reason for and explanation of this is set forth in such statements as the following, by Mrs. Eddy (ibid., p. 88): "Mind demonstrates omnipresence and omnipotence, but Mind revolves on a spiritual axis, and its power is displayed and its presence felt in eternal stillness and immovable Love."

Holding steadfastly the spiritual fact of man's oneness with Mind, which imparts its own power and presence, immovable and yet continuously unfolding, men know that they have made their own that spiritual ideal which is the only true model for human action.

Evelyn F. Heywood

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