One Cause and Effect

Evelyn F. Heywood

Success does not originate or appear of itself. It has no independent, disconnected entity. It is the outcome of something to which it owes its existence, and its value or permanence is regulated thereby. The word "success" means that which follows or comes after; it is an effect or consequence of some thought or action. We know from the account of creation in the first chapter of Genesis that when "the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them," they were a complete success. Of this divine creation man is the full and perfect expression.

Jesus summed up the dual, interdependent relation of cause and effect in the following words: "The Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him." Here indeed is an assurance of invincible accomplishment. In this correlation and reciprocity of Principle and idea, of unity and obedience, is found the explanation of the triumph of Christ Jesus over every obstacle, and the establishment of spiritual law in its place. Referring to this unparalleled experience, Mary Baker Eddy has written on page 45 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," "Jesus vanquished every material obstacle, overcame every law of matter, and stepped forth from his gloomy restingplace, crowned with the glory of a sublime success, an everlasting victory."

In the whole of divine Mind's vast creation, we know that there are no failures; that that which proceeds from God is perfect in its inception and development, and man is the witness to this success. Yet mortal man, whose basic reasoning is hazardous and imperfect, whose undertakings are jeopardized in advance by what may at one time appear too great and at another too little reliance on his own efforts, how sadly handicapped he is, how quickly satisfied with what he calls success! How as quickly mortified and discouraged by what he calls failure!

It was said of Napoleon by one of his generals that "when all had succeeded all was lost." The success which men attain at the expense of others, as the result of force and cruelty, of trickery and subterfuge, however startling its results, whatever immediate accretion of power and prestige it may bring, foretells from the moment of its inception the certainty of a defeat inexorable, inevitable. Every victory won by evil means, though it may arouse the admiration and the servitude of its adherents, and even of the world, and bring with it temporary glory, is charged with those elements which are the inauguration of failure. It has no law to support it, no love to inspire it, no truth to enlighten it. The evidence of this would come more swiftly, and be established more securely, if men everywhere were awake to the inherently destructive nature of evil; if they refused to fear it, and to argue on the side of its present and potential achievements.

The writer of the thirty-seventh Psalm was in no doubt as to the false claim of evil and its certain doom. He saw that not only was it to be overthrown; it was to be so completely wiped out that no evidence of it would remain. "For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be." And how reassuring is this touch of levity in the midst of fierce and formidable encounters with the enemy of righteousness: "The Lord shall laugh at him: for he seeth that his day is coming"!

As men approximate spiritual understanding they recognize the self-destruction of evil, its powerlessness to accomplish its aim, its certain annihilation in the face of right. By these means there will be proved in the eyes of all men that its terrors, as well as its allurements, are at an end.

"Every attempt of evil to destroy good is a failure, and only aids in peremptorily punishing the evil-doer," writes Mrs. Eddy on page 186 of the Christian Science textbook. The understanding of spiritual law, which ensures the failure of every effort to succeed falsely, and protects every endeavor to succeed rightly, is now at work in human consciousness. Christian Scientists all the world over know that this is so. In the measure of their faithful adherence in thought and action to spiritual cause and effect, they will bring about true success by the only means which can accomplish it, by justice and honesty and mutual good will; and they will uncover and disarm all false and disruptive methods which would gain advantage at the expense of others.

Everywhere in the smallest and in the greatest of projects which concern them, men have the right to claim success, as, looking to Mind, they express their unity with and obedience to God. By such means will they eliminate methods, material and subversive, which appear to spell temporary success, and frustrate every effort of evil to make them believe that that which is of God can fail. In this eternal succession of true unfoldment do men learn in unity with the Father to "do always those things that please him."

Evelyn F. Heywood

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit