Correct Standards

EDITH A. FRIES

"What can be the standard of good, of Spirit, of Life, or of Truth, if they produce their opposites, such as evil, matter, error, and death?" So writes Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, on page 539 of her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures."

What would happen in the commercial world if there were no mathematical rules—if, for example, two fours could be eight, and also something besides eight? No one dreams of questioning the everyday facts of mathematics or imagines that they can become something else. How naturally the truth about two fours is accepted by everyone! It gives rise to no controversies, no misunderstandings, no discord. We are never fearful as to its availability. We do not believe that accidents, floods, fires, earthquakes, disasters of any sort, can have any effect on mathematical facts. We never fear that they will change or become useless. On the contrary, we have a feeling of certainty that their perfection is assured. And it is a matter for everlasting gratitude Mrs. Eddy has given us in her writings exact, scientific knowledge concerning God and man, with rules for its application to the problems of daily life, so that literally thousands of students are now utilizing this knowledge to destroy all manner of evil—sin, sickness, selfishness, slothfulness, false pride, intolerance, and so on, as well as domestic, school, and business troubles.

In mathematics, two fours have no power to stop being eight, no power to alter an accepted mathematical fact. And the real man has no power to stop reflecting God, good, health, justice, honesty, and so on. Imperfect mortals cannot cause God's reflection to be something unlike God. Mrs. Eddy writes (ibid., p. 475): "Man is incapable of sin, sickness, and death. The real man cannot depart from holiness, nor can God, by whom man is evolved, engender the capacity or freedom to sin." The writer recalls hearing at a Wednesday evening meeting a testimony to the effect that a physical disorder was suddenly healed when the sufferer realized the truth of the statement just quoted. In the light of Jesus' teachings, it should not seem strange that there is an ever-available truth about man which, when understood, will reveal and demonstrate man's immutable harmony.

To imagine that God could permit something to disturb the harmony of His creation would be as mistaken as to think that the sun could in some way cause its rays to manifest something other than light. "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity." So we read in Habakkuk. Can the sun produce or cooperate with its opposite—darkness? Can a ray of light refuse to reflect the sun? Is it not just as absurd to believe that God is the author of an unlikeness to Himself? Acknowledging that God is good and infinite, we must also acknowledge that everything emanating from Him is good and perfect.

Is it any wonder that mortals find themselves the victims of chance, of all manner of evil, while believing that evil is as real as good, a belief which would necessarily imply that evil is also as eternal as good? How logically evident it is now to students of Christian Science that the discords and tragedies of material existence are due to the fact that mankind has accepted as real and true that which is unreal and false, and worked from that standpoint! What a joy it is to learn that evil, error, is no part of God's creation, and that it can be destroyed by holding thought persistently to the truth!

As the truths of Christian Science become better understood, the fact that God is unchanging good, and that man, His spiritual idea, is perfect and indestructible, not subject to accident, sin, sickness, disaster, death, will become more and more apparent. Mankind will give up illogical and unworkable standards of thought, and it will become as natural to apply Christian Science, the Christ Science, to all human problems as it now is to use mathematical truths in the business world. Let us rejoice that in Christian Science we have a standard of right thinking that admits of no guessing, no sophistry, no deviation from truth, but remains "the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever," for all to appropriate and utilize.

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