Editorials

Every individual is experiencing his concept of God. If his concept is correct, his experience will partake of dominion and harmony; if incorrect, it will seem to partake of their opposites.

That which we believe is distinct from that which we understand. We can, for instance, believe in a material universe, but we can never understand it because the true universe is not material but spiritual.

What consciousness is, whence it comes, and where it goes are questions which have puzzled thoughtful men for ages. The materialist, believing only what the physical senses tell him, concludes that consciousness originates in brain and that matter controls its conditions and existence.

EDITORIAL SECTION Value is permanent. It is wholly spiritual.

No one is without a friend, for God is the friend of all who turn to Him in faith and confidence. Those who seek the Father have as their familiar companion Him "with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning" ( James 1:17 ) Deeply satisfying is this friendship, for it unfolds God's gracious will toward His reflection, man.

In the first book of Kings we read that Elijah the prophet found lodgment in a cave upon Mount Horeb, the mount of revelation. A great wind rent the mountain, "but the Lord was not in the wind.

EDITORIAL SECTION There is profound comfort in the fact that whatever evil seems to appear seems only to appear to itself. Evil is the dream of a dreamer, not the thought of Mind awake.

When blind Bartimaeus sat by the wayside begging, he must have been a sad spectacle to passers-by. We are not unfamiliar with his counterpart in modern times, and indeed his type includes many who believe they have been placed by the wayside of life because age or infirmity has labeled their case incurable.

When Christ Jesus named the devil, or evil, "a liar, and the father of it," he disclosed its powerlessness, for a liar has no ability to produce an actual effect, hence no power. If it seems to produce an effect, then that effect must be a deception and liable to destruction the moment its false nature is understood.

If God cannot know evil, how can He control it? If, as Christian Science teaches, divine Mind can never be conscious of evil's claim to produce human want and woe, how can divine Mind, God, deliver men from evil? The answer is, By not permitting evil to be; by forbidding its existence. God is all presence and He knows He is.