A CHRISTIAN SCIENTIST, in conversation with another of the same faith, said, "I would give up all I possess, deny myself all the comforts of human existence, if I could thereby heal the sick as did Christ Jesus;" and there are doubtless many others who would in all sincerity echo this sentiment. St. Paul certainly gave up much for the truth's sake, encountering the greatest hardships and the bitterest persecutions because of his espousal of a more spiritual religion than that of his fathers; but he tells us that though one were to give up all his earthly possessions, yes, even give his body to be burned, this alone would profit him nothing. He then goes on to show what does profit when he says, "Love never faileth" (Rev. ver.); and as we read we are impressed with the tremendous significance which he attaches to the reflection or manifestation of divine Love. He tells of the intense desire for knowledge which characterizes the so-called human mind; of the longing to understand "mysteries;" of the laudable desire to help others; but he speaks of all these things as merely temporary, imperfect, at best belonging to the period of our mental childhood, which clings to the shadows of sense as if they were realities and so misses the "face to face" vision of Truth and Love.
The great apostle has much to say in the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians by way of analysis of the nature and qualities of love, and among other things he tells us that love "taketh not account of evil;" in other words, to love, evil is not a factor of the problem of being. This coincides exactly with the teaching of Christian Science, but differs essentially from all religious theories which insist that evil is real and that it was known of God before man had appeared on the world's arena. As a result of the belief in evil, we have the history of long and needless struggles with evil,—sin, sorrow, disease, and death,—yet all the while the Bible declares that God's kingdom is an everlasting dominion, and that not one iota of evil is to be found therein.
The student of Christian Science, then, has the high and holy task set before him of eliminating from his consciousness all belief in the reality and 'power of evil, under whatever guise it presents itself, and as he proves its nothingness he gains clearer and clearer views of the allness of God, the supremacy of good. The pity is that any should waste their own time and possibly that of others in attempts to delve into the "mysteries" of mortal existence, when Christian Science reveals unmistakably that these are all cleared away as we understand and demonstrate the majesty of divine Love. In Paul's epistle to the Colossians, we find a warning against the danger of losing one's reward by "intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind." This exposes the human tendency to theorize about everything, a tendency which should be abandoned by those who come into Christian Science. We make a serious mistake if we rush to others with every problem which seems difficult, when the better way is to demonstrate each day the truth which we can grasp, with the certainty that by so doing each tomorrow will bring an enlarged sense of man's divinely-bestowed capacity to reflect Truth and Love, and to know as God knows.
