GOOD RESOLUTIONS

At the beginning of what men call the New Year all the world teems with good resolutions. It is looked upon as a general accounting time. As mankind glance back over the failures and disappointments, the mistakes and discomfitures of the past, it is scarcely strange that they should turn to that which they imagine will prevent the possibility of a repetition of such distresses. To this end they make unlimited resolutions which they believe will produce success.

Men have always—and rightly— desired to escape from a recurrence of past difficulties, and they have undertaken to do this by making all sorts of righteous resolves to avoid old mistakes, to abstain from former sins, and to put into practice all the known virtues. With a fresh courage born of a contemplation of such good purposes, they have started out in the exultant hope that the New Year would bring them only triumph and success. Soon they have found their courage flagging, their hope waning, their new inspiration lacking, and have all too frequently settled down into a state either of dogged indifference or of stubborn purpose to win at any hazard. Like all other human planning, resolutions, unless founded upon an intelligent understanding of divine Principle, are made but to be broken. The moment one bases a resolve, however righteous its seeming intent, on something less than a correct apprehension of the perfect guidance and government of God, he has but built on sand. For one to believe that he is the author of his own circumstances and can control them through his own purposes and activities apart from dependence on divine Principle, is to have erected a mental structure which he will eventually see disappear into its own nothingness. Those resolutions which are constructed only to crumble have no substantial basis, because they have so largely as component parts the elements of self-will and self-love; it is therefore not to be wondered at that they never come to any right establishment. Since their foundation is so false, they are necessarily accompanied with fear and hence contain no positive expectancy of good. Good must be as omnipresent as God Himself, and it is only as one wakens to the hope of good that he can find it expressing itself in his living. All the resolutions which could be made would never result in right expression were they not of such nature that there could be maintained in connection with them an expectancy of good.

The forming of good resolutions should really be the defining of one's highest spiritual purposes, and this is a practice which can scarcely be entered upon too frequently. Without an established purpose no one will work at any problem with persistency and right endeavor. A life without a definite purpose is like a ship without a rudder; it can be blown hither and yon with every shifting of the wind; it can be turned this way or that with each moving of the tide. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 15), Mrs. Eddy states a perfect purpose when she says, "We must resolve to take up the cross, and go forth with honest hearts to work and watch for wisdom, Truth, and Love."

Then, to be sure that one's good resolutions shall bring forth right results, there must be most careful examination of them in order that their foundation and nature may conform to these exalted demands. The Christian Scientist is prepared for such faithful scrutiny, for in the revelation which Christian Science gives of the truth about God and man, he has a perfect square whereby he can measure every least thought and desire. He sees in this light that the resolution to take up the cross and go forth with honesty of heart, involves a profound willingness to relinquish all that is less than divine in each and every purpose. It must mean that he shall entertain and maintain no lesser determination than to win the wisdom, truth, and love which shall govern his thinking and his living in such fullness that they shall ever increasingly redound to the glory of God and the honor of His Christ.

Such right resolution every true Christian Scientist knows it is not only his privilege but his necessity to win and demonstrate. He also knows that it was a wise man who gave the warning years ago that, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions," for, as has already been said, good resolutions, or intentions, which are not founded on divine Principle are but the fabric of which dreams are made, and their greatest danger is that they lull to sleep, since without Principle they can have no right activity. Christian Scientists thank God daily that in the inspired teaching of their beloved Leader, Mrs. Eddy, they have the method whereby they can so discern true resolutions that they shall be less and less easily deceived by spurious counterfeits. They also know that under God's law a good effect must follow a good cause, and therefore, having started with a right resolve, they go forward with perfect confidence that success must crown all their endeavor. It thus becomes possible for them to entertain continually that expectancy of divine good which is an essential element of all right fruition.

Then to the Christian Scientist there can be no hour when good resolutions may not be contemplated with profit; for to him they must ever imply a closer walk with God, a more devout and fervent determination to understand and prove God's allness and his own unity therewith. He does not need to wait for an advancing calendar, but can seize each day as a fresh opportunity to examine and lift to holier heights his purposes for good; for does not the Bible encourage him to know that God's loving possibilities for him are new every morning and fresh every evening? With, therefore, a constant renewing of such good resolutions as shall always result in good, when the New Years roll round in their orderly procession he will be able to sing with Mrs. Eddy (Miscellany, p. 354):—

Ella W. Hoag.