Skip to main content Skip to search Skip to header Skip to footer

DANGER SIGNS

From the January 1921 issue of The Christian Science Journal


No community or individual that seeks to eradicate disease accident by waging a campaign of fear, will ever succeed in the attempt, because fearing a thing means that the power of evil is believed in as a reality. One can never heal a disease so long as it is believed to be real or powerful. Where originally only the disease is feared, the urging of precaution after precaution against it leaves one to battle also with the fear of what may happen in case neglect follows the warning to be careful. Thus fear is built upon fear until the mortal's existence is made up of fear.

Putting individuals through a compulsory vaccination or physical examination, is like leading the proverbial horse to water and finding on arrival at the trough that he cannot be made to drink. A man may be unable to dispute the so-called authority that demands a physical examination or compulsory vaccination in spite of his protest, but going through a form will not decrease the fear of disease; it rather rouses resentment that he cannot be the arbiter of his own well-being. Posters recording accidents do not act as a warning or preventive, because being based on the reality of accidents, they produce a greater sense of fear. Lurid pictures of fatalities implant mental pictures of disaster which can only be removed by a knowledge of the unreality of fear, accident, and disease, and this knowledge comes through the understanding of God as infinite good, and of the unreality of evil.

Coming face to face with a danger sign, the first impulse is to be afraid. To the man who has proved for himself something of what God is, the experience is not unpleasant, for he knows that he is confronted with an opportunity to practice what he professes. The all-presence of God is the elimination of that which claims to be unlike good; for this reason the fear of danger can be replaced with the confidence and assurance that infinite protection is always at hand. A danger sign is a warning to beware of taking some action that will result in destruction, or death, and is based on the very unstable foundation that the universe including man is material, therefore capable of being destroyed. Now, of course, all this is the mortal concept of danger and should be placed in the same category with fear. Man and the universe are not material, because God is not material, and the universe including man is the expression of God. Paul puts it in this way: "God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring."

Sign up for unlimited access

You've accessed 1 piece of free Journal content

Subscribe

Subscription aid available

 Try free

No card required

More In This Issue / January 1921

concord-web-promo-graphic

Explore Concord—see where it takes you.

Search the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures