MUCH is heard to-day in nearly every walk of life of the pessimistic outlook. One is constantly overhearing remarks from men and women who honestly fail to see why they should be other than pessimists during an apparent condition of unemployment, lack, and general unrest in both the economic and the political world. Indeed, many may seem to be struggling in the wilderness with apparently no succor at hand. For such weary, disappointed, and discouraged ones Christian Science has a comforting, because practical message, one which, if earnestly studied and understood, will result in the extermination of the various inharmonious beliefs which are claiming to enchain men.
Let us briefly examine the mentality of the pessimist. Noting that the word is a derivative of the Latin word pessimus, meaning "the worst," we observe that his outlook on life is one which is due to the continual support, even if unconscious and unintentional, given to the belief that evil is a reality, an actual controlling power. He may, for example, be postulating that there is a very limited amount of work to be done, as well as of wages available for the payment of that work. In short, fear seems to dog his footsteps, and if he has to pass through a trying crisis, discouragement may render his anxiety still greater. This pessimism, the postulating of evil as a governing, controlling power, instead of encouraging him to rise above and so prove the nothingness of his troubles and anxieties, will cripple his efforts to rise by whispering the uselessness, the futility, of any such efforts. In brief, the mentality of the pessimist is far from enviable; and rightly so, because the notion of expecting the worst is wholly and diametrically opposed to what is, by divine right, man's true heritage,—namely, the best.
Now let us turn to the Christian Scientist, who does not share anything in common with the pessimist's outlook, because, while the latter believes in the dominion and governance of evil, the former, declaring that God, good, is omnipotent, hence the only dominating, governing power, is irrefutably giving the lie to the belief of the existence of evil as reality. In common with the pessimist, Christian Scientists may appear to be meeting adverse human conditions. They, too, may seem to see the world upside down economically, and to be confronted with diverse problems. But observe the contrast in the mental attitudes. Christian Scientists do not accept these claims of lack, poverty, economic and political unrest, as realities. They do not become discouraged and indict God as the author of inharmony, ascribing it as a punishment sent from Him! Every true follower of Christian Science is earnestly trying not merely to believe, but to know and demonstrate, that God, good, is the sole governing power, so that chance, fate, and accident, to which the pessimist pays allegiance, cannot wield an influence over him, because he knows they are untrue.
