PAUL, the apostle to the Gentiles, ever strove to convince his hearers, and the readers of his epistles as well, of his great earnestness of purpose in undertaking to establish in the hearts of men the teachings of his Lord and Master, Jesus the Christ. So imbued was he with the spirit of the Christ that he strove at all times, in season and out, to carry the message of everlasting salvation to all prepared to receive it. So firmly convinced was he that he had found the "pearl of great price" that the thought that anyone should doubt his sincerity was intolerable to him.
This deep desire to carry conviction, manifest in all Paul's writings, is especially emphasized in the first chapter of the second letter to the Christians in Corinth. Keenly solicitous that his messages should be affirmative and positive, he wrote, "But as God is true, our word toward you was not yea and nay." And later he added, "For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us." A modern translator somewhat clarifies this statement thus: "The divine 'yes' has at last sounded in him [Christ Jesus], for in him is the 'yes' that affirms all the promises of God." The apostle beheld in Christ Jesus, both in his teachings and in his life, fulfillment of all the promises, realization of all expectancy through his divine affirmation of spiritual truth. Christ Jesus was the proof and demonstration, the divine "yes" which made manifest the power, presence, and availability of God. As Christian Scientists, we are, like Paul, in duty bound to find the divine affirmation in the works wrought by Christ Jesus, and wrought again to-day through a renewed understanding of the power of the Christ, Truth, to destroy incarnate evil.
In this work of affirming the divine presence, we should be no less assured than was the great apostle. The proofs through the centuries have been cumulative, so that we now have multiplied evidence of the availability of the divine power to destroy material belief of every type. We know, as the Quaker poet sang.
