THE solemn question, "What is truth?" propounded by the perplexed Pontius Pilate on that morning when, had he been sufficiently spiritually-minded to divine it, he would have realized that the representative of Truth was standing before him, has continued ever since to exercise human thought, and never more so than to-day. Despite the superficiality of mortal beliefs, serious thinkers are feeling more insistently than ever before the necessity for an explanation of the cosmos and of its ultimate meaning. Voltaire once wrote that "the discovery of what is true, and the practice of what is good, are the two most important objects of philosophy;" and, assuredly, all those who are endeavoring to know and to serve God aright will be in full agreement with him.
The difficulty is to know how to distinguish between the true and the false; what test to apply to the varied philosophies and theories wherewith the world is flooded. Even in primitive Christian times it was found necessary to admonish the Hebrews not to be "carried about with divers and strange doctrines." With his knowledge of human nature, the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews recognized the tendency of mortals to indulge in the excitement of running after new things and to accept as true even uncertain speculations. This tendency is still evident, showing that the human mind is ready to believe what it wishes to believe, and to elaborate its own reasons for doing so.
Mankind is reaching out for the truth, and, because righteous desire is prayer which finds acceptance, is being led to discern where Truth is to be found. But error now, as in Jesus' day, makes strenuous efforts to deny or to becloud the truth. When the persecutors of the Way-shower, who proclaimed it as his mission to make known the truth, crucified him, they imagined that with him they had effectually killed his teachings, which, because they were true, occasioned so much discomfort to thought that desired to abide in error. But though it may be temporarily stifled, Truth can never be destroyed; and to-day, whether we are willing to practice them or not, the teachings of our great Master are now accepted by Christendom as a compendium of the truth.
The important practical question, then, is to define Truth and to know how to recognize it. Ordinarily, when anyone declares this or that to be true, those who have doubts about it ask for proofs; and when these are forthcoming, the claim is admitted by all who are unbiased and honest. But, oddly enough, so-called mortal mind is least inclined to take this straightforward course where religious conviction is concerned. A dictionary in the first instance defines "religion" as being "the recognition of supernatural powers and of the duty lying upon man to yield obedience to them." The word "supernatural" is there used in the commonly accepted sense as signifying what is opposed to so-called material laws. But for the Christian Scientist who knows that there are no such laws in reality, and that spiritual law is "supremely natural," to use Mrs. Eddy's words in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (Pref., p. xi), the term is vague and unsatisfying; and he enunciates the definition more correctly as he recognizes Spirit, God, as the source of all truth, and the duty of man to yield obedience to Him. Since God is supreme, omnipotent, the only creator, all truth must be in Him; and God, Truth, must be absolutely true.
From the fact, then, that all that is true emanates from God, it necessarily follows that in order to ascertain whether a given proposition is true we must satisfy ourselves whether it is of God. But how is this to be done? One essential is to realize the untrustworthiness of material sense and to refuse to accept it as evidence. Over and over again material sense testimony, which during long ages has been regarded as conclusive with respect to so-called material objects, is now being rejected by many in the light of careful research. This is strikingly illustrated in the case of matter itself, which was formerly accepted as real, and out of which, in its various forms and combinations, everything was supposed to have been made. Yet, even to-day, despite all their investigations, there are natural scientists who cannot agree as to the nature of matter, and this because the material senses cannot possibly assist them to define the nature of that which is unreal. The way out of the difficulty is to accept Mrs. Eddy's statements regarding the unreality of matter as advanced by her more than a half century ago, and to acknowledge that she is right in asserting that there can in reality be no physical science, since all reality is spiritual and therefore governed by spiritual law alone. Until this is done, the perplexed human thought will be found speculating as uncertainly to-day as it did yesterday regarding the true nature of being. Up to the present it is but the few who have discerned that the difficulty is to be solved only by substituting divine metaphysics for physical testimony.
Our Leader says (Science and Health, p. 122), "The evidence of the physical senses often reverses the real Science of being, and so creates a reign of discord." Material sense is prone to see and accept whatever it either wishes or fears to see. Happily, however, the number of those who realize that reality must be sought for in the realm of Mind, God, is gradually increasing, so that the eventual fulfillment of Jeremiah's prophecy can be expected: "And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them."
The next question is how to emancipate one's self from the fetters of false material sense, and to develop that spiritual sense which we are assured in the sixteenth chapter of the Gospel of John will guide us "into all truth." The way to do this has been clearly indicated by the divinely inspired Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science in her textbook, whose pages are rich in practical instruction as to how to emulate the example of him whose declared mission it was to give the truth to the world.
As already stated, we recognize as true that which can be proved to be so, and every day, in almost every quarter of the globe, among the most diverse races of men and the most varying mentalities, these precepts are being proved true through the works accomplished by those who obey them. The one great desire, therefore, of those who have caught some glimpse of spiritual reality through Christian Science is to know more of them, laboring and waiting for that full perception of Truth which they know will finally come to all who sincerely seek after it.
