Early in our application of Christian Science we discover that a watch must be kept not only upon individual thoughts, but upon the general character of our thinking. On page 114 of "Miscellaneous Writings" Mary Baker Eddy says: "Christian Scientists cannot watch too sedulously, or bar their doors too closely, or pray to God too fervently, for deliverance from the claims of evil. Thus doing, Scientists will silence evil suggestions, uncover their methods, and stop their hidden influence upon the lives of mortals."
In the world today there is much doubt as to the future. The recent global war, together with the vast destructive force released by atomic fission and demonstrated in the atom bomb, is accounted as evidence that we live in perilous times. Postwar shortages in many countries, political and economic disturbances in others, and a widespread feeling of frustration and confusion complete an unpleasant picture. Such a picture, if accepted as real, would darken the entire character of our thinking, weighing it down with materiality and robbing us of our buoyancy and joy. Christian Scientists reject utterly this materialistic view in much the same way that an art connoisseur, from his superior knowledge of the artist's work, would reject a faked painting alleged to be by Raphael.
Let us rejoice that as followers of Truth we know better than to give credence to mankind's despairing views of the postwar world! No such perversion of reality can form part of God's creation, God's work. It is but one more deception of the carnal mind, which Jesus characterized as "a liar, and the father of it" (John 8:44). Certainly these graven images of material sense will not disturb the faithful and alert student of Christian Science. Rather will he hold the more steadfastly to the reality of supreme Mind and its ideas in universal being.
