The St. Joseph observer., 1917-01-06

of him, that the true selfhood of man
| is the spiritual understanding which
images forth God, and that he who
has as yet only scant understanding
of God and man as they are in Truth
will be protected by God if he resorts
honestly to the measure of under
standing he has, the task of conquer
ing evil becomes easy. Knowing man
to be spiritual, you come to recognize
your spiritual selfhood, the immortal,
inyinciblc son of God. However faint.
ly this at first appears, and however
disheartened you may become by what
claims to be your own materiality, if
you cling steadfastly to the right idea
and keep the sense of materiality sep
arated from man, you are taking
refuge in spiritual understanding;
you are proving manhood apart from
evil and matter. And you are fixing
your hope in that consciousness of
Truth which offers no connecting
strings to error and which knows no
response to its call
So each individual may well ask
himself, To what am responding, day
by day, hour by hour? Is the desire
for good responding joyfully to the
demands of God. or is my specific be-
lief in materiality responding to the
manipulation, the invitation, of the
general materiality of human living?
If the latter, the way of escape from
its burden is to cast out our own be-
makes this possible by showing all
evil with all its accompaniments of
matter, sin. sickness and death, to be
only false belief and to be unsus-
tanned by God. AS the basic laws of
the various arts do not support de.
formties and mistakes in their prac-
tice, so Christian Science does not up
hold any mental or moral deformities
as being man or any part of man.
Gods creation is spiritual, perfect, i'm,
mortal. Christian Science reveals
this, and sets us at work to prove evil
the illusion it really is. Ceasing to be-
lieve in fear, or indulge in evil, is the
natural consequence of seeing Alright
God and His spiritual creation. Spirit,
ual man, the real man, has nothing in
him that can respond to evil. And
Christian Science is teaching its ad-
herents to turn their thoughts so con-
sistently and persistently to reality
that day by day they find themselves
less responsive to evil-more spiritual
perfection of true manhood in God.
Christ Jesus, who said to his follow
ers, BE ye therefore perfect" said
also, just prior to his crucfixion, that
"the prince of this world cometh, and
hath nothing in me-" In his pure
consciousness there was no response
to anything the world could offer
Paul, working out the teachings of
Christ Jesus, said later, None OF
these things move me-" And Mrs.
Eddy, still working out the teachings
of Christ Jesus, even further, in this
age, writes upon page pa of her book
Science and Health with Key to the
Scriptures" Evil thoughts and aims
reach no farther and do no more harm
than ones belief permits. Evil
thoughts, lusts. and malicious pur-
poses cannot go forth, like wandering
pollen. from one human mind to an
other, finding unsupported lodgment,
if virtue and truth build a strong
defence" Furthermore, resistance
through spiritual understanding to all
materiality, all evil, includes resist
ance to sickness and death, to all
forms of discord and disaster, for
none of it is from God. This is how
Christian healing is accomplished.
Thought is set free from response 10
all evil set free to obey the law OF
TA1