“In Atmosphere of Love Divine”

One of our hymns says,

In atmosphere of Love divine,
We live, and move, and breathe;
Though mortal eyes may see it not,
‘Tis sense that would deceive.

Hymn No. 144

How much happier conversation would be if this truth were remembered when the weather brings extremes of heat or cold! But, instead, people often prefer to complain about the weather.

Paul says, “Our conversation is in heaven,” and Mrs. Eddy tells us that heaven is harmony. Confining our conversation to harmonious topics has a positive effect, upon both our physical condition and upon the weather. Jesus declared that knowing the truth would make you free. How important it is, then, not only to know the truth about God and man, but to voice it, and to expect this truth to go forth with power and — like light entering a darkened room — to dispel its opposite.

Present-day physicists now acknowledge what Mrs. Eddy discovered more than a hundred years ago — that we live in a universe of thought. Many times, therefore, the negative thoughts we entertain can externalize themselves as pictures of disease, discord, upheavals of nature, devastating storms, withering heat, and pitiless cold.

Jesus would speak the word of Truth to a storm, and there would be a great calm. Members of Mrs. Eddy’s household tell of instances when storms were dissipated. Mrs. Eddy has left this observation for her followers: “The atmosphere of the human mind, when cleansed of self and permeated with divine Love, will reflect this purified, subjective state in clearer skies, less thunderbolts, tornadoes, and extremes of heat and cold.” (My.)

During times of extreme heat or cold, or threatening storms, are we striving to cleanse the human consciousness of self — of self-love, self-will, self-pity, self-aggrandizement? How is this done? By uncovering selfishness and then rejecting it as unreal, lawless, and powerless, because it is the very opposite of divine Love. When we have truly striven to cleanse the atmosphere of the human mind of self and to permeate it with divine Love, not only are we lifting ourselves out of the mental miasma of fear and mortal laws, but we are bringing to the whole human family a glimpse of the kingdom of harmony.

The Old Testament tells us that man has been given dominion over all the earth, and Jesus assures us that we have been given “power over all the power of the enemy.” (Luke) We have divine authority to turn on any suggestion of error with the sharp rebuke, “No, you don’t!”

Truly may we declare, in the words of the Psalmist, “How excellent is Thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Thy wings.”