The Vitality Of Truth

“TO those leaning on the sustaining infinite, today is big with blessings.” This opening line of the Preface to Science and Health (p. vii) has always been loved by Christian Scientists, but like all that our Leader has written it compasses more than one at first perceives. If one asks himself how much he leans, he is apt to find that his sense of dependence on God is really slight, and that he bases his ability to lift this or that dead weight very largely on his own efforts. Frequently he finds long and arduous mental work miserably void of result, and he concludes that Christian Science is not nearly so simple as he had supposed. Unless one keeps close to Principle he gets tangled in his theories, and forgets that mortal mind argument is not spiritual vision. He tries to hoist himself, as it were, with his own petard, and fails utterly. He may go all over the mortal ground, look this and that supposititious error in the eye, and decide, perchance, that a given person or thing is responsible, when he needs to remember that the operation of divine law uncovers and destroys error, and that if the Scientist’s work is faithfully done Truth will “uncover and destroy error in God’s own way” (Science and Health, p. 542). There is never any uncertainty as to what Truth will do if we make Truth our sole reliance.

It is not Christian Science to ascribe reality or power to evil, and nowhere in the works of our Leader can the student find its warrant. Hear her words: “Beloved Christian Scientists, keep your minds so filled with Truth and Love, that sin, disease, and death cannot enter them. It is plain that nothing can be added to the mind already full” (Pamphlet, “What Our Leader Says”). This is the Alpha and Omega of Christian Science demonstration. It is to stand guard at the door of consciousness, admitting Truth, but not error.

Perhaps we do not quite understand Truth, its statement may seem altogether too simple to supply our need. If so, this may explain why we fail to lean on God, why our self-reliance has never for a moment become God-reliance. A Christian Scientist once asked why, with a comparatively slight understanding of Christian Science, she had met a severe claim of error with more ease than at other times she had solved more ordinary problems. The explanation is clear. Her desperate need forced her to clear her vision as to any ability on her own part to meet the situation. She threw herself unreservedly on God, and her demonstration was in proportion to this undivided trust. “According to your faith be it unto you,” said the Master. Mortal mind had no time to spin cobwebs for divine Mind to brush away. Thought clung steadfastly to Truth and Love and rested therein. She leaned on their infinite sustainment, and was blessed.

“Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou nearest me always,” expresses Christ Jesus’ faith in his Father’s allness and availability. But mortal sense wonders wherein a simple statement of Truth is operative for good. It cannot see what happens, hence it is not at all sure that anything does happen. It hopes, but it neither trusts nor leans, and it is just here that we need to part company with mortal pros and cons and leave the field to God. “Be still, and know that I am God” ushers in a wonderfully receptive state of consciousness and exemplifies what our beloved Leader has said, that “Science speaks when the senses are silent” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 100). But, says one, if I declare the truth of being, how, pray, can this mere statement effect relief? How can it possibly alter my state of feeling? And one could answer: If I realize and declare that twice two equals four, will five as their multiple become operative?

We sometimes forget that we neither make nor sustain the truth. The most we can do is to come into agreement with it. Christ Jesus said, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” It is ours to affirm the truth and leave God to operate it. It is He who will make us free. A more abundant measure of love and trust is surely gained by this surrender of mental push and struggle. The simple realization that God is back of His truth leaves one free to become “as a little child,” and by “leaning” on Him realize at all times a comforting dependence. The wise man’s counsel is: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart: and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths.” More and more should Christian Scientists heed this sage counsel, which is in close agreement with that of their Leader, and thus they will go “from strength unto strength.”