Half Measure and Full Measure COLONEL W. E. FELL          It would seem that the chief difficulty with which the young student of Christian Science has to contend is his inability to accept the fact that the whole of material existence is a falsity, something in the nature of a dream. Those things which most strongly appeal to mortals in their better moods, he prefers to consider as a part of the realm of the real; that is, he makes reservations in favor of the appearances which physical sense asserts to be good or beautiful. The baneful, the injurious, the criminal, he willingly relegates to the realm of the unreal, failing to see that, so long as he permits himself to discriminate between the pleasant and unpleasant phases of materialism, he is clinging to and tilling a soil into which the seeds of sin, sickness, disease, and death may fall and fructify.          Christian Science teaches that the supposititious mentality called mortal mind, which is ever at enmity with God (according to St. Paul), embodies its own thoughts and calls them material things. Ignorant of itself and of what it is doing, it fears these false creations or falls down in abject worship before them, indiscriminately attributing their origin to God or to the devil. Ignorant of itself, ignorant of the fictitious nature of these manifested beliefs, ignorant of its own action and reaction, trusting nothing but the false evidence of the physical senses, deceived and deceiving, verily this mortal or carnal mind is ripe for destruction; and this welcome destruction of its tired and tortured selfhood must come when consciousness is prepared to contemplate perfect manhood, the Christ-idea, and to refuse all government but that of divine Mind. Let consciousness of the one Mind humble mortal, material selfhood out of existence; then shall the meek inherit the earth, — have dominion over every material condition.          When Christ Jesus rent the veil of materialism from top to bottom, the dragon received a deadly wound; but through the unfaithfulness of men to divine Principle and to the spiritual ideal, the dragon's "deadly wound" was healed. Spirit, however, was not dead, nor could the spiritual ideal be absent, or at any time less than perfect. One willing, waiting ear, attuned to the voice of Spirit, heard again the soft whisperings of Truth and Love, and this patient, tireless watcher has given to a sick and sinful world the import of that message, for which we are grateful.          When the light of Truth first dawns on human consciousness, partially awakening it to something apart from and outside of itself, mortal mind is reluctant to come forth from the cold dark shadow of its own false selfhood into the full light of God's day, lest perchance it should behold too much of its own nakedness and, in the manner of the Scriptural account of the Adam mentality, be overwhelmed with shame. Not until the call becomes imperative for right consciousness to come out and separate itself from the fears and fancies of ignorance, is one willing to acknowledge and bow down to God, infinite Mind, the spiritual creator of a spiritual creation. Although the process of unfoldment may seem to be slow, there should be no discouragement, since there is no reason for it. Nothing can take from the student of Christian Science the truth that has been unfolded to him. Love has given him "the morning star," the earnest of approaching dawn, and now is the time for him to loose from off his feet the clogging sandals of a discredited materialism, whether seemingly good or obviously bad, and as our Leader happily expresses it in Science and Health (p. 485), "emerge gently from matter into Spirit."          We should bear in mind that the unfoldment of Truth's idea in individual consciousness is as irresistible as the day's dawning; that nothing can stay the grandeur of its stately progress. Though clouds may seem to obscure, they cannot hinder, they cannot deflect its course. Let the young student press steadily forward, heedless of the feints, the marches and counter-marches of error, ever looking upward through night's gloaming to the heights whence comes the light which tells of the perfect day of Spirit.   "Half Measure and Full Measure" by Colonel W. E. Fell Christian Science Sentinel, March 26, 1910

 

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