"The supremacy of Spirit" FROM THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR          The careful reader of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," the textbook of Christian Science, can hardly fail to notice the frequency with which Mrs. Eddy uses the phrase, "the supremacy of Spirit." Ten times in the textbook she repeats, as the Concordance shows, that identical phrase, to say nothing of the changes by the substitution of the words Mind, Truth, good, and other variations which in their final analysis amount to the same statement. In her "Miscellaneous Writings" the same phrase occurs no less than five times more. Discounting the criticism of those who have failed utterly to approach Mrs. Eddy's metaphysical standpoint, it may safely be said that she always said exactly what she meant in the best words it was possible to select to express that meaning. When, therefore, we find her using continually the statement of the supremacy of Spirit, we may be very sure that she not only meant what the words imply, but also that the thought therein expressed came from her innermost heart. If this were not so she would hardly have used them so often.          Before the discovery of Christian Science we might have heard the words, supremacy of Spirit, from the pulpit or platform, but they did not carry the living vigor that they do in the light of the Christian Science textbook. Why? one may reasonably ask. Do not the same words always mean the same thing? In this instance the vitality of the expression had been sapped by centuries of "vain repetition" which lacked the demonstration necessary to a living faith. To go on for a lifetime repeating the words "supremacy of Spirit" while nine tenths of that lifetime was given up to proving the exact opposite, namely the supremacy of matter in our lives, was a poor way to embody living force and practical faith in the words we professed to believe.          Here, then, was the situation described in Scriptures: "Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief!" And Jesus did help his unbelief, by casting out the "dumb and deaf spirit," and healing the child of the man who had uttered that despairing cry; despairing especially, perhaps, because the disciples of Jesus had failed to make this demonstration of healing. It is to be noted that Jesus did not tell the father of the child that he must believe without receiving; that it was the Father's will that the child should remain afflicted; that such visitations were the evidences of the inscrutable wisdom of God, whose ways man knoweth not, or any other like sophistries into which his later professed followers were misled. His answer was the healing of the child, and he did not wholly excuse the disciples for their failure in this case. Greater humility, more absolute dependence upon the supremacy of Spirit, was what he implied was necessary, in the words, "This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting."          Moses was a great exponent of the supremacy of Spirit. The First Commandment, given to him on the mount, includes the whole of the idea of the supremacy of Spirit in the words, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." In Science and Health we learn that this "me" is Spirit; for example, on page 467: "The first demand of this Science is, 'Thou shalt have no other gods before me.' This me is Spirit. Therefore the command means this: Thou shalt have no intelligence, no life, no substance, no truth, no love, but that which is spiritual." The belief has been permitted to grow up that the so-called material existence of men is reality; that spiritual existence, if there is such a state, is an unknown quantity, to be revealed, if at all, at some future time, after this material existence is over. All this is changed in Christian Science, which shows that the only real existence is spiritual and always has been spiritual. Spiritual existence has been lost sight of by mankind through misbelief and ignorance of Spirit. Spirit is not less real than it ever was; Spirit has always been infinite and supreme, existing everywhere, and all that really exists does so now because of the infinitude of Spirit.          Now this statement of spiritual Truth may not at once clear away the misconception from mortal eyes. That is why the average person who first begins the study of Christian Science is prompted to ask: But how about the material universe, the men that we see and deal with, and all the material objects that we are using in our daily lives? These things fall into their natural and only logical place as counterfeits of the spiritual and real as the spiritual viewpoint is gained in Christian Science. Their unreality is gradually proved as the reality of Spirit appears. Nothing that is real can ever be lost or changed; only that which is unreal is put off, and that process is wholly dependent upon a better and higher concept taking the place of the old.          Here arises another question. Some seekers for the truth as revealed in Christian Science, not grasping immediately the fundamental idea of the supremacy of Spirit, may have read and reread the textbook without the benefits following that they had been led to hope for. Why is not everyone immediately healed by reading the book? We know that thousands have been so healed, why is this not an invariable rule? Why should some have to study for months, perhaps for years, to gain what others seem to obtain in a much shorter time? Mrs. Eddy explains this in a short paragraph on page 324 of Science and Health, where she says: "Paul writes, 'If Christ [Truth] be not risen, then is our preaching vain.' That is, if the idea of the supremacy of Spirit, which is the true conception of being, come not to your thought, you cannot be benefited by what I say." The only course, then, is to strive to attain "the true conception of being," which Mrs. Eddy says is "the idea of the supremacy of Spirit," knowing in the meantime that the mortal measurement of time spent in the search has nothing to do with Truth's appearing.          The ways of matter have been vain. Centuries of exploration in the fields of so-called material law have yielded so little that the most learned in its lore are today found making admissions that should startle the world into an acknowledgment of its mistaken course. Years ago the Discoverer of Christian Science put the matter clearly before all with eyes to see and ears to hear when she wrote (Science and Health, p. 491): "Matter cannot connect mortals with the true origin and facts of being, in which all must end. It is only by acknowledging the supremacy of Spirit, which annuls the claims of matter, that mortals can lay off mortality and find the indissoluble spiritual link which establishes man forever in the divine likeness, inseparable from his creator."   "'The supremacy of Spirit'" The Christian Science Monitor, August 11, 1919

 

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