Good Is Always Present

Written by Ella W. Hoag, September 17, 1927

Art by Zari Harat, Germany, 2025 

All the world desires good. Even the one who seems immersed in sin imagines that thereby he is gaining something that is desirable; he would tell you that there is good in what he is doing. The human concept of good is so variously mistaken that mortals disagree as to its nature, and this is because their sense of good is so allied to matter that good seems to them at best but transitory and ephemeral.

In spite of this, good has always been eternal, unchangeable, ever present, glorious. There has never been more than one true concept of it, and that is God's own perfect concept. Good has therefore always partaken of the nature of God Himself; it has always been and always will be spiritual, holy, beautiful, including all that can ever be desirable; and it is withal as infinite as God. Indeed, Christian Science has revealed to us that good is another term for God, and that in proportion as we understand good we understand God, and vice versa.

Jesus gave as the first commandment: "Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength." And in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 279) Mrs. Eddy tells us, "It is the love of God, and not the fear of evil, that is the incentive in Science." As we lay hold of the truth that God and good are practically synonymous, the door is opened wide to deliverance from all evil; for where can there be any room left for fear or belief in evil, since our God is omnipresent, omnipotent good? No longer can there be any doubt that His infinite purpose is all beneficent, since He is all good.

To prove this true and bring its wealth of good into our present experience we must come so to love God, good, that we shall consent to no other companionship, shall accept no other reality, shall believe in no other power than good. Every thought, word, and deed must be controlled by no other influence, must come to express no other quality, than that which is Godlike, good. To live so that our one motive and purpose is to express only the good which is of God is to enter upon the bliss of proving ourselves here and now to be the veritable reflection of all that is divine.

All earnest Christians have longed to be good; they have prayed to become good; they have struggled to make themselves good; and then finally have wondered why they could not exclaim with Paul, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness." Christian Science explains the reason of their disappointed hope, their more or less futile effort: it was because they did not know, as Paul undoubtedly did, that it is God who is good, and that God's son does not have to make himself good. On the contrary, the child of God is already as good as God made him, since he is forever the reflection of the good that is God.

Christian Scientists understand that they have only to love good sufficiently to look for it in Spirit instead of in matter for them to be able to enter upon the demonstration of their unity with good. When any sense of good knocks at our mental door, we must examine its nature, must inquire as to its origin. If it is of God,—if it is eternal, unchangeable, universal, spiritual,—it must be entertained and cherished as the reality, not only of God, but of our own real selfhood. If it is not of God,—if it does not include these immortal elements,—it must be rejected instantly as unreal, as evil, and unworthy of consideration.

As we press on in this endeavor, does God seem absent? Are we confronted with all sorts of beliefs in a false material sense of good as real and present? Then we may know we have forgotten to love sufficiently the good that is God. Only love of God is able to keep us holding steadfastly to good. Only love of good for good's sake will hold us unflinchingly to right in any and every hour. Let us, then, the more earnestly watch and work and pray so to love God, good, that we shall continually ratify our union—already established in God—with that good which alone can satisfy, which alone can deliver us from evil, because it alone is omnipotent and always present.