Tell me, O thou when my soul loveth, where thou feedest,
where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one
that turneth aside by the flocks of they companions?If thou know not, O thou fairest among women,
go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock,
and feed thy kids beside the shepherds’ tents.
(Song of Solomon)
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The ways of Christianity have not changed. Meekness selflessness and love
are the paths of his testimony and the footsteps of His flock.
(Rudimental Divine Science by Mary Baker Eddy)

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THIS COUNTRY IS A TRUE REPUBLIC
“With regard to the election (for president), it is simply the test that this country is once again putting itself as to whether America is really the land of equal opportunity, which is the true Republican ideal, or the Democratic concept. Equality would reduce all to a common level, whereas equality of opportunity lifts all to the very highest if he will avail himself of the opportunity to go forward. I cannot go into this subject fully because it is far reaching . . . This country is not a Democracy; it is a true Republic.”
Letter written 12/7/1932 by Herbert W. Eustace.

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For the week of May 5th through May 11th in 2024.
The Christian Science Monitor was not printed on Sunday, May 7th in 1916.
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INDIVIDUALITY VERSUS SELFISHNESS
Written for The Christian Science Monitor
May 5, 1916

THE explanation of selfishness proffered by Christian Science is very different from the one currently given. In general, selfishness is considered equivalent to an overwhelming sense of personality, whereas Christian Science shows selfishness to mean any indulging of the belief in a self apart from God. The whole of this kind of self is false and selfish, and is to be set aside in behalf of man’s true selfhood, i.e., his individuality or identity. Thus a scientific explanation of selfishness involves vastly more than is commonly supposed, and lays bare a great work to be done before the whole of false self can be overcome. The same difference of thought is observable in regard to self-sacrifice. The latter is too often supposed to mean selecting something which we particularly like and then doing without it. This is frequently called self-sacrificing. But the fact that we like something does not necessarily prove that it is false or evil. Humanity cherishes many noble desires which come to it from the divine, therefore there must be discrimination in selecting that which is to be sacrificed. If we find ourselves loving beauty, it does not necessarily follow that beauty is wrong and must be sacrificed, for David sang of “the beauty of holiness” and the Christian Science textbook, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” by Mary Baker Eddy, speaks in the highest praises of beauty, when it declares (p. 247): “Beauty is a thing of life, which dwells forever in the eternal Mind and reflects the charms of His goodness in expression, form, outline, and color.” Neither is wealth, in and of itself, false or evil and so part of the selfishness that must be sacrificed. Wealth may be used for laudable purposes, and one of the most striking instances of this in modern times is afforded by the use of the wealth of Mrs. Eddy, earned by her work, which is now being disseminated for the good of all mankind. Even money may not be evil, and the familiar text so frequently quoted does not state that “money is the root of all evil,” but “the love of money,” which is a very different thing. It is evident therefore that an unscientific slaughter of selfishness may sacrifice much good along with the evil, and so would retard and not advance spiritual growth. We may take it as proven that every good object in the universe has existence, but the question is, what is the manner of this existence? Is it material; or is it mental and spiritual? Christian Science teaches that veritable existence is wholly metaphysical and so devoid of materiality. Then selfishness would consist in the belief that the objects constituting the universe including man are material. So that self-sacrifice, or the overcoming of selfishness, would necessitate the rejection of materiality and the acceptance of spirituality as characteristic of true being. It is obvious, then, that merely surrendering some cherished ideal, or even some favorite occupation would not satisfy the needs of genuine self-sacrifice, but that the rejection of error would fulfill this requirement.
      Indeed, self-sacrifice is requisite in the healing of the sick. The belief in sickness is dependent upon the supposition that man is a material being. Christian Science calls upon humanity to repent of the sin of believing that life is in matter, and thus sin and sickness must both be laid upon the altar of self-sacrifice, there to be burned by the fire of Truth. The act of such repentance brings salvation and healing, and at the same time unveils man’s true being, that is, his individuality. For if humanity is called upon to sacrifice its belief in material life, it very naturally asks, then what is man in reality? At this point Christian Science arrives with its timely explanation that man is idea, and so has identity and individuality, but is not constituted of the contradictory and self-destructive qualities of evil. Man as idea is the emanation from God, the divine Mind. He expresses the qualities which are divine, remains ever in at-one-ment with that Mind, and so fulfills its glorious activities. To separate from this right idea of man that which has no resemblance to it and cannot possibly have any association with it is to carry forward the work of choosing between individuality and selfishness. We read in Science and Health (p. 91): “The denial of material selfhood aids the discernment of man’s spiritual and eternal individuality, and destroys the erroneous knowledge gained from matter or through what are termed the material senses.” Then it is just as selfish to believe in the reality of evil as to practice evil, indeed the belief almost invariably leads to the practice, and if the practice of evil is not indulged, through fear or for any other reason except that of spiritual understanding, then evil is not overcome and there has been no real self-sacrifice at all.
       It may be said of all searchers after Truth that they are really trying to find themselves,—their true selves. The world seems full of disappointed individuals who are wondering what their work is and where they fit into God’s plan. Such people can never be satisfied until they learn to make the distinction between individuality and personality, i.e., incorporated selfishness. Then at length their quest reaches its goal and they can exclaim with David, “I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.” Nothing short of this likeness can fulfill that inherent yearning of humanity for the ideal. To be conscious of man’s identity as the idea of the divine Mind, having spotless individuality and indestructible being, is to awaken to the fact of eternal existence. Of this individuality Mrs. Eddy has written (ibid. p. 491): “Man’s spiritual individuality is never wrong.” That being the case, it is only necessary in order to reach righteousness, and to be certain of one’s scientific conclusions, to think in accordance with the spiritual individuality which mirrors God. The divine Mind makes no mistakes, and His man can only think in accordance with that Mind “which was also in Christ Jesus.” Therefore the real man is absolutely a right thinker, never errs, never falsifies, cannot be deceived, and is impervious to mesmerism, sympathetic animal magnetism, mental contagion, or to any of the multifarious ways and means of evil devising.

JUSTICE
Written for The Christian Science Monitor
May 6, 1916

THE Latin aphorism “Fiat justitia, ruat cœlum” has been carved on as many buildings, emblazoned on as many parchments, and cut in as many seals, as would make a respectable counterfeit of infinity. Humanity has, indeed, taught its idea of justice so persistently and so completely, that the only wonder is that the proverb has not been literally fulfilled, and the heavens fallen because of the abounding injustice of this description of justice. This is really not surprising, for justice being essentially the reflection of Principle, in other words the attribute of God, is a source of perpetual metaphysical perplexity to the ordinary human consciousness. It is only necessary to refer to its derivation to see how exactly this is the case.
      As a general rule derivations are fairly dangerous things to lay too much store by. They are the sort of things which the pedant and the ignoramus are both alike apt to wrest to their own destruction. Mountains of argument have been piled on them with the sole result that the imposing mass has been found to be a Vesuvius rather than a Matterhorn, and in consequence has blown its own head off. Justice, however, comes ultimately from the word jus, and people of far less learning than the Crichton of erudition, Macaulay’s schoolboy, know that jus is the Latin for law. Now law, in reality, has no connection with the petty enactments of human beings. Law is the operation of Principle, the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, not only never varying, but incapable of variation. If then God is Principle, and He must be if there is truth and Science in religion, then law is a divine operation, and as such is spiritual. It can only be understood metaphysically, and must be translated in scientific terms. It was not for nothing, then, it was on the contrary, through her piercing metaphysical vision, that Mrs. Eddy wrote, on page 437 of Science and Health, “The attorney, Christian Science, then read from the supreme statute-book, the Bible, certain extracts on the Rights of Man, remarking that the Bible was better authority than Blackstone:—

Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion.
      Behold, I give unto you power . . . over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
      If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.”

      The Bible, in short, though men have failed to recognize it, has been the true legal code of Christendom, on which whatever may be true in the edicts of men has been established.
      This does not, of course, mean that every word, even down to Mesopotamia, is “blessed.” It does not mean that commas, not in the original text, are inspired. It does not mean that renderings by men of other men’s renderings are holy. It does not even mean that the Song of Songs is of equal value with the Gospels, or the Book of Joshua with the Epistles. It does mean that the Bible is a series of biblia or little books, each instinct, in its degree, with the author’s understanding of Principle, and constituting, as such, a record of the human consciousness on its passage from sense to Soul. This record contains all that the writers themselves knew of law, and is the basis for all the metaphysical induction and deduction which go to make up every scientific statement of Principle.
      Now justice as everybody knows is the practical application of law. To be just and not a mere exhibition of caprice, it must be a strict application of law. If, therefore, the law itself is not the inviolable law of Principle, but is, on the contrary, some mere human ordinance, formulated and enforced by the will of men, it is easy to imagine the nature of the justice which will be meted out. Everybody knows that one of the great problems of civil administration is the dispensation of justice, and this is simply because the law of countries like the law of nations is founded not on the law of Principle but on codes made by men. When Jesus demanded that men should judge righteous judgment, he most certainly meant that their judgment should coincide with divine Principle. That judgment, however, cannot possibly coincide with Principle until men understand Principle, any more than a judge can enforce the law of the law courts until he understands Blackstone, or Grotius, or whatever code he may be endeavoring to dispense.
      Here, nevertheless, one begins to sound the inconsistency of the human mind. To become great lawyers, after the manner of the scribes, men will labor prodigiously, year after year, with all their heart, and with all their soul, and with all their mind. But to become great teachers of the law, as Jesus demanded that they should be, and as the apostles strove to be, they will hardly labor at all. They are willing enough, that is to say, to judge according to the appearance, but not to judge righteous judgment. The reason for this is, of course, excessively simple. Judging according to the appearance is following the lusts of the flesh, in other words, surrendering oneself to all the temptations of the flesh, such as the pleasure of intellectuality, the instinct of ambition, the race for success. On the other hand, the effort to judge righteous judgment means the gathering in of the fruit of the Spirit—the effort to walk in the footsteps of the Christ, and to live as ever in the great Task-master’s eye.
      The meaning, and the very simple meaning of all this is that justice must not merely be talked about, it must be demonstrated, and that, like every other attribute of Principle, it only can be demonstrated in the proportion in which Principle is understood. Scientific justice, then, and metaphysically there is and can be no other, is claiming for humanity its God-given rights of harmony and health. The dispensation of righteous judgment, consequently, is the dispensation of healing, for healing is simply the overcoming of everything that is inharmonious, everything which is unlike God, Principle. “Justice is” in short, as Mrs. Eddy writes, on page 391 of Science and Health, “the moral signification of law.”

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The Christian Science Monitor was not printed on Sunday, May 7th in 1916.
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TRUE PATRIOTISM

Written for The Christian Science Monitor
May 8, 1916

PATRIOTISM, the love of one’s country embodied, is an emotion which is governing many hearts today, leading men to sacrifice mortal life and possessions for human ideals. The greatest act of heroism that the world acknowledges is the giving of one’s life for a cause, and the soldier who fearlessly faces an enemy and distinguishes himself by bravery, thereby wins earth’s honor and praise. But what a pitiful thing it is that this patriotism, which in its initial state seems good to a man, in its ultimate expression of war works death to his brother. It would seem natural to suppose that loyalty to the same emotion would unify men, but when this emotion is born of diversified objects it is found to be the very source of dissension and strife. This fact impels human consciousness to the conviction that there must be some one higher cause of a better sense of patriotism, uniting all men in the love of one ideal, which alone can assure eternal peace to mankind. And because there must be such a cause it is possible for human consciousness to discover it and to be delivered from destruction by obeying it.
      Jesus the Christ, heralded as the Prince of Peace, was a perfect exemplar of true patriotism. He laid down his mortal sense of life for his king and his country, God and the realm of spirituality, but it is distinctly noticeable that the exercise of his patriotism did not lead to any set of destruction toward his fellow men. The bugle-note of his advance was, “I came that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” Though a native of Palestine, he held his citizenship in the kingdom of God, of Love, of Principle, as of primary importance, and he ever knew that this spiritual existence was likewise the real kingdom of all. Hence, he fought not against men as his enemies but against the evil of passion, hate, mortal fear, self-pride, and self-love which seemed to drive them to war. He ever regarded men as his fellow citizens, not as aliens, praying that they might become conscious of their at-one-ment with God and with him as he was conscious of it. His loyalty to God or Principle, his Supreme Ruler and Father, impelled his loyalty to man as his brother, a loyalty which ever led him to protect, save, uplift, and glorify another, though this other came against him with sword in hand. On account of his spiritual understanding of God as Principle, Jesus replaced the servant’s ear, mutilated by one of his own followers, while on his way to be imprisoned and finally crucified by this same fellow and his companions. Mortal patriotism, expressed in war, produces sin, disease, and death. Christ Jesus’ exercise of true patriotism eliminated these. This fact is food for thought today.
      Jesus’ primary devotion to the King of kings and to the universe of Spirit made him secondarily obedient to the laws of Palestine wherever they did not infringe upon God’s law, the law of divine Principle. He paid his taxes, enjoined his disciples to be law-abiding; he submitted to Pilate’s decree concerning his crucifixion. But he did not comply with the law of Jerusalem which outlined that he should consent to the stoning to death of the adulterous woman, a proven sinner deserving of her punishment according to the human judgment of that day. Instead of casting her out he cast out the sin that had ruled her, accomplishing both the regeneration of the woman and the destruction of the enmity against her. In obeying the very highest spiritual interpretation of law he did not thereby transgress the human application; in fulfilling the law of the kingdom of God within him, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” and “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” he became the Saviour of the world without. The Science of his divine patriotism holds the solution for every human problem of our day as well.
      Christian Science is today enlightening many a man upon the subject of real loyalty to his king and country. By its teaching that real man is the son of God, hence a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, it is elevating human consciousness to the discernment of a universal fatherland which is the realm of infinite Love, a country which has no enemy save the carnal mind, whose defense is Truth, whose patriot is man made in God’s image and likeness. This country, a divine state of consciousness, is the native land of all, its one and supreme ruler being God. The true patriot’s decoration for bravery in the service of this country is not the cross, but the crown of rejoicing which follows the blessing, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” Surely loyalty to such an ideal of country practiced in each individual experience will do more to heal men and nations of race prejudices, false ideals, lustful tendencies, and mortal pride than earthly patriotism has ever done. The mission and the method of the Prince of Peace, as well as the same signs following, are reappearing in the ministry of Christian Science, which, as it goes preaching the gospel and healing the sick in all lands, is proving the coming of the kingdom of God and the power of His Christ.
      It is truly helpful to realize that patriotism in its last analysis need not be expressed by brute force displayed against men, but rather must be reflected by the love evidenced for them. And because God is Love, and to God belongs all power, in exchanging the destructive method or the constructive one in thought and in deed, men will begin to see the only eternally victorious power there is brought to bear upon all human problems. As hate, strife, fear, and sensuality yield to unselfed love, peace, and spirituality in individual consciousness, the world’s wrongs will disappear. It is possible for every one, whether his human duty places him on the firing line of mortal existence or seats him in its judgment halls, to comprehend and follow in some degree the Wayshower’s unswerving fidelity to eternal Life and infinite Love. When men own one Father, even God, as their universal cause of patriotism, and to be perfect even as He is perfect as their one ideal, the lasting unity of nations will be an accomplished fact. Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes concerning such accomplishment in the textbook “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” (p. 340) as follows: “One infinite God, good, unifies men and nations; constitutes the brotherhood of man; ends wars; fulfils the Scripture, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself;’ annihilates pagan and Christian idolatry,—whatever is wrong in social, civil, criminal, political, and religious codes; equalizes the sexes; annuls the curse on man, and leaves nothing that can sin, suffer, be punished or destroyed.”

THE LEAVENING POWER OF TRUTH

Written for The Christian Science Monitor
May 9, 1916

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE is revolutionizing human thought. It is changing, modifying, tending to destroy the illogical beliefs which have held sway in the world, in certain cases, for many centuries. Christian Science is opening the Bible to multitudes of truth-seeking people, showing them the signification of prophecy, explaining to them the significance of moral law and the relationship of moral law and ethical code to spiritual law; Christian Science has drawn the veil of mystery away from the life and teachings of Christ Jesus, thereby clearing the way for the understanding of the divine Principle, knowledge of which underlay every one of the mighty acts of the prophet of Nazareth. In Science and Health (p. 255) Mrs. Eddy writes: “Eternal Truth is changing the universe. As mortals drop off their mental swaddling-clothes, thought expands into expression. ‘Let there be light,’ is the perpetual demand of Truth and Love, changing chaos into order and discord into the music of the spheres.”
      What is Truth? Truth is God. And as God is also Life, Love, or infinite good, Truth is Life, Love, infinite good. Eternal Truth, then, is that which is ultimate or absolute, that which is creative or causative; and the expression of Truth is the spiritual universe, for Truth is infinite Mind. It was Mrs. Eddy who discovered to this age the leavening power of Truth; she discovered that this leavening power is so great that frequently it alters the human mind so radically and so speedily that it brings about in cases where the human mind is believing in sickness instantaneous healing. Since the time of her rediscovery of the truth its healing power has been demonstrated by an ever-increasing number of people.
      Now what is it that needs changing? It is that which is called the consciousness of human beings, the thoughts of the men who constitute the human family. And what has to be remedied or altered in the human consciousness? Everything that is erroneous, everything that is not absolutely true. Mortal existence is lived in many cases with hardly the slightest heed being paid to Truth, to that which is absolute; the activities of mortals deal with the purely relative, with the affairs of material sense, with so-called matter. The botanist employs his microscope to examine a drop of water or the chlorophyl granules in the cellular tissue of a plant; the astronomer employs his telescope to discover still another planetary ring or to reach to yet another star which, maybe to human sense, has just been born from the nebulae of millions of years. It is always the same; even what men look upon as the loftiest mortal thought is riveted to the material, lives its little day in the finite, fishing in the drops or groping among the starry magnitudes. All the while too, behind every effort is the earnest endeavor to get at the truth, to grasp the law of reality. Come to the more common walks of life, and you find the average man living his daily round from one meal to another, as if the supplying of his material wants were his chief means of succor and relaxation. The average human mind is full of material beliefs and fancies and theories. Indeed whatever is mortal in human consciousness is material; or to put it slightly differently, whatever seems to be material is the false belief of mortal mind.
      How, then, has the human mind to be healed? There can be only one answer to the question: By the spiritual understanding of Truth. Well did Jesus the Christ know the depravity of mortal mind, well did he know how its materialism warred against all that was spiritual, against all that was good. It was this knowledge that brought the great drops of sorrow to his brow in the garden of Gethsemane and forced him to weep before Jerusalem. The man who broke forever the trance of the grave on mankind’s behalf could not shake for fear of himself; Christ Jesus was the bravest man the world has known because he was the most spiritual. All his efforts were directed to sowing the seeds of truth, so that the world might discard its “mental swaddling-clothes” and learn to listen to “the music of the spheres.” Matthew recounts two very interesting parables of Jesus, the one of the leaven, the other of the mustard seed. In that of the leaven, the Master says: “The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.” The other tells that “the kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which . . . becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.” Both of these parables indicate how the truth, when once it is accepted by a man, grows until his consciousness becomes permeated with it, and the truth becomes a protection to others as well as to himself. “A little leaven causes the whole mass to ferment” writes Mrs. Eddy on page 449 of Science and Health. “A grain of Christian Science does wonders for mortals, so omnipotent is Truth, but more of Christian Science must be gained in order to continue in well doing.”
      It is most interesting to observe the leavening power of Truth. Perhaps a man in the depths of despair hears first of all that good alone is real and that good alone has power. He listens in amazement, for has not he been living a life of degradation, sampling all the fruits on the tree of material knowledge? Still he goes back again to the statement that good alone is real and has power; he perceives that the statement is the logical deduction from the spiritual fact that God is infinite good, that God is infinite Love. This is the beginning of the working of the leaven of Truth. But what, he asks, is sin, then, if good alone is real? Christian Science replies that sin is a belief in the absence of good, a belief it the absence of Spirit. But has he not for long been thinking sinful thoughts and indulging them too? Christian Science answers that erroneous thinking is not thinking at all, that it is relative dreaming, the harboring of false images, the entertaining of material illusions which have no reality in the absolute sense. Next, self-examination ensues; the significance of the fact of the omnipresence of good dawns upon him, begins to show him the way out of his belief in the presence and power of evil. He must endeavor not to believe longer in evil as a real presence or a real power. Then, he asks, will that be sufficient, will the ceasing to believe in the presence and power of evil effect my deliverance? Christian Science replies: The moment you deny the presence and power of evil, spiritually understanding that good alone is power, that moment you are submitting to the infinite power of God which operates through spiritual law to destroy all erroneous belief. The healing takes place sometimes instantaneously, sometimes gradually so far as the human consciousness is concerned.
      The salvation of the race lies along one way,—that of divine Science. Nothing but the absolute truth about God and man will ever regenerate the world.

PERSEVERANCE

Written for The Christian Science Monitor
May 10, 1916

ONE of the things for which those who have gained some understanding of Christian Science are most grateful is the wonderful light which the teaching of Christian Science throws upon the Bible, even upon those parts which seem least calculated to convey a spiritual message. So much of the historical part of the Scriptures has been looked upon merely as the history of the chosen people, and, viewed from this standpoint, has failed to provide the inspiration which every part of the Bible should afford. Thanks to the light which Christian Science throws on the narrative, however, even those parts which seem to promise least to the student are instinct with spiritual truth.
      An example of this is provided by the thirty-second chapter of the Book of Numbers. In this chapter it is described how the children of Reuben and the children of Gad had a very great multitude of cattle, and how, judging a piece of country through which the children of Israel were passing on their journey to the Promised Land as eminently suitable for their cattle, they asked Moses to allot them this district for a possession and not to take them over Jordan. Moses, however, viewed the matter from an entirely different standpoint and insisted that only after they had helped their brethren to establish themselves in the land of Canaan should they be given the land for which they had asked, thus rebuking the slackness and love of ease which tempted them to take the first opportunity of settling down comfortably.
      Consulting the Glossary to “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” by Mary Baker Eddy (p. 593) we find the metaphysical interpretation of Reuben as follows: “REUBEN (Jacob’s son). Corporeality; sensuality; delusion; mortality; error” whilst that of Gad is described (p. 586) as: “GAD (Jacob’s son). Science; spiritual being understood; haste towards harmony.” It would follow from this that the desire to have done with striving, the satisfaction with progress accomplished, and the unwillingness to persevere to the end, were manifested not only by that condition of mind whose outlook was limited to materiality but also by that condition of mind which had some comprehension of spiritual being. It is easy to understand how the mind which views all things from a material standpoint should be satisfied to take it easy at the earliest possible opportunity, but it is not so easy to understand how those who have gained some comprehension of spiritual reality should be content to settle down in the satisfaction of the halfway position. Nevertheless this is often the case, as Paul recognized when he wrote to the Galatians, “For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other.”
      No doubt the children of Reuben and the children of Gad imagined that by settling down where they were and avoiding the necessity for any further overcoming, they were making sure of an harmonious existence, but Moses appears to have read the motive that lurked behind their request, for he plainly intimated to them that unless they were prepared to go on and to fight their way into the Promised Land, they could not expect to enjoy the harmony they looked for. “But if ye will not do so,” he said, “behold, ye have sinned against the Lord: and be sure your sin will find you out.” The fact is that we cannot be content to remain in a half-way position since, as Mrs. Eddy has said on page 291 of Science and Health, “Universal salvation rests on progression and probation, and is unattainable without them.”
      The whole journey of the children of Israel from the land of Egypt into the Promised Land has indeed a deep spiritual signification for all of us. In the same way as the Israelites were in bondage to cruel taskmasters, so mortals have been in bondage to the myriad variations of the belief in the power of evil. Again, as the Israelites were led through the wilderness, where the Promised Land must have seemed far off and where every suggestion of discouragement came up to urge them to revert to the bondage which formerly enthralled them, so the suggestions of material sense would claim to obstruct the progress of the student of spiritual verities. As, finally, the Israelites were commanded to utterly destroy the people who barred their entrance to the Promised Land, so he who is endeavoring to let that Mind be in him which was also in Christ Jesus must be ready to face and eliminate from his consciousness all those material and sensual beliefs which would claim to obscure the image and likeness of God.
      In the next chapter of the Book of Numbers to that which has been already quoted, Moses is reported as saying to the children of Israel, “When ye are passed over Jordan into the land of Canaan; then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places: and ye shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein: for I have given you the land to possess it. . . . But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you; then it shall come to pass, that those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell.”
      The fact is that only as evil is eliminated from mortal consciousness through its displacement by the truth concerning man’s real selfhood as the spiritual image and likeness of God, will mortals be freed from the discordant results of false belief, and it is well to recognize clearly from the start that, sooner or later, we must, as Paul wrote to the Ephesians, “all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” The sooner we start to do this, the better it will be both for ourselves and for all who come in contact with us, and we shall find fulfilled in our own experience the promise contained in the opening words of the Preface of the Christian Science textbook, “To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, today is big with blessings.”

THROWN TO THE LIONS

Written for The Christian Science Monitor
May 11, 1916

THE heroic conduct of the ancient Christians who were thrown to the lions is capable of metaphysical explanation, but it has always seemed particularly mysterious to those who judge truth and being from the standpoint of matter. There is absolutely no material explanation which can be adduced and satisfactorily maintained to account for the wonders of Christian martyrdom, for the genuine joy which underlies its moral courage and the spiritual satisfaction which illumines the very moment when physical sense can perceive only the ghastly accouterments of death. There is a death which the spiritually minded can learn to experience daily, along with Paul, and this experience, paradoxical as this may seem to the material, is joyous, instinct with the breath of freedom and the sense of blessed relief, for it means the casting off of that which hampers and binds, which can never satisfy because it is mortality itself. The human tends to resist this casting off of the mortal or death-like, because the human is not yet completely redeemed from a certain clinging to mortality, and so this instinctive resistance accounts for man’s suffering. But when the irresistible propulsion comes, and the logic of events has worked out the solution, when ecclesiastical powers using the secular as a blind, have thrown the physical body to the lions of the arena, the spiritually minded experience the sensation of relief, for the would-be enemy has prepared for them the very task which must inevitably result some time, somehow.
      In such an hour, the Christian martyr has the ineffable satisfaction of knowing that his real selfhood is not being touched; that only the false, the counterfeit is being wiped out for him; that the evil intent of the persecutor is frustrated by the inexorable facts of existence; so that every malignant effort of evil can only result in evil’s self-destruction, leaving man as he was from the beginning, “before Abraham was,” namely God’s image and likeness. In that exquisite story of Joseph’s forgiveness of his brethren we see his perception of this very fact. The martyrdom they had inflicted upon him through jealousy of his pure nature and hence of his father’s favor, the years of imprisonment in Egypt under a false charge—all this had only taught Joseph the lessons he needed to know, and so it fell to him to comfort his brethren after Jacob’s death. “Ye thought evil against me,” he said to them, “but God meant it unto good.” Such experiences are not rare in the modern world of spiritual endeavor. Many a pure nature, instinctively striving for the ideal, arouses the hostility of the materially minded, and not having learned how to disarm envy, becomes the victim of persecution more bitter and vindictive than was that of Joseph’s brethren, because it is cloaked with self-justification and bigotry. But such experiences raise the intended victim to a pinnacle of power where he becomes a seer and a reader of human dreams, from where he is called to rule the world, and, through his prophetic sight, to provide for the coming days of famine. There is no harboring of resentment or sense of grievance in the consciousness thus purified by the test of fire, but when the day of adjustment comes, the very one who was thrown into the pit and sold into slavery, brings to others the substance of life and the priceless boon of freedom.
      Jesus’ martyrdom was mental and not material. Not physical pain but the consciousness of his stupendous task wrung the parting cry from his lips. He needed no stupefying drug to allay suffering, but the assurance from divine Principle that his test was not in vain. Hence this assurance brought the triumph of the cross and the defeat of the ecclesiastical and secular enemy. Jesus, too, signalized his victory by the supreme test of complete forgiveness.
      The joy of martyrdom is thus metaphysically interpreted as the divine assurance of man’s imperishable nature; it is equivalent to the spiritual understanding that the real man can never sin, suffer or die. Whoever has this assurance has no enemies whom he need fear, for the more they malign him, the harder they press upon his powers of endurance, the more certainly they drive him into the kingdom of heaven. Persecution offers great educational advantages. It does not seem as pleasant to personal sense as popularity, but it is more wholesome. The ravening lion of the arena, showing his teeth, is not as dangerous as the snake in the grass hiding his venomous sting. To be thrown to the lions may teach us like Daniel to control the ferocity of the carnal nature by the power of the divine Mind; but to be lulled into the stupor of drunkenness by the fumes of personal adulation may result in our being found asleep when the bridegroom cometh.
      The early Christian martyrs may not have had the spiritual Science wherewith to explain to others their own attitude of joyous freedom, but they must have had the instinctive understanding of Truth to enable them to master such conditions. They certainly had the perception that the destruction of the physical body would not separate them from reality, but only from a material sense of life and existence. In such moments, they must have rejoiced in the consciousness of God’s presence and the efficacy of His power, and this it was which illumined the face of the dying Stephen, dying to sense, but living more exultingly than ever in Spirit. Paul who stood by and watched this glorious manifestation of spiritual power over matter, later learned to declare in his own behalf: “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Of this statement Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health, on pages 303, 304, “When the evidence before the material senses yielded to spiritual sense, the apostle declared that nothing could alienate him from God, from the sweet sense and presence of Life and Truth.”
      There are worse experiences than being thrown to the lions of human fear, envy and hate. It is worse by far to be lured from allegiance to God, to our highest sense of good, through the mesmeric deceptions of false theology, medicine or science. There is no hope of salvation for the odium theologicum, but there is hope for the lions that they too may some day rise into their better selves.

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