Editorials

NO book of the Bible more clearly shows the futility of attempting to interpret Holy Writ literally than the book of Jonah. The attempt to materialize Scripture has proven particularly unfortunate in the case of this book, for it has drawn upon the Bible in general much cheap wit and resentful skepticism, and the name of Jonah has been made to apply to one who brings disaster to any company with which he is associated.

THE responsibility of the spiritually awakened toward those who are still asleep to the demands of Truth, is forcefully presented in the third chapter of Ezekiel's prophecy. This prophet was called to go and warn those who were resisting the demands of God's law, and it seems that he felt the greatness of the task imposed to such an extent that he went "in bitterness;" but he adds, "The hand of the Lord was strong upon me.

" FOR precept must be upon precept," wrote the prophet Isaiah in patriarchal days, and history repeats itself even in this enlightened twentieth century. To the people of Moses' time the ten commandments had been promulgated, obedience to which would have meant a speedy entrance into the land of peace and plenty, instead of those futile and fruitless years of wandering in the desert.

Many who come into Christian Science at first think it would be easier to present the truth to their former friends and acquaintances, as they certainly desire to do, if they did not have to explain the unreality of matter as well as the unreality of disease and sin. When they attempt to do this many are "offended," even as so many were in the time of Christ Jesus, for they fail to see that when Christian Science insists upon the allness of God, who is Spirit, this necessarily rules out the belief in matter and evil,—belief manifested in sin, disease, and death.

The Book of Acts might well be called the Book of Demonstration, so full is it of the proofs of God's power over sin, sickness, and death, and other supposititious forces of evil. From the record of that memorable occasion when Peter and John healed the lame man who was "laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful," to the story of Paul's shipwreck on the island of Malta, when the apostle to the Gentiles shook off the viper which had fastened itself upon his hand "and felt no harm," the Book of Acts worthily fulfils the promise of its name.

Matthew records a statement of the Master, in connection with his baptism at the hands of John, which though fraught with significance in that particular relation, has all too frequently been perverted into a cloak or excuse for carrying on otherwise reprehensible practices. When John in his humility demurred at Jesus' request to be baptized of him, the Master answered, "Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.

The symbolic language of the Apocalypse refers to the serpent or the dragon which persecuted the woman, but also assures us that eventually even "the earth helped the woman. " The revelator further declares that he visioned "a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet.

At the beginning of the year one cannot help recalling the words in Isaiah's prophecy, "Watchman, what of the night?" also the answer, "The morning cometh. " Two years ago reference was made in a Journal editorial to "the year of our Lord," and it is possible that some may have regarded the outcome of 1914 as a sad fulfilment of the hope that the year would bring greater light and harmony than had ever before come to humanity.

Entrance upon a new year brings only gladness to the Christian Scientist, absolved as he is, through a higher concept of the truth of being, from the common belief that the passage of time as mortals know it means the inevitable approach of age and its attendant decay. In its dawning light he sees not the vestibule to the tomb of earthly hopes, but renewed opportunities for a higher demonstration of the truth revealed in Christian Science; namely, that "man, governed by immortal Mind, is always beautiful and grand.

Long ago Moses told his people that in time to come there would be raised up from the midst of their nation a great prophet to whom they should hearken. We read that this promise was made to Moses on mount Horeb, and that God said of the prophet who should come in the fulness of time, "I will.