Christian Scientists would do well to remember that according to St. Luke when at one time "a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted" our Master and Way-shower, asking, "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" he answered, "What is written in the law? how readest thou?"
My experience has taught me that the temptation to attempt over-much when asked advice along certain lines in Christian Science must be prayerfully and humbly guarded against. I almost question whether there is another point where the enemy will so subtly, so ingeniously, and in the name of "doing good," "meeting a human need," "helping bear one another's burden," so deftly weave about us the web of "personal following," a web whose meshes contain such snarls of discord that the unraveling (unwinding) must be accomplished, as our beloved Teacher has said, by "learning from experience through pangs unspeakable how to divide between error and Truth" (Science and Health, p. 137).
If we carefully study Jesus' history we find that after he had given to his disciples and the people the Sermon on the Mount, he gave very little personal advice, always referring them to the commandments and what they had already been taught; yet who better fitted in that age to give advice along every line and to every seeker after Truth? He did give them "precept upon precept—line upon line" in reiterating as he did the commandment of Love. It was his to give, and theirs to work out individually, alone with God, in having eyes that saw and ears that heard. Mortals will seek advice, and usually, if at all, follow their concept of it. In Matthew's record of Jesus' counsel to the lawyer, where he does elaborate somewhat the import of the commandment, "Go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me," what was the result? "When the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions." We have no record that he acted upon Jesus' suggestion; we see that when our Master gave what might be construed as "human" advice it was but a statement of the law. When the disciples counseled with him as to why they did not heal the epileptic, he simply answered, "This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting," and how beautifully he defined prayer and fasting, not alone in the spoken word, but in his daily living—uncovering error unflinchingly, still always seeing it as powerless error and not people, and acknowledging no power other than God. This sense of uncovering is always in line with the Love that casts out fear." True, sincere, Scientific, daily, yea, hourly, prayer will always result in the exposure of error in God's way, and enable the petitioner to abstain from the sense testimony regarding it, thus keeping the fact as Jesus kept it. (Read "Miscellaneous Writings," p. 114, line 22, entire article.) So when we are inclined to ask or give advice, let the question be with us, "What is written in the law? how readest thou?"
