LOYALTY

Many come to Christian Science saying within themselves, "If I am healed, I will consecrate my life to this great work." It is a worthy and right stand, if rightly prompted. The presumption is that these earnest seekers after health, if more explicit in their statement, would say, "Should the Principle and rule of Christian Science practice be thus proven to me, through its healing efficacy, I will never turn aside from what I then know to be the Truth of Being." From the ranks of such thinkers are recruited loyal students. Theirs is an honest, faithful, trustworthy condition of thought that is ready to be healed, and it finds its just reward in the physical regeneration.

But mortal thought, self-deceived and deceiving, has subtle windings, sometimes deluding even itself as to its own motives and aims. The pledge thus given, either silently or audibly, may prove, when closely analyzed, to be but a bribe offered to the Almighty. In plain terms it may signify this: "If God helps me, then will I serve God."

Alas, for the ignorance and error that does not see that by serving Good, Good is made manifest as an ever-present help!

The promises of both of these typical mentalities may seem to be identical, but the conditions of thought which prompt them are opposites. One seeks spiritual as well as bodily wholeness. The other wants merely the material sense of health. One subordinates the human to the divine. The other is ready to turn ungratefully and treacherously against the Power stretched forth to help it, should that help not entirely accord with its own mistaken expectations and selfish desires. Is it surprising if the latter is not always fully and immediately healed? It must be cured of much self-love, and led to seek the Truth from purer and more selfless motives, ere it finds the healing in its fulness.

Divine Principle does not respond to a bribe. Mark the mental attitude of the three Hebrew wise men who walked unharmed through the "burning fiery furnace." They did not say, If divine Love helps me out of this difficulty, I will be a good Christian Scientist forever after,—infering that if it seemed to fail them in the least, if they were even compelled to choose between the two alternatives of facing the hatred of mortal mind, or turning aside to serve the gods of materiality, they would cease from following after Truth in the vain hope of so escaping similar ordeals.

It is true that those three, like many mortals to-day, had had proofs through demonstration of the power of Spirit to protect them. It was not an untried Principle in which they trusted. But this particular situation was an entirely new one, and more serious of aspect than any they had yet experienced. The test of God's power to bring them forth from the devouring flames would probably, to their human sense, seem very great indeed. Yet there they stood, these three loyal servants of the living God, and declared before the Babylonian ruler the ability of Spirit to preserve them in such an emergency. More than that in this hour of trial they drew so close to the Love in which they trusted, that they were strengthened to say, "But if not,"—meaning, But if the demonstration is not made,—even, if our understanding of Spirit is not found sufficient to take us safely through this experience and we must enter the fiery furnace,—"But if not, be it known unto thee, O King, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up."

Was it not this strong position of unswerving faithfulness and constancy to their highest sense of right, whether their apprehension of Truth visibly helped or apparently failed them, not losing their lives but rising above every false sense of existence that would make them cling to aught but Life as God,—was it not this unfaltering loyalty to Principle, even in the face of death, that brought the demonstration of spiritual power and took them unscathed through the fiery trial? Is not this the mental attitude for every true follower of Christ, for every real Christian Scientist, to-day and always?—"But if not, be it known unto thee, O King, that we will not serve thy gods."

Truth can hardly be expected to adapt herself to the crooked policy and wily sinuosities of worldly affairs; for Truth, like light, travels only in straight lines.—Colton.