It has commonly been thought that one needs to become religious in order to be good, but there is a most significant sense in which one must be good in order to become religious. Loyalty to ethical perception must precede spiritual apprehension. To the young man inquiring the way to "eternal life" Jesus said, "Keep the commandments;" and in the revelation to St. John "the Spirit" said, "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door [and open the door], I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me."
The teaching is plain. Human alertness to the call of Truth, a practical responsiveness to the sense of right and good to which we have already attained, is an imperative prerequisite to further illumination, communion with God. This requirement demands much more than the mere desire to be happy or the willingness to profit by any good that may come our way. It demands that we shall stand by and honor our present moral sense, be concretely honest with ourselves and with others, deny pretense, be genuine; and all this every minute of the day. In the light of this understanding the profitlessness of much religious profession is easily accounted for. The flexibility of its moral standard has been apparent. It has had no backbone, and that the world should express astonishment and criticism, if not contempt, when the facts are disclosed, is entirely in keeping.
The meaning and importance of the emphasis which Christ Jesus lays upon the loving of our neighbor—our employes, our patrons, our city, our government— even as ourselves, and of dealing just as fairly, as considerately, as honestly, by one as by another,—this is understood when we come to know by the frequent and saddening compulsion of hard facts that many professed Christians, of prominence in philanthropies and politics, are found to be capable of taking advantage of opportunities for legal deception and dishonesty. The fundamental of all Christian faith and teaching is the declaration, "There is one God," and this can only mean that there is but one kind of truth or righteousness, one standard of morality and of obedience. And yet how often in these days is it found that men who are governed by a worthy standard of moral conduct in their business dealings with their neighbors and patrons, are governed by an utterly ignoble standard in their dealings with the municipality or the government,— the people as a whole. This course has become so familiar, sad to say, that to-day the public hardly expect any one to deal as honestly with them as he would with an individual; so that the power of temptation is in fact reinforced by the quasi approval of even those who are most grievously wronged.
In deprecation of these conditions our Leader has said, "He [Christ Jesus] knew that men can be baptized, partake of the Eucharist, support the clergy, observe the Sabbath, make long prayers, and yet be sensual and sinful" (Science and Health, p. 20) and she has further and most significantly said, that unless the moral condition is advanced, men cannot be permanently helped, even in body. (See ibid., p. 404.)
Under existing circumstances Christian people need not be surprised when societies for ethical culture, organized quite outside of denominational lines, make appeal in the name of religion for a united endeavor to advance the moral standards of our social, commercial, and political life. Respecting this drift of agitation for a higher morality, an eminent writer has recently said, "No one who studies the social developments of this time will fail to see that custody of the moral idea has already passed beyond every species of ecclesiastical control and become a social responsibility" (editorial in The Hibbert Journal, October, '06).
How apparent it is, in view of these things, that the crying need of the hour, as well as the legitimate expectation of the world, calls every Christian Scientist to maintain an unimpeachable integrity, to wear day by day, as Tennyson has said, "the white flower of a blameless life." Standing for a large and generous concept of individual privilege, as to the possession and use of our Father's bounty, and denying the naturalness of any limitation upon the kindly impulses of a Christian heart, it is theirs to prove that business can be conducted and that money can be made in the unvarying fulfilment of righteousness toward competitors, the community, the nation, and God, and that it is not only right, but profitable, to make the Golden Rule the governing law, whether we be employers or employed.
There is no variableness in the divine standard of rectitude, and its recognition is obligatory, whether the transaction be trivial or of world-embracing significance, whether it be between one and another or between one and ten thousand others. It is ours to know this and to rejoice in it, while making it manifest that there is no halfway business or compromise in our honest living; that we are incapable of trying to dodge or circumvent the highest ethical imperative.
