"If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." The authorized version of the New Testament quotes Jesus as saying this. At a casual glance such a statement would seem stronger than necessary, and the question naturally arises as to why such a requirement should be made at all. But when we consider the multitude of those who were attempting to follow the Master's teachings, and consider also his ready discernment of their thoughts, we know that he must have found among them many who had not counted the cost of actually following him, and who did not realize that progress in his way meant a step so far beyond as to be utterly removed from the creeds, traditions, and ceremonies held to, up to that time, by society and by the church. Any desire to cling to former conditions would stand in the way of their growth, and render his special discipleship an impossibility. Progress was the law then, as it is now, and in attempting to follow his doctrine Jesus wanted the people to understand the necessity of loosening their hold on things which would hinder their progress—things which had been their highest ideas of religious practice, and which the various members of their families were still holding them to and urging upon them. We can better get his meaning when we apply the thought to our own time.
This is an age of rapid progress, and yet there are those who have decided inclinations toward scientific thinking and are held back from actually accepting the advancing thought because they cling to the forms and ceremonies of a more primitive day. This is evidenced in the question sometimes asked as to how we, as Christian Scientists, reconcile ourselves to an apparent neglect of the rites of baptism and communion, which have been regarded during all the centuries as essential to the Christian religion and as direct commands of the Master. Scientifically considered, we cannot leave them out —they are not at our disposal to adopt or abandon at will. The more we study into them the clearer it becomes that baptism and communion as spiritually understood, are not only essential to the Christian religion, but they are, according to divine law, scientific necessities.
It is not that we desert an idea when it assumes a higher significance for us; rather does it become more vital to our consciousness. We have grown to know that without baptism, or the purification of thought, we could not comprehend the truth of being, the practical Science of Christianity; nor could we, without communion, the realization of at-one-ment with God, make any conscious use of our Science or our Christianity.
