When Joshua, the son of Nun, had gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, in glowing words he brought to their remembrance the perils by land and sea through which they had been safely and divinely guided. He concluded this summary by saying, "Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the Lord." It will be seen that the Israelites' first deliverance was from an outward slavery to a merciless Pharaoh, and their later deliverance was from an inward rebellion. These last fetters were of their own forging and had kept them wanderers forty years in the wilderness of Sin.
From these experiences of the children of Israel, we may trace an analogy to our liberation through Christian Science healing, and to our later deflections from the straight and narrow way. Our first bondage was the belief in sin, sickness, and death, and our bounds may have been a wheeled chair, a sick bed, or some form of degrading and enslaving sin. After our healing, in our joy in our new-found freedom, we need to be alert and watchful lest the belief in materiality hold us in bondage to a rejuvenated and healthy body. Though we are brought safely through the Red Sea of suffering, we may not be permitted to "pass over this Jordan, to go in to possess the land," because we are bearing a self-imposed yoke of personal gratification, or, worse still, murmuring at the demands of Christian Science.
The commands of Moses and Joshua to the children of Israel were in no wise different from the demands Christian Science urges upon its followers to-day: a ready obedience, willing service, and a steadfast holding to the truth as revealed to us. Did our problem include a sense of financial limitation, and our liberation bring with it bountiful supply, we should be zealous lest we be unwittingly persuaded to sit by the wayside for a season to enjoy our good fortune. We read in Exodus that the manna which fell in the wilderness was for the day, and became unfit for food when kept longer. We should know that supply is wholly spiritual and therefore only to be enjoyed and increased by giving freely of our abundance.
