THE precepts and practices of Christ Jesus as recorded in the Scriptures are a storehouse of wisdom and experience to guide the student of Christian Science into the sure ways of righteousness. Frequently it seems, apart from the main precept which his words convey, they contain gleams of wisdom, sidelights as it were, which if seized upon and deeply pondered may become of great import to the student. In the story of Jesus' healing of the leper, after he had completed the most comprehensive lesson that ever fell from inspired lips, the Sermon on the Mount, it is recorded that he said to the healed one, "See thou tell no man; but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them."
The words, "See thou tell no man," contain a message for Christian Scientists which may be most profitably pondered. Mortals are prone to prattle, to tell of their experiences, even in minute detail—experiences, be it said, which may pertain wholly to the false sense of Life and which, accordingly, contain no slightest element of Truth. Jesus' wise words apparently spoken casually, were nevertheless prompted by deep purpose. The healed one in his gratitude for release from so dread a disease as leprosy would most likely have told his friends, perhaps all whom he met, of his marvelous experience, and thereby have stirred against him a flood of doubt, of diverse and incredulous thought which might have seriously interfered with the demonstration, even reversing it to its apparent nullification in the thought of the one healed. How wise, then, was the Master's admonition, to "tell no man"!
The deep experiences which all encounter in their search for Truth are sacred and holy, and as such, require to be carefully guarded against the attacks of mortal belief. We should never forget that the so-called mortal mind, based as it is upon a false concept directly at odds with spiritual Truth, does not look kindly upon its destroyer. Neither does it maintain a friendly attitude toward those who are in possession of the understanding which destroys its fraudulent claims to substance and reality. What would have happened to the gentle Mary had she told her secret? Would mortal sensuousness, had it known, have allowed her the sacred privilege of motherhood to him who was to become the great Exemplar of the power of the Spirit to destroy the beliefs of the flesh? It seems little probable that she could have fulfilled her divine mission under other conditions than those of the complete silence which she so wisely maintained.
