"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain." The generally accepted understanding of this commandment is that it prohibits the use of profanity. This it undoubtedly does; but the earnest student of Christian Science realizes that entire obedience to the third law of the Mosaic Decalogue involves much more than this literal interpretation. What is it to take God's name "in vain" or vainly? Is it not to admit or to believe that God's name, God's allness and almightiness, can sometimes be taken or declared in vain, or uselessly? When the Word of God goes forth, as for instance in a Christian Science treatment, it goes forth with power and effect, not vainly and without result. Isaiah knew this when he wrote, "As the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it."
Let us give our treatments with confidence and expectancy. Let us know that the reflected Word goes forth with the power of omnipotence. "They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat. . . . They shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth for trouble," is the reassuring promise of old. A Christian Science treatment, if rightly given, cannot prove useless or abortive. Then let us speak to error as courageously as did David to Goliath in that crucial hour so long ago, when the hosts of Israel stood cowering and silent before the braggadocio of that enemy of God, of good, whose gigantic proportions doubtless seemed no more terrifying to them than does some more modern phase of evil to our frightened sense to-day. "Thou comest to me with a sword," said David, "and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied." And David did not take the name of the Lord his God "in vain"!
It may be well to note in this connection also that the Christian Scientist will ever hold in proper respect the name of the gentle Nazarene upon whose words and works his religion is founded. While Christian Science does not teach that the man Jesus was God, its adherents do aver and understand that "Jesus of Nazareth taught and demonstrated man's oneness with the Father, and for this we owe him endless homage," as Mary Baker Eddy says on page 18 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." Hence they deplore any light or would-be facetious use of his name. That this is no trifling matter is evidenced by the fact that our revered Leader, whose purity of life and purpose enabled her to present to this age in permanent concrete form the truth which Christ Jesus, in his age, preached and practiced, once felt the proper respect for his name of sufficient importance to make it the subject of a By-law in the Manual of The Mother Church (p. 41), which reads, in part, "Careless comparison or irreverent reference to Christ Jesus is abnormal in a Christian Scientist, and is prohibited."
