A Bishop of the Church of England, preaching recently in Australia, said that the first casualty of the war was honesty. It would certainly seem as if during the war human standards of honor and fair dealing were in many instances lost sight of, and the so-called forces of greed and selfishness were manifest in corruption and lawlessness. Such conditions still seem too often to prevail.
These conditions are a challenge to the Christian Scientist, who is endeavoring to practice the Science of Christianity which Jesus lived and taught. The integrity of man is a basic fact of Christianity, a fact which Jesus clearly perceived and proved. His command (Matt. 5:48), "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect," allowed of no variation in the degree of perfection of either God or man. Jesus did not say, in effect, "Try to be perfect," for his understanding of the true nature of God and man enabled him to see that this perfection is a present fact, capable of demonstration now in the degree of the individual's realization of the truth. Jesus' spiritual perception was so clear that he was able to see beyond the physical senses' claim that man is material and mortal, sick and sinning, and so fully to realize the real nature of man that those who appealed to him for help were healed. As Mary Baker Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (pp. 476, 477): "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick."
The perfection of God and man is the basis from which the Christian Scientist reasons. He keeps before him Mrs. Eddy's statement (Science and Health, p. 259), "The Christlike understanding of scientific being and divine healing includes a perfect Principle and idea,—perfect God and perfect man,—as the basis of thought and demonstration." Christian Science accepts the Bible teaching that God is Truth, and that among the attributes of Truth are honesty, uprightness, truthfulness, and integrity. Truth must ever be honest and straightforward. It is never guilty of employing subterfuge or subtlety. Within the infinity of Truth all is complete, and infinite Truth can express only its own perfect nature. There is no double-dealing or hypocrisy in Truth. Truth is ever upright, utterly incapable of being dishonorable or untruthful, or of expressing anything unlike itself.
The integrity of Truth is unassailable, for Truth is One. Conscious only of its own infinite existence, Truth is fearless, and the allness of Truth is the law of elimination to everything unlike Truth. Truth is never frustrated by limited understanding, never hampered by human regulation, never helpless before material conditions. Truth operates freely through eternal laws, ever available to man, who is the very expression of Truth. Man, the image and likeness of Truth, is honest and honorable in all his ways, ever truthful and upright, reflecting only the qualities of Truth. The integrity of man is as unimpeachable as that of God.
Then the dishonest mortal personality which contradicts this definition of man as the image and likeness of Truth is not man at all. It is only a false picture of man, a suggestion of evil to be rejected and replaced by right spiritual understanding. It is a false sense of creation which depicts man as dishonest and dishonorable, not the truth of being. It is a material sense of man which lies, steals, defrauds, and bribes, and never the real man, the reflection of Truth. Whatever we accept as true about God and man in our thought will govern our human experience. In "Pulpit and Press" our Leader makes this wonderfully encouraging statement (p. 3): "Know, then, that you possess sovereign power to think and act rightly, and that nothing can dispossess you of this heritage and trespass on Love."
We have sovereign power to think rightly about man collectively as well as individually, and to see in Science the perfect man as Jesus did. This spiritual seeing will dispel the false beliefs about man in our human experience, making us more conscious of the goodness, honesty, and kindness expressed around us and less conscious of the evil until, finally, all sense of evil disappears. If, on the other hand, we persist in believing the lies about man that mortal mind is constantly pouring out, then we are likely to be perpetually aware of them around us. This is well illustrated in the story of Jacob.
Jacob, in stealing Esau's blessing and birthright from his father Isaac, was guilty of duplicity and deceit. His concept of man was material. He believed that man was capable of breaking the Ten Commandments, that is, of being unlike God. As a result, this false concept of man governed his human experience. Not only did he express duplicity in his dealings with others, but he likewise encountered it. Laban treated Jacob with the same duplicity that Jacob used toward Isaac. Not until Jacob had wrestled with his false concept of man at Peniel and gained a more spiritual sense of God and man did his nature and human experience change.
Today the Christian Scientist has the opportunity to wrestle with the false concept of man so insistently held before his eyes, and to gain the true idea of God and man, and so to uphold in his own consciousness the integrity of man. The work of the Christian Scientist is to perceive the truth of being rather than to change man or to heal him. It is to dispel illusions with regard to man rather than to alter persons, and these illusions are dispelled by Truth. When confronted with dishonesty, whether it claims to be individual, national, or international, we can take our stand for Truth. God is Truth, acting through immutable, perfect law, and man is the reflection of Truth, eternally reflecting honesty and uprightness.
Then we need take no credit to ourselves for being truthful and honest, for we are only reflecting omnipotent and omnipresent Truth and being the witness of Truth for which we were created. In other words, we are not expressing certain qualities that place us above other men, but are simply recognizing and embodying those qualities which are inherent in us all as the children of God. We can be honest and successful, for such is the law of God. The recognition of this truth brings with it a loss of strain and anxiety on our part, increased respect and appreciation from others, and will exert an influence for good in our community far beyond what we may ever realize.
It may be argued that an individual may be perfectly honest and upright in his dealings with others and still fail in business. If he is afraid, he may fail. Fear is the belief that God is not all-presence, the belief that Truth is not all-powerful. If we acknowledge that God is omnipotent Truth, and at the same time believe that evil is power, this confusion of thought may lead to failure until we learn that evil is nonexistent in the spiritual universe and cease to give it either power or reality. If we concede that man is the reflection of Truth, and yet believe him capable of expressing dishonesty, this mistaken thinking will govern our human experience. But there is no fear or failure to the individual who perceives the allness of God, Truth, and the literal nothingness of evil. There is no fear in the thought of one who knows that the operation of Truth in human affairs is nothing less than the operation of divine law, which is indeed all-powerful and ever acting. Such a one advances fearlessly, conscious of the presence of Truth and of man's eternal unity with Truth. He proves the truth of the promise (Ps. 91:4), "He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler."
