Articles

A Phrase frequently heard and quite as frequently accepted without careful analysis is: Self-preservation is the first law of nature. Like every other statement in human language this one is true only when words are given their correct signification.

The quest of a clear understanding of the truth about God and man has aroused interest at all times, from earliest history. This inherent interest accounts for the numbers of followers that have gathered to the fold of every reformer, from the greatest prophet to the preacher on the street corner.

In his "visions of God," the prophet Ezekiel heard a voice saying to him out of the "brightness round about," "Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee. " How often has the seeker after God in this age and time yearned for the privilege which the ancient prophets had—the privilege of direct communion with the Father, and of voicing a "Thus saith the Lord.

Wherever there is spiritual understanding there is adoration. The fact is exemplified throughout the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.

As one follows, through history and mythology, the changing vagaries of the human mind down to the present day, one cannot fail to be impressed with the striking similarity of its repeated experiences. The same blindness, the same inability to learn from experience, the same tendency to form vain images from which it subsequently must flee in terror, characterize all its history.

When Jesus declared, "I can of mine own self do nothing," and "the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works," he enlightened humanity on the perplexing subject of responsibility by liberating them from belief in the heavy burden of personal obligation and dependence upon one's self or others. Yet in spite of these inspired words and Jesus' scientific proof of their truth, the term responsibility has become so closely associated with care and anxiety that the original meaning of the word as "the act of responding, readiness to answer or reply" has gradually been lost sight of.

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.

Ever since men knew how to think, they have been speculating on the great subject of life. The mind, the brain, the soul, the body,— all these have engaged their thought and have led, from the time of the Greeks, and before the Greeks, down to our own day, to a long line of philosophic schools, all sufficiently amazing in their conclusions.

On page 575 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy states that "spiritual teaching must always be by symbols.

In the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," by Mary Baker Eddy, beginning on page 502 the author states: "There is but one creator and one creation. This creation consists of the unfolding of spiritual ideas and their identities, which are embraced in the infinite Mind and forever reflected.