Articles

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.

The unity or oneness of good, which underlies all truth, has been obscured by the belief that man has life and mind separate from God. This perversion of spiritual fact, from which spring all mortal phenomena, has produced the theory of dualism which teaches that man is both spirit and matter, both good and evil.

History records that the first teachers of the young were religionists. Their duty was to instruct the child in the particular creed of which they were representative, and to inculcate general morality.

Perhaps there is not anywhere a more graphic picture of multiplied human affliction than is given in the story of Job. No clear understanding of the salutary influence of suffering seems to have come to Job to comfort him in his sorrows until Elihu, the God-inspired man, gently turns Job's thought from its self-centeredness to a contemplation of God's power as manifest in nature.

Are we, as Christian Scientists, proving in our lives that "perfect love casteth out fear"? Is our living sufficiently characterized by restfulness and unhurrying calm? We may, perhaps, be happily free from a great overshadowing fear, but if upon examination we find ourselves apparently tinged more or less with the subsidiaries of fear, we shall do well to take immediate steps toward their destruction. Fear must not be allowed place in our thinking simply because it seems to be of a trivial nature.

Heaven is man's necessity. When analyzed, man's every effort is to achieve some concept of heaven,—or, as too often proves the case, some misconception of heaven,—which seems to promise, as he reaches for it, to add something to his sum of good.