Articles

The following article, under the heading "Notes from the Field," which appeared in The Christian Science Journal of August, 1892 (Volume X, page 211), the number of the Journal in which our Leader's article "Pond and Purpose" first appeared, is republished by request: Just now, the enemy (?) is sending out many arguments into the field, regarding the situation and the students in Boston. All the students connected with the Journal and Publishing Society do so much to help us on the outside, I feel that now is an hour when we should reflect back that help.

In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," the textbook of Christian Science, the word "idea," which occurs so frequently, owes its significance to the metaphysical definition of God as divine Mind, from which it follows that everything emanating therefrom must be classified as idea of Mind. The poet Milton glimpsed the divine image as idea, when, reviewing the boundless immensity of God's creation, he sang,.

Many instances of the expression "The fear of the Lord" occur in the Bible, which literally interpreted do not elucidate the true meaning of the word "fear. " In Webster's International Dictionary of the English language "fear" has, among other meanings, the following: "The painful emotion characteristic of the apprehension of evil;" and, "That which causes, or which is the object of, apprehension or alarm.

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.