Editorial December 20, 1919 Issue

Divine Love Symbolized

William P. McKenzie

When the untutored Indian of the American plains is asked to draw the figure of a man, if he is able to make any elaboration he will depict him with war bonnet or weapons, showing that to him the typical man is the warrior. In the same way the too much tutored European presenting his symbolical man will reproduce by the million a lithograph of his ruler glowingly depicted with sword and helm as a war lord. Even in countries of moderation it is too often the officer who can make underlings fawn, the executive who shows severity to his helpers whom he calls subordinates, the financier who can tax the people and contemn them, the successful politician whose habit is to rule or ruin,—it is these who are viewed as typical examples. The qualities of mercy, self-restraint, and courtesy, the activities of gentle ministry to others, have ever been too scantly valued. Were the case of the man who fell among thieves on the Jericho road reported to suit the general expectation we should read of the thieves' boldness, of the amount of their booty, of their stratagem and clever escape; then there would be a brief mention of the fact that their victim had been picked up and rescued. But when Jesus of Nazareth told the story he spoke as a poet, and made a presentation of the mercy which should be inherent in the heart of every true man so that the whole world is enabled to learn a deep lesson regarding the operation of the Golden Rule and the right practice of Christianity. Men, therefore, should no longer glorify any robber, whether it be "bag-baron" by admiration or "crag-baron" through fear; but should have the moral courage to act from such humane motives as were revealed by "the good Samaritan."

The question of the hour, the question to be asked while the Christian world is celebrating the Nativity is this: Shall there be born to mankind at this Christmastide the true idea of what man is? Do the sufferings of the trying years of war suffice to enable men to discard as type and pattern the boastful war lord, inconstant, cruel, destructive? Can the scientifically Christian ideal arise, so that not the warrior but the mother shall be chosen for pattern and exemplar, revealing constancy, compassion, healing, and restoration? The wise at heart are seeing that we must inevitably at some time turn from Ishmael and Cain and Barabbas and choose the Christ, and those who understand Christianity see it to be likewise inevitable that a continuing unfoldment of scientific Christianity shall accomplish, as with mother-love which will not be denied, the salvation of the world. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 561) Mrs. Eddy says: "John the Baptist prophesied the coming of the immaculate Jesus, and John saw in those days the spiritual idea as the Messiah, who would baptize with the Holy Ghost,—divine Science. As Elias presented the idea of the fatherhood of God, which Jesus afterwards manifested, so the Revelator completed this figure with woman, typifying the spiritual idea of God's motherhood."

The world has been too content with its material type, too irresponsive to the divine ideal. The typical man has been the one in whom inhered the characteristics of the male members of the group. Were they warriors, brigands, merchants, herdsmen, shepherds, the chief one would be representative of the group in character, and a pattern for the young men. It is easy enough to see that when men imaged God He was conceived of as having masculine characteristics magnified. The reversal of age-lasting misconceptions was brought about when through dawning Christianity there came the revelation of man from above, and by the mystery of the incarnation the true type and pattern was unfolded. The ideal for man was manifested in Christ Jesus as "Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us," the saving influence in the world that signalized the Christian era but is from everlasting to everlasting.

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