Editorial October 14, 1939 Issue

Steadfastness

Duncan Sinclair

Steadfastness along any line of endeavor is possible only when one is convinced of the worthiness of the enterprise upon which he is engaged. Examine the lives of reformers who, through years of strenuous work, have benefited their country, and without exception it will be found that, having set before them an ideal, they steadfastly pursued it until it was realized. And this they did often in the face of apparently overwhelming odds.

Christ Jesus was undeviatingly steadfast in the pursuit of his mission. "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" (Luke 2:49), he said to his mother and Joseph when they found him, a boy of twelve years, reasoning with the doctors in the temple. His Father's business was his business, and until the day of his ascension he followed it confidently, patiently, steadfastly. What enabled Jesus to do this? His understanding of God, the Father, and of man, God's image and likeness; his knowledge of spiritual reality, as distinguished from material unreality; his faith in good, and his perception of the unreality of evil; his confidence that, through the application of spiritual truth and his love for mankind, mortal error in its every seeming form could be overcome. Jesus steadfastly taught mankind the truths of spiritual being, and demonstrated what he taught by healing all manner of disease and sin

The apostles, like the Master, had faith in Truth, and they steadfastly endeavored to bring it to their fellow men, urging them to abide by it. Thus, in his epistle to the Galatians (5:1), we find Paul writing, "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage," and in a similar strain appealing to the Corinthians in the words (I Cor. 15:58), "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord." What was behind Paul's desire that his fellow Christians should be steadfast in the faith? His understanding of Christ, Truth, and his conviction of its healing and saving power.

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