Article October 10, 1903 Issue

Honesty in Individual Work

HON. CONSTANCE GIBSON

Mrs. Eddy says, "There is but one way of doing good, and that is to do it! There is but one way of being good, and that is to be good" (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 107). We must be true to ourselves. We must be willing to let the light shine in on every thought, and then watch closely to see the influence that thought has on our lives, whether it is making us more pure, more honest, more unselfish, more loving. If we find ourselves excusing our thoughts and trying to justify our actions, we should allow the light to shine in more fully and ask ourselves why all this explanation is necessary?

The greatest sins usually begin with hypocrisy,—deceiving ourselves into thinking wrong is right, and so serving evil in the name of good. It is the little thoughts we must watch and uproot before they have time to develop. Error's first argument was, "ye shall be as gods,"—do wrong and you will find it is right,—and the fruit of serving sin was fear and shame. "Perfect love casteth out fear," and when we are governed by this Love we shall need to be careful that we do not cast our pearls before swine, but we shall not be afraid of having every thought known to the whole world. The danger is when we begin to try to hide things,—when we argue to ourselves that our thoughts are right but we must not let them be known, as the world would not understand. Let us rather ask ourselves if these little thoughts are of God; if so they must eternal, and they will still be there when the day comes in which "there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed."

Truth is never ashamed,—it never hides. If we are honestly doing our best we shall not be afraid of facing every thought. If we do wrong we shall frankly acknowledge that it is wrong, and do right for the future. We do not need to decide how others should think and act, but we must decide for ourselves and act according to our highest sense of right.

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