Editorial February 27, 1904 Issue

The Divine Exaction

The authority of Truth is revealed in the unvarying insistence and universality of its demands. It knows no favoritism, makes no concessions, and what it requires of one it requires of all. As the sun's rays find their way into every state and condition of darkness to fulfil in every instance the same behest, so do the divine ideas hasten to the fulfilment of their one all-comprehensive duty, and they ignore not one jot or tittle of that perfect law, the entirety of which is dishonored in its least infringement.

When Jesus said, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind," he left no place for reserve in Christian consecration, and made it clear that our responsibility is to be met only in the completeness of our individual obedience. When he said, "Preach the gospel, heal the sick," he surely spoke to all men, and in terms of equal requirements; and his commandments are to be kept by a sincere and persistent endeavor to do just the thing he names.

Christian Scientists are not exempt from the temptations of a false sense of humility, timidity, or incapacity. They are often prompted by error to assign to others duties and responsibilities which come to them, but the fulfilment of which is not in keeping with some unredeemed sense, taste, or habit; they may "feel so weak" or "so unworthy," and they thus begin to make excuse. It is certainly true that a division of labor is no less wise in the human activities which have a spiritual end, than in those which have an economic end, and that each should contribute that kind of human effort in which he is most skilled, but it is none the less true that the spiritual requirements and obligations of Christianity are imposed upon all alike. Each must meet and overcome for himself every foe of the spiritual life, and in so far as error finds in us any response to its appeal, any concession to its falsities, in so far it is revealed as our individual and yet unconquered foe. The slightest fear or hesitation in meeting a claim of disease, is evidence that a task is laid upon us respecting it which no other may assume, and this leads us to the realization, sooner or later, that every Christian Scientist must reach the understanding which will enable him to face every known enemy of health and holiness as its master.

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