Article July 2, 1904 Issue

The Lessons of Obedience

BLANCHE H. HOGUE.

There are so many reasons why obedience blesses the obedient one, that it becomes really desirable to seek obedience for its sake. The child who obeys a parent, is thereby learning the meaning of self-surrender. The obedience itself is the educational force. It has a far-reaching result which the child may not clearly see at the time when the obedience is demanded. The act of yielding the stubborn will or the selfish desire, has a lasting effect upon the nature of the individual, whether or not the circumstances attending the surrender are immediately beneficial.

It is a difficult matter always to foresee the results springing from a present obedience, but this we know, that the self-surrender is purifying in its action and effect. Learning to yield to the wishes of others, striving to consider the interests of others and to obey that which, even in small matters, confers the greatest good upon the greatest number, certainly does prepare the way for the great sacrifices which at some time must come into every human life.

A character which is pliable, bending readily to the family, community, or national interests because it has learned how to surrender its personal desires, has become thus manageable because of continued obedience to something other than its own will. And this growing graciousness, taking into consideration the authority, rights, or privileges of others, leads naturally to ready obedience to the will of God, whensoever and wheresoever it may be discerned. The human will which, in the affairs of childhood and youth, obeys only with reluctance another decision or desire than its own, obeys the law of God no more readily in the later and larger problems of life. The lesson of obedience to something above and beyond self, must sometime be learned, and if begun in early experience, much will be pleasantly learned which otherwise may be wrought out in bitterness. Reluctant obedience to the highest good is, without doubt, the reason for much of the slow healing and many of the discouragements which still mar the practice of the Christian Scientists.

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