Editorial August 26, 1905 Issue

The Question of Hazard

John B. Willis

OUR first steps in human experience and endeavor are wont to be faulty; but, though we come far short of the ideal, it is to the present advantage of the individual, as well as to the permanent advantage of the race, that we prove true to our ideal from the moment it is clearly recognized, and strive faithfully and persistently for its attainment.

In a time of temporary defeat a large and comforting philosophy is likely to be trodden under foot by the thronging importunities of habit and of human affection; and yet the hope of humanity, and therefore of the individual, hangs upon the faithfulness and self-forgetfulness of our devotion. The question of the possible experience of human suffering or loss, because of adherence to a high ideal, is often presented to those who must decide not only for themselves but for their children, and that, too, when a given determination is likely to be strongly opposed by other members of their family, and it is therefore well to meet it frankly and understand our ground. The life and teaching of Jesus leave no room for doubt that temporary suffering and sacrifice may be incurred by those who resist and thus antagonize the asserted powers of evil. To oppose the currents of selfish human impulse and material belief is to experience their buffetings, even, perchance, to the cross, and this law obtains to-day no less certainly than it did when the martyrs marked with bleeding feet the course of their ascent. Error's resistance has varied forms of expression, some of which are no longer seen; but so long as criticism and condemnation find a place in mortal mentality, so long will all who are on the fighting line for truth need a clear and continuous consciousness of Love's protecting presence.

It would seem a splendid thing if all could rise to the consummation of this consciousness as a man vaults into the saddle, but neither human history nor the Master's teaching warrants the expectation of such an event. The whole tenor of the Word emphasizes the thought of growth as the normal process of racial advance. Heaven has not been and may not be reached at a bound, nor is the highest order of efficiency as a minister of Christ attained without labor and experience; but while all true Christian Scientists are pressing on with constant prayer for that more adequate spiritual efficiency which is so imperatively demanded today,—that dominion which is to be gained only as the clouds of material sense are dissipated by the Christ-light,—they are saved from the sense of enslavement to an evolutionary process by the remembrance that Jesus sent out his faithful followers at an early period in their discipleship, and definitely commissioned them to do those works which we may be tempted to think require not only a high order of spiritual apprehension but mature experience as well. Many times did Jesus rebuke his disciples for their slowness of heart, and he must have recognized their mability to immediately solve all the problems they were likely to meet, —an inability which was conspicuously manifest in the instance of the afflicted boy whom Jesus healed on his return from the Mount of Transfiguration,—and yet, despite their limitations, he unhesitatingly commended them to their undertaking, and they wrought a work in their day which has revolutionized the world.

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