Article September 30, 1905 Issue

Simplicity

KATHERINE KENNEDY.

IF we wish to be true followers of our great Elder Brother, Jesus, should we not strive to emulate his powerful example of simplicity in speech when delivering God's message to our fellow-men? He of the "seeing eye" and "hearing ear," whose purity of thought enabled him to receive clear visions of absolute Truth; he "who spake as never man spake," reached the multitudes through simple parables, often using the picture-language of nature as the means of conveying the potent lessons of Truth. What might be considered small and insignificant things, such as the grain of mustard seed, the little candle shedding its light, the fowls of the air, and the lilies of the field, served him as great symbols; and a simple story or trivial experience, such as the sower going forth to sow, the leaven which the woman took and hid in three measures of meal, the net cast into the sea, etc., these commonplace experiences were rich enough to serve his great purpose of explaining to the multitudes the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, the deep things of God.

Jesus made the common things about him "friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy," and so, as we preach the gospel and send out the glad tidings through the medium of our periodicals, we should try to speak the simple universal language intelligible to all. Every word should breathe forth the energizing atmosphere of Life, Truth, and Love; should aim to guide, cheer, inspire, and heal; but this does not necessarily involve the use of long words or a display of rhetoric and deep intellectuality. "A man's power to connect his thought with its proper symbol and so utter it, depends largely on the simplicity of his character, that is, upon his love for the truth and his desire to communicate it without loss;" but when it becomes necessary to employ a dictionary and perhaps an encyclopedia to read an article intelligently, the thread of thought is often broken, the interest lessened, and a great loss of good must result.

Jesus said to his disciples, "Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables." "Therefore speak I to them in parables; because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand." Would it not therefore be wise for us to speak simply, so that schoolboy or sage, fisherman or philosopher, commoner or king, may see, hear, and understand? In the joy of mental emancipation let us not forget that our message must go "into all the world;" not only to Christian Scientists who understand and speak the "new tongue," but also to those who have not as yet found their wings, and who cannot rise into the realm of the infinite as can those of greater experience and understanding.

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