Editorial January 6, 1906 Issue

The True Guest

Annie M. Knott

The coming of New Year's Day recalled a quaint and well-nigh forgotten custom, which required that a man be the first to enter every home on the first day of the year. The origin of this custom is veiled in obscurity, but metaphysically regarded it has a lesson for us to-day, since never before has the dignity of manhood been understood and appreciated as it is in Christian Science. In all the writings of our revered Leader, man, the ideal man, is kept constantly before us as the model for all aspiration and endeavor, and not one day, but every day those who are faithful to her teachings refuse to allow any other concept to pass unchallenged over the threshold of consciousness.

Christian Science teaches that man is "the generic term for all that reflects God's image and likeness" (Science and Health, p. 475). All that expresses God must therefore be in harmony with man, as man is thus understood in Science. The false concepts of mortal mind,—sin and suffering,—which are no part of man's being, should be forever denied entrance to thought, and this applies to everything that does not bear the signet of the divine creation. Every idea that expresses goodness, purity, and intelligence, be it ever so lowly, has its rightful place in Mind, and each tends to bring out completeness. Of man the Psalmist says, "Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands,"—and Christ Jesus proved the truth of the statement by exercising this dominion and teaching others how to avail themselves of the same divinely bestowed privilege.

How few there are who know what man really is, and none can know while failing to distinguish between him and his mortal counterfeit. In all times the multitudes have believed a great warrior to be a splendid specimen of manhood, but suppose such an one to have been brought face to face with the funeral cortege coming out of Nain, of what avail would have been his seeming strength and courage? of what avail even legions of Roman soldiers in the presence of sin or suffering? True manhood was then put to the proof, and not found wanting,—there was one who spoke the word, and the young man who lay on the bier was restored to his mother. Our text-book says, "The ideal man was revealed in due time, and known as Christ Jesus" (Science and Health, p. 338). Well might the world have rejoiced that "the ideal man" was thus revealed, and we today, that through our Leader's wonderful discovery the world at length knows the Science of man—the Science which explains man's God-given dominion and how it may be realized by all who accept the truth.

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