Editorial November 3, 1906 Issue

"CHASTENING"

Annie M. Knott

The question is sometimes asked by those who are becoming interested in Christian Science why man should be "chastened" by God who is Love. Such questions show that the teaching of our text-book in relation to the real man—God's likeness or reflection—has not been clearly apprehended. The word chasten is defined by the dictionaries: "To reduce to order or obedience; to correct or purify." This of course implies the need of correction or purification and could not refer to one who is the likeness of God. Mrs. Eddy says in her definition of man, that he "has not a single quality underived from Deity" (Science and Health, p. 475). The spiritual man has therefore no need of correction or chastening, but no one questions that mortals do need correction from a false sense of God, man, and all that exists.

The human sense, blind to its own interests, has ever rebelled against correction, and much of the time has preferred to remain in bondage to error rather than make the strenuous effort needed to get out of it. It will readily be seen that harmony cannot exist in a consciousness which is dominated by error of any sort, hence the necessity that error be eliminated, and our text-book tells us that this must be accomplished either by "suffering or Science" (Science and Health, p. 296).

The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews evidently understood the difference between the punishments inflicted by human beings and the wise discipline of divine Love. In the 12th chapter the purpose of the heavenly Father's "chastening" is set forth in the telling words. "That we might be partakers of his holiness." Can any price be too great for such a consummation as this? Surely not, and yet mortals shrink from the purifying process needed to remove the taint of earthly tendencies, from the correction sometimes required to reach.

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