Article March 3, 1906 Issue

Laying Hold upon Life

IDA W. STRAUB.

In talking to those who are seeking help in Christian Science, an expression of anxiety is sometimes heard in this wise: "I have been helped in Science so much, but there is one ailment that has not yielded, although I have striven hard to overcome it." This may he compared to the condition of one on a shipwrecked vessel, when a storm is raging. Efforts are being made to save the passengers, ropes are thrown out and all seem eager to avail themselves of the opportunity to be saved. But there is a poor man who seems to stay among the wreckage, and although he has one hand on the rope his main struggle is to keep above the waves and he seems to be at their mercy,—being tossed to and fro. In their efforts to save all, the rescuers at last notice that he is holding with his other hand to the wreck. Perceiving his danger, a shout goes out to him, "Let go the wreck; grasp the rope with both hands and you will be saved." He then does so, though with fear and trembling, and finds to his great joy that he does not go under, as he feared, but is steadily and firmly brought to safety. What if the waves do break over him once in a while? he is being rescued, and he knows it; his thought and effort are not divided as before, but are centered on holding the rope.

How often do we hold to conditions that fear and doubt bring to our consciousness, or to thoughts of self-love, self-pity, self-condemnation, and kindred errors,—all parts of the old wreck,—quite forgetting that we are thus delaying our complete deliverance from sin and sickness. Jesus' reply to the lawyer, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind," shows what we must all do to "enter into life." Material means to which we had trusted as our stronghold failed, when the storms of sin, disease, sickness, and sorrow swept mountain high upon our false refuge and wrecked hopes were all that remained. When the promise of Truth and Love was thrown out to us by Christian Science, how joyfully we grasped it. Here was rescue at last, and why cling any longer to that which could give no real assurance of safety?

God help us all to see clearly that we must grasp with both hands the life-line, the truth revealed to us in our great need, knowing that God, good, is the only power. By putting all our confidence in Him, all our trust in good, we shall not only reach safety, but rejoice in perfect freedom.

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