Editorial May 5, 1906 Issue

House Cleaning

JOHN B. WILLIS

THERE are few occasions which bring the thrifty housewife more downright satisfaction than that bright spring day when the garret is invaded and the chests and closets are made to yield up the worn-outs and castaways of the bygone year. It is the first act in the annual drama of house cleaning, and it means glad escape from the frayed, the outgrown, and the useless. This and that article may recall a pleasant experience or awaken tender memories, but they have served their day and generation, and as the tongues of a crackling bonfire lap them up we are glad to see them go; they are making way for better things. If anything is chanced upon that has yet a relic of worth, it is reserved, brought into new relations, and made to contribute to somebody's comfort and gain, but the great load of rubbish,—what a good riddance it is, and with what a sigh of relief the task is ended!

It is impossible for Christian Scientists to recall the incidents of such a day without realizing that a home which is rendered unkempt and uninviting by the nameless inutilities it may harbor, fitly though feebly symbolizes that state of human consciousness in which the gifts and gains of past mortal experience have crowded its every receptacle and corner with things that in the light of Truth have no further value, and which in large part are but the flotsam of falsity. In our ignorance we may have thought in past years that we were living in wholesome conditions and good style, but in the revealing light of Christian Science we can now see that every room and corridor of our mental habitation has been desecrated by the dust and debris of false sense. We are shocked and humiliated by the discovery, and this fact is full of significance. It witnesses to the recognition of a higher standard of purity, of orderliness, and of right living. It evidences the presence of a sincere desire for better things, that "willingness to give up human beliefs," to which our Leader has referred as the harbinger of spiritual advance (Science and Health, p. 24), and it gives sure prophecy of our ultimate escape from every bondage of traditional belief.

No one can open his thought to the light which is beaming on the world in Christian Science, and maintain a receptive attitude thereto, without speedily making the discovery that a large part of his mental furnishings are worse than worthless. Some things of good may be found, and they may need only a new setting or to be hung in a better light, but his general store of ideas, opinions, prejudices, ambitions, conceits, etc., all call for that "cleansing as by fire" which the incoming of truth alone can accomplish.

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