Editorial January 19, 1907 Issue

"THY WILL BE DONE."

Annie M. Knott

It is almost universally admitted at the present time that Christian Science does heal the sick and ennoble character, but an effort is made to attribute this good result to the human mind. People are urged to cultivate "will-power" in order to rise superior to physical ailments, and they are told that thus are the cures wrought in Christian Science, when the very opposite is true. In Science we quickly learn that "what causes disease cannot cure it" (Science and Health, p. 188), and it is now seldom denied that disease as well as sin springs from the so-called human mind. Our text-book says, "Human will is an animal propensity, not a faculty of Soul;" it also says that "Christian Science silences human will, ... and illustrates the unlabored motion of the divine energy in healing the sick" (Science and Health, pp. 490, 445).

It should be remembered that Christian Science is ever in harmony with the teachings of Christ Jesus, and nowhere do we find that he advocated the exercise or the cultivation of will-power as a means of maintaining or restoring health. On the contrary, he taught by precept and example that the human will must at every point yield to the Divine, before perfect harmony can be established. Most people have struggled long and vainly, in their efforts to be healed or to overcome sin through "will-power," before they were ready to come to Christian Science, and ready to pray understandingly, "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." In this Science they learn that God's will is the perfection of His every child, and that nothing has power to resist the influence of divine Love. They then find that the recognition of this truth brings to them health, harmony, and prosperity. The continuous attempt to exercise human will-power only results in what has not inaptly been termed a "keyed-up" state—the very opposite to the calmness and serenity which characterizes the true Christian Scientist, and which attracts so many to Christian Science.

Some very interesting testimony on this line appears in an Indiana newspaper, which tells the experience of a business man who had been forced into bankruptcy a few years ago despite his utmost efforts. The article goes on to say that in the following year he took up the study of Christian Science, and "from an aggressive, quick-tempered, and vindictive nature—a man who had given over the most of his life to an inherent desire to amass wealth ... he was transformed to calmer, better, and holier ideas." It is added that during the last five years he has paid in full the debts from which he had been legally released,—amounting to twenty thousand dollars,—having recently made the last payment. One of the firms to whom he had been indebted, wrote him, "We are very proud of your action—not so much on account of the money we are receiving as on account of the noble example you are setting to mankind in the discharge of a duty which should be considered as sacred between man and man."

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