Article February 9, 1907 Issue

SINCERITY

REV. GUSTAVE HAAS.

THE art of sculpture was at its height with the Greeks at the time of the Roman conquest. The victors were greatly impressed by the evidences of Grecian culture and refinement, more especially by the lofty ideals carved in marble. Some, perceiving the commercial value of this art, saw in it primarily an opportunity for material gain, many who were proficient in stone-cutting aspiring at once to become sculptors, but their copies of the Grecian models were, in the main, crude and unsatisfactory. Frequently, in handling the statues, a graceful finger, an ear, or the tip of the nose would be broken. In order to hide such a defect, the missing member would be replaced with white wax, which would stick and could not be detected easily on account of its close resemblance to the marble; but in very warm or severe weather the wax would either melt or break off, thus exposing the fraud. As a consequence, those who intended to beautify their palaces and gardens with statuary, stipulated in their contracts that no wax should be used on any of the work. The Latin words employed were sine cera—without wax. Such is the accepted derivation of our English word "sincerity."

This suggestive term is peculiarly applicable to our work in Christian Science, for in it no pretensions are admissible. Our Leader says in her "Message to The Mother Church, June, 1901" (p. 4), "To attempt to twist the fatal magnetic element of human will into harmony with Divine power, or to substitute good words for good deeds, a fair seeming for right being, may suit the weak or the worldly who find the standard of Christ's healing too high for them. Absolute certainty in the practice of Divine Metaphysics constitutes its utility, since it has a divine and demonstrable Principle and rule;—if some fall short of Truth, others will attain it, and these are they who will adhere to it." No human concept of anything, however close in appearance to the real, or however lofty, pure, and good, according to its own standard, can take or fill the place of the Divine concept, and any deceptive endeavor to pass it off as such will readily be exposed under the blaze of Truth. If deception in the material representation of grace, beauty, and purity was a matter of offence to the materialistic thought of pagan Rome, how much more offensive and unbearable ought it to be to the purified scientific thought.

In the spiritual idea there never was nor can be any defect, change, decay, or misrepresentation. In the realm of metaphysics (beyond physics) all remains eternally perfect. All work in Christian Science is the expression or true indicator of one's consciousness. The worker in God's vineyard must shut out from his thought the temptation to misrepresent or to assume in his work. We cannot safely lower the standard God has set. Any defection in our thought, and consequently in our work, is not due to Science, but to a lack of conformity to it. Paul strikes the keynote of spiritual work when he speaks of our warfare as "casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." Incomplete or defective work in Science can neither be completed nor patched up with the deceptive and pliable wax of hypocrisy or boastful assertion. There is no substitute for God's reflection, since "He is at once the center and circumference of being" (Science and Health, p. 204). Working for material results is the striving for appearances, which, however close the resemblance to the real, are deceptive and disappointing,—a mixture of truth and error, not Science,—and will be found wanting when weighed in the balances of Truth. Wax can never be marble, nor can matter ever be Spirit. Since a divine, demonstrable Principle is the basis of all being and action, the standard of work in truth necessarily includes sincerity, purity, genuineness.

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