Article July 13, 1907 Issue

FALSE WITNESS

CAPTAIN GEOFFREY WILKINSON

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.—Exodus, 20:16.

It is a common experience of those who are beginning to gain some understanding of Christian Science, that Bible texts, which before seemed to possess only a limited and purely material meaning, are found, in the light of our text-book, to possess a depth of spiritual import which it would have been vain to search for in the old thought, where matter with all its phenomena was looked upon as part of God's creation. The text quoted at the head of this article is one of those to which this description is peculiarly applicable, for we had all been brought up to look on it merely as a command to abstain from bringing an accusation against another, either knowing the accusation to be false or not knowing it to be true. In the light of Christian Science, however, we are unable to rest satisfied with the above definition. For what is our neighbor? Spiritual or material? Christian Science teaches that God being Spirit or Mind, man as the image and likeness of God is spiritual and not material, the eternal expression or idea of divine Mind. To look on our neighbor, therefore, as material is to bear false witness against our neighbor.

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