Editorial August 3, 1907 Issue

THE CRY OF THE HUMAN

John B. Willis

"What shall I do?" The voice came from the shadows of a great affliction. A wounded heart had found itself face to face with an overwhelming sense of weakness at the moment when life's hardest chapter was consciously entered upon, a chapter which she wanted more than all else to make nobler and better than were those that now seemed to be drifting far away. It was an hour in which thoughts of past failure and present need seemed to join hands against her, and she could realize only this, that in her heart there was the consciousness of inexpressible loneliness and want, and in her hands simply "the cup of trembling."

"I know full well," she said, "that there is no satisfaction and no rest for me apart from the spiritual life. Everything has been mine that I could covet and that love could supply, and yet, though utterly inexplicable, I have not been happy. My life has seemed to lack aim, definiteness, substance, even as it has lacked peace. Christian Science has appealed to me strongly at times, and I have felt strengthened and uplifted by it, but at other times I have not been able to get hold of it. I have not liked to study it, and I have not done so. I seem driven hither and thither, a prey to impulse, and I cannot trust myself to find the way—" "That is well," broke in her friend, "for you need, and there is available, a sager guide."

The case called for frank counsel as well as tenderness, and he said: "Christian Science comes to you and me just where we are, with the comforting assurance that the true Life is never lost, impaired, or disturbed, even in its least manifestation; that Love, the compassion of the Christ, abides unfailingly; that not only the deeps of God, but of even our own nature, are untouched by the storm, and that it is possible for us to stand in quiet upon the mount, as did Elisha, and see all these things pass by. Afterward comes the gentle healing Word, the recognition of the Christ, the true consciousness, to subdue and reign over surging sense, and give us peace, the peace that dwells alone with wisdom.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Editorial

INTERNATIONAL BOOK AND PAPER EXPOSITION