Editorial October 10, 1908 Issue

DISCIPLINE

Annie M. Knott

The word discipline is very generally taken to mean punishment, or is at least closely associated with it, though the dictionaries give this word as a secondary definition, the first being "systematic training or subjection to authority; especially the training of the mental, moral, and physical power by instruction and exercise."

It should be self-evident that where discipline is submitted to, punishment is unnecessary. The difficulty with most mortals, both children and adults, is that they fail to recognize the value of discipline—its absolute necessity to their progress in every direction. They therefore disregard law and order, and find themselves the subjects of punishment; which is always humiliating, whether it be mental or physical. Now discipline, no less than punishment, is imposed by an authority other than one's self, and in most cases it is submitted to for no better reason than to avoid unpleasant consequences, but from such a basis its results are very unsatisfactory.

In Christian Science we soon learn that we need not submit to any authority which is not good,—that we owe obedience only to divine Principle and to that which is nearest to absolute right in all things. Obedience to material health laws (really disease laws) gives neither health nor freedom. What is more, it distracts attention from the mental and moral discipline essential to the working out of every human problem. In Christian Science entire obedience to spiritual law and order is required to subjugate the mortal sense of selfhood and to establish instead the rule of the Christ, and the discipline thus demanded is well defined in Paul's words, "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."

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