Editorial May 23, 1908 Issue

HONORING CHRIST

John B. Willis

Christian people have always been profuse in their expressions of appreciation and love for Christ Jesus. At the same time they have always been subject to the criticism that their asserted regard for the Master's atoning work would have been far more manifest and impressive if their words and works had been more Christlike, their at-one-ment among themselves and with Truth more constant and characteristic. However frequent and emphatic our references to the redemptive work of Christ Jesus, we have not truly honored him save as we have come into nearer and more significant relations to the vital truth to which the great phenomena of his life bear testimony. As a result of their apprehension of the personal and practical significance of Truth's overcoming in Jesus of Nazareth, Christian Scientists are the more absorbed in the same event now transpiring in their own experience. "As the morning drinks the morning star," so the recognition of the Christ-coming which heals the sick to-day embraces the undimmed recognition of his coming in the past, to emphasize for a needy world as mortals could best apprehend it the wondrous truth of Christ's eternal and unbroken ministry.

All Christian are at one in their understanding that salvation means the renewal of the mind, "a new creature." A new apprehension of God, of man, and of all true values must appear. The change is mental, and must take place in individual experience. In other words, the Christ-coming for each individual must be in consciousness, and Mrs. Eddy has defined the process when she says, "As a material, theoretical life-basis is found to be a misapprehension of existence, the spiritual and divine Principle of man dawns upon human thought, and leads it to 'where the young child was'—even to the birth of the new-old idea, to the spiritual sense of being and of what Life includes" (Science and Health, p. 191).

This is the teaching of Christian Science which, when rightly apprehended, proves so savingly significant and eventful, and it is perfectly apparent to Christian Scientists that to beget this understanding and experience was the end and endeavor of the Master's entire ministry. In his every word respecting the subject he emphasized some aspect of the necessary innerness and individuality of the new birth, the Christ-coming to human sense, and the importance of such emphasis begins to appear when we realize how this supreme event in the history of every life has been distanced and externalized by human teaching. Christ Jesus' life and overcoming presented the perfect pattern and ideal, and in so far as Christian Scientists are demonstrating for themselves Christ's present and continuous coming for the spiritual quickening and consequent healing of humanity, in so far they are truly apprehending and truly honoring him. No amount of exalted speech or enthusiastic song respecting the transcendent events of that life can supply our lack, if Christ is not born, his works not "done," in us.

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