Editorial February 20, 1909 Issue

TRUTH A REVELATION

John B. Willis

Recent references to the great American Commoner have directed attention to the interesting fact that his attendance at school did not sum up more than ten months, all told. Nevertheless, although his education was thus circumscribed, it is generally conceded that many of his writings and addresses would do credit to the highest scholarship, such masterpieces are they of lucid and impressive statement. His apprehension of essential truths was so clear his perception of the just and right thing so final, and usually so immediate, his embrace of vital issues so definite, that the query of the ancient sage can but be precipitated for every student of his life, "Whence then cometh wisdom? and where is the place of understanding?" How came he to acquire such a remarkable grasp of thought, such strength and beauty of expression?

The explanation is to be found in his mental attitude toward truth, his unhesitant and unwavering reliance upon it in every time of need. Christ Jesus affirmed that his wisdom was not his own, but of the Father; and this same consciousness that God was with them and for them explains the splendid daring and consummate ability of his uneducated disciples. Here too do we find the secret of Lincoln's greatness. While not a religionist in the creedal sense, he was profoundly Christian in the best sense, because he trusted with childlike simplicity in Truth, and thus supplied the conditions for the fulfilment of the prophetic assurance, "They shall all be taught of God."

The lesson thus brought home to us is very pertinent and practical, and it will be learned by us in the measure of our individual responsiveness to the prophetic call, "Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,... and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths." Christian Science does not depreciate the value of education upon the present plane of belief. "Academics of the right sort are requisite," says our Leader; they "promote the growth of mortal mind out of itself" (Science and Health, p. 195). They supply mortal sense the requisite field and opportunity in which to prove its incapacity to solve human problems. Nevertheless it remains true that "mind is not necessarily dependent upon educational processes" (Ibid., p. 89), and this for the reason that all truth is an immediate revelation, God manifest in human consciousness, and that it may be apprehended and utilized, as Christ Jesus proved in full and as Lincoln and many another have shown in part, though the avenues for gaining human knowledge be practically closed. This human learning has ever promised great things, and there are many who yet look to its advance for the redemption of the race, but Christian Science reaffirms the teaching of Christ Jesus that to know God "is life eternal," and that this knowing is not and cannot be fulfilled through intellectual development, but only through the increase of spiritual apprehension. It is an awakening to the native freedom and unlimited capacity of our true spiritual self-hood.

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