Article March 20, 1909 Issue

A DEMAND OF THIS AGE

J. S. BRAITHWAITE

This is an age in which, despite the multiplication of intricate inventions and bewildering social problems, there is a greater demand than ever before for simplicity of thought and its natural consequent, the simple statement of thought. The simplest statements are the most pregnant with meaning and are always the most convincing. Of all the things where simple and direct phraseology is most needed for a complete interchange of ideas, that which stands foremost is religion, yet nowhere is it possible to find a more complex literature than that which surrounds this subject. The Century Dictionary defines knowledge as "the state of being aware of truth." Now if this were the generally accepted fact about knowledge, that it is a "state of being aware of truth," a condition of consciousness, we might indeed say that the time had arrived which is predicted by Jeremiah, the days when "they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord."

The world, however, puts a different construction upon knowledge, and we find it defined by Mrs. Eddy in Science and Health (p. 590) as "evidence obtained from the five corporeal senses; mortality; beliefs and opinions; human theories, doctrines, hypotheses; that which is not divine and is the origin of sin, sickness, and death; the opposite of spiritual Truth and understanding." This is a sufficient explanation of the strifes and debates which have marked the religious history of mankind for many centuries, but there are signs that a new era is dawning in which spiritual understanding will be recognized in all its grand simplicity, and individual integrity of thought no longer be marred by dogma or sectarian bitterness.

The command to begin with was simple: "And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand." It could not well be more simple, and yet we fail to preach in such simple terms. We plead the excuse that it would not be understood in this age, but is it not rather because we do not ourselves understand it. There was also the command to "heal the sick;" and this, too, has been set aside becasue "the simplicity that is in Christ" was not understood, until Christian Science revealed it. Reference to the dictionary reveals the fact that simplicity literally means single-mindedness as opposed to duplicity or double-mindedness; therefore simplicity includes a sense of poise and stability which duplicity can never enjoy. "A double minded man is unstable in all his ways," wrote the apostle James.

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