Article March 20, 1909 Issue

CAUSE AND EFFECT

HORACE H. THAYER, JR

As the relation of God to man and the universe unfolds to us through our understanding of the Bible truths in the light which Christian Science throws upon them, and through our proving of these truths, we realize more and more the presence and activity of an all-pervading, resistless law which enters into the smallest details of daily experience. We rejoice in this understanding, for through it we feel the power and presence of God. We recognize that whatever is actuated by a thought of right, love, good, has law at the back of it and benediction in its train, and that everything small or great which departs from this law separates us just so much from the blessing which inevitably follows the doing of the right. We begin to understand that inharmony of every kind is simply a negative quantity, a loss of that consciousness of the government of God, in which "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," becomes to us a self-evident truth.

With a growing and proof-supported understanding of this law, let us take heed that we do not look for the reward of either right or wrong done by ourselves or others. How easy it is to apply the teaching, "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," to individual experiences, especially in connection with the good done by ourselves and the evil done by others. It is doubtless right to expect good for ourselves and others, for all that God made is good; yet we should not consider that the harvest reaped from a sowing of good seed can be determined or planned for by ourselves. Our duty is not to look for results; our duty is to sow. The harvest is determined by the laws of God, and is invariably the blessing of a further duty to perform, with an abundant supply of everything that is needful for its performance.

On the other hand, what does the expectation of evil as the result of some specific departure from the all-encompassing law of right imply? We do not sentence ourselves. Are we authorized to sentence our brother? Is not even the recognition of misfortune as having come to a man for wrong-doing often an indication that the misfortune had been expected or mentally prophesied, and that the prophet had been condemning his fellow-man?

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