Editorial July 24, 1909 Issue

BURNING OUR BRIDGES

John B. Willis

It would be rather difficult, surely, to find a seriousminded student in any department of collegiate study who is not ready to give up his old and faulty notions about things for the new and demonstrably correct views which are being imparted to him. He may have entertained very definite opinions regarding many matters pertaining to his study, but he approaches his subject with the desire to be instructed and with a corresponding willingness to part with his ignorance and his false sense of things. He is, in short, altogether teachable.

The desire to study anything is in itself a tacit acknowledgment of one's lack of information respecting it, and of his willingness to begin with its fundamentals and master them step by step, in order to progress. This attitude is so in keeping with the common-sense demands of the case, and so imperatively necessary whatever the subject of study, that we are not surprised to find Christ Jesus repeatedly putting this requirement in the strongest terms to those who were seeking spiritual truth. Said he, "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple."

It would be difficult to give greater prominence than this to the necessity of a readiness to give up all that hinders our gaining the knowledge of the Christ, Truth, and our Leader but emphasizes our Lord's demand when she says: "We must not continue to admit the somethingness of superstition, but we must yield up all belief in it and be wise." "To all that is unlike unerring and eternal Mind, this Mind saith, 'Thou shalt surely die'" (Science and Health, pp. 353, 277).

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BURNING OUR BRIDGES

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