Editorial April 2, 1910 Issue

THE LAW OF INCREASE

John B. Willis

In any catalogue of the known obstacles to spiritual progress contentment-without-increase would certainly find place well toward the head of the list. Its significance as a deterrent lies in the subtlety of its deceptiveness, in the fact that it rejoices in those achievements of good which it is trying to induce one to think he is not worthy of or is not able to make his own.

The development of the buds, the appearance of the leaves, the opening of the flowers, the ripening of the fruit,—all these may delight the senses; but it is apparent that they are only incidentals, only the preparatory antecedents of enlargement and multiplication. This association of life with growth is universal, and it is upon the lawfulness and legitimacy of this expectation of gain that the parable of the talents is based. The servant who was content with the preservation of his one talent of capital, and neglected to add thereto, is named as not only "slothful" but "wicked," and despite his affected humility and high regard for his lord, he is cast "into outer darkness" as a penalty for his offense.

When one thinks of the problme of the world's redemption in the light of the naturalness and necessity of this law of increase. he can but realize how the course of human history would have been changed if the healing truth which Christ Jesus committed to men, and which he evidently expected them speedily to make effective among "all nations," had been permitted, through the succeeding centuries, to "run, and be glorified," in individual growth. If Christian believers, following the example of the early disciples, had gone on to attain, as St. Paul hoped and prayed they might, "unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ," this world would have long since been redeemed. The vast majority of Christian people are not only untroubled by the mediocrity and inadequacy of their spiritual attainments, but they deny even the possibility of measuring up to the efficiency of the early disciples; and as for going beyond them in spiritual apprehension and power,—for one to suggest such a thing would be to find himself classified with the "abnormally pious." It is into this realm of conventional indifference to the demands of religious duty that the word of Truth, spoken again in Christian Science, has come as a great "disturber of the peace." and to many its offense is altogether unpardonable.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Editorial

MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING