Editorial July 9, 1910 Issue

WORLDLY PLEASURES

Annie M. Knott

There is a wide difference of opinion among professed Christians as to the extent in which they should indulge the desire for the pleasures of the senses, some sects prohibiting certain forms of amusement altogether, and others permitting them, except at specified seasons. It has, however, been noticeable that to the awakened conscience all such indulgence seems hazardous, and so, many have sought safety in asceticism, from the feeling that the temptation to worldly pleasure of any sort can be best avoided by sever self-discipline. It is, nevertheless, the experience of the many who are healed in Christian Science that the things of sense, one after another, cease to allure, as spiritual realities are recognized and begin to take their rightful place in human consciousness. The unreality of evil is soon admitted, and its false manifestations are seen to be but shadows which are pierced by the keen rays of "the Sun of righteousness."

How inspiring it is to hear a man tell of his emancipation in Christian Science from the awful bondage of belief in the pleasure and power of sin in all its forms. Perhaps the drink habit was the first to yield to the action of the truth. This chain had been willingly assumed at the start, through the belief that there was pleasure in it, and later came the belief that it had power to resist the utmost efforts of the human will, even when backed up by drugs and prayers. Our revered Leader says that "the pains of sinful sense are less harmful than its pleasures;" then she adds, "Belief in material suffering causes mortals to retreat from their error, to flee from body to Spirit, and to appeal to divine sources outside of themselves" (Science and Health, p. 405). It is by doing this that freedom is gained, and as the erstwhile bondsman of sense looks up to the heights of Soul, whence cometh his aid, he rejoices to know that

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