Article October 28, 1911 Issue

"BE STILL, AND KNOW"

FLORENCE STRATTON WEAVER

If one were called on to face the whole world and explain in one sentence Christian Science, it would seem as if no better statement of its requirements could be found than the simple words of the forty-sixth Psalm: "Be still, and know that I am God."

In looking back into the old thought we can see perhaps that in us there was no lack of daily Bible study, no lack of daily prayer; but we can see that there was a great lack of both quiet and knowledge; and it was not until we began to study Christian Science that we could realize why it was that we could not be still. It was as though a mother were taking her child through a long dark passage, and should say: "We are going to pass a great live monster, but if you will keep very close to me and hold tight to my hand, I will not let him hurt you." We can see that, although the child might keep ever so close and hold ever so tight, his consciousness would in all probability be filled with fear of the monster rather than with trust in the mother, however great at ordinary times his love for his mother and his faith in her.

But consider another situation and hear the mother exclaim: "We are going to pass a fearful looking monster in our walk through the dark, but he is not alive, he is not real; he is only a dressed-up image and cannot frighten you, because, as I have told you, he is only a make-believe." We can be sure that in this latter case there would be no alarm. So, in the old thought, although we loved St. Paul's words when he assured us that he was "persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers"—nothing whatever—could "be able to separate us from the love of God," still we were not healed of our sickness, we were not delivered from the knife; we could not get rid of "the sin which doth so easily beset us," and this for the reason that, precious as these words seemed, they were thought to refer to some far-off time in some far-off place, when after the battle of life was over and we ourselves were "saved; yet so as by fire," we would be able to look back and acknowledge that somehow all things had worked together for our good.

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