Editorial April 8, 1911 Issue

"SHAKE THYSELF FROM THE DUST."

John B. Willis

The effort to establish a habit of cleanliness, whether of person or of thought, is always rendered practically hopeless so long as dirt awakens no sense of repugnance. The cleaning-up process may be gone through with again and again, but apart from a distinct repulsion for the unideal, the results, as we all know, are too transient to be worth while. To secure any permanent gain there must always be an advance in self-estimate, a desire to be free from the belittling, a growing love for the highest and best. In a word, aspiration must precede all genuine self-improvement.

This fact gives peculiar and abiding significance to the emphasis which Christian Science lays upon the necessity for the recognition of God's man, the perfect unfallen selfhood, as the true initiative of all spiritual progress, the ground of impulsion to all effective ethical endeavor. Christian Science calls its every student to strive for the acquisition of this true self-asserting, self-respecting sense, by refusing to know any man "after the flesh." In this it is at-one with St. Paul when he enjoins the Corinthians that they "awake to righteousness," that they may "sin not;" also when he counsels the Colossians: "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above." That is, the desire to attain companionship with Christ is, and must ever be, the basis and preliminary of spiritual attainment; it is that true growth in Christ which enables one to shake off the dust of materiality, to resist intelligently the impulses of selfishness and sensualism.

The phrasing of the statements of both Isaiah and St. Paul is thus seen to be entirely in keeping with the metaphysical facts. Though one be covered with dust, he never identifies himself with it. It is regarded as foreign and incongruous, and hence it is discarded without hesitation and without reserve. So likewise will a clear and constant separation in thought between man and materiality contribute to a more speedy escape from all that pertains to the flesh, all that the apostle referred to when he enjoined the Ephesians to "put off,,, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;" and that they "put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." Cleansed within, one's cleanliness without becomes a natural sequence which will grow to be both instinctive and habitual.

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