Editorial April 29, 1911 Issue

"THE EXACTIONS OF SCIENCE."

John B. Willis

There is nothing so uncompromising as the truth, which never sways in the slightest degree from the standard of its own integrity. It is therefore absolutely intolerant of error, which fact explains the meaning of the Scripture phrase, "The anger of the Lord," the declaration that "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." Christian Science, because it is science, necessarily expresses the unyielding demands of divine law. To those who, while coveting physical betterment, have no interest in the spiritual life, these demands seem exacting, and they are in the sense that the individual must be conformed to the eternal right, but not in the sense that he is required to sacrifice any good thing. Of this Mrs. Eddy has said, "The petty intellect is alarmed by constant appeals to Mind" (Science and Health, p. 130). This inertia of false sense was brought into prominence by Christ Jesus when he looked upon the city of his fathers and exclaimed, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, ... how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!"

Truth demands lawfulness, but it is not responsible for the drudgery and discomfiture of human experience: these are the incidents of ignorance and moral obliquity. Loyalty to divine law is the key to all the possibilities of spiritual privilege. Experimenting with unfamiliar elements, the chemist may be utterly confused with the way they demean themselves when brought into contact. Let him but chance, however, upon a ratio of combination which proves invariable, and immediately he begins to rejoice. He has found a law of chemical affinity, and at once rises from the plane of experimentation to that of command. The exactions of Truth are but the reflex of its supreme reliability, and it imparts its own authority and efficiency to all who accept its leadership; hence Jesus could say, "My yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

Much criticism has been passed upon Christian Science because of its demand that we ignore the testimony of material sense and recognize the reality of the invisible; and yet a very little thought will make it apparent how superficial this objection is. All intelligent people will acknowledge that many of their most important possessions cannot be seen; for instance, they themselves. Each knows himself in experience as something entirely different from matter. He knows that he is not subject to special measurement, that his selfhood is neither thick nor thin, neither long nor short. He is aware too that even so important a person as his mother has never been seen by him, the material appearance being only the seeming vesture of her real selfhood. In common thought and conversation we identify reality with spatial projections, but we all know well that behind all sense phenomena there is an invisible reality which gives them their meaning. The requirement of Christian Science that we look beyond the veil of sense into the realm of Spirit if we would find the real, is not a far-fetched and impossible thing. Indeed it is the only logical thing any believer in God as Spirit can do.

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