Editorial June 24, 1911 Issue

"IF YE CONTINUE"

John B. Willis

In the hour of temptation to discouragement because of the manifest inadequacy of our present realization of Truth to solve a given life-problem, we may find both illumination and rebuke in Jesus' words when he said, "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed." How gentle and yet how searching the reminder thus brought us of the past waverings both of our faith and our devotion, the lack of patient persistence which has marked our efforts to follow the Master, and how fully do our lapses from the ideal endeavor explain the failures which we so honestly deplore!

It is apparent that the Christ-mind cannot be attained unless there be a passing, in our habit of right thinking, from the intermittent to the continuous, from the spasmodic to the orderly, from the government of impulse to the government of Principle. The oscillations of mortal sense, of mood and temper, feeling and desire, are inevitably made manifest to our discredit and disadvantage in both conduct and achievement, and until acquired mental control and fixedness of faith have brought us the poise of understanding, we shall often be depressed by the sorrows of defeat when we might just as well have been uplifted by the joys of success. In Christian Science it is clearly seen that this spiritual poise which alone saves from the stumblings of impulse and mental vagrancy, is the mark of every truly cultured man, and that it is essential to the higher realization of divine Truth.

Of this fact the Scriptures present us with many illustrations, but none that are more pertinent than that found in the contrast between the character and experience of Job and of John. The hero of what has been spoken of as "literature's greatest epic," was ever a prey to the surging tides of contradictory sense, and he came into possession of an invulnerable assurance only after a schooling which proved a fiery trial of integrity. John, on the other hand, having learned early and well the art of unvarying response to heaven's gentlest appeal seems to have soon reached and always retained that altitude of spiritual perception which enabled him to foresee the coming "day of the Lord," and herald its glories to the millions yet submerged in darkness below. Serenity of spiritual wisdom became for him, as it will become for all, a prism which reveals the otherwise hidden splendors of a light that is "above the sun."

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