Editorial July 1, 1911 Issue

"STAND THEREFORE"

John B. Willis

One of the many unwinsome aspects of the mortal make-up which prove intolerable to nobility is that general limpness which tells of the lack of distinctive character. Witness the severely caustic terms with which St. John was instructed by the "great voice" behind him to scourge the Laodiceans for their inexcusable tepidity. "I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." Whether it be the expression of false humility and self-depreciation, or of a sense of unworthiness, laziness, discouragement, or fear, the absence of vertebral assertiveness is sure to exhaust the patience of the saints and to be attended by inefficiency and humiliation.

The rebuke of this weakness is found in every least realization of the dignity and destiny of man, and for Christian Scientists it is forever put to shame by the heroic courage and faith, the decisiveness and devotion, which so signally marked the life of their revered Leader. It is, moreover, a fault which is absolutely out of keeping with their philosophy, and yet we are not infrequently tempted to give it place, especially in the presence of a wholly unanticipated defeat. It was on such an occasion that Joshua, the customarily courageous, was once found grovelingly blaming the Lord for the outcome of a gross act of disobedience; and the utter unworthiness of his attitude, as well as his complaint, was brought to his attention in words which have lost nothing of their fitness for the kindredly disposed: "Get thee up; wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face?"

Limpness always gives evidence of a forgetfulness of Principle, a conscious or unconscious reliance upon personality, and when through repeated failures the total inadequacy of this support is impressed upon human sense, he who has no scientific hold on God—for him the very foundations seem to be removed, and he becomes a prey to timidity and indecision, if not to indifference and despair.

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