Editorial August 5, 1911 Issue

HOLDING ON AND LETTING GO

JOHN B. WILLIS

"THE fight has been such a long one, and sometimes I feel like giving up and letting go; but I know I simply can't, and then I take another grip and hold on for dear life." So much from the heart-to-heart tale of an innocent sufferer; and the situation thus frankly disclosed is well worth thinking about in the light of Christian Science.

The so-called grit which means nervy persistence of effort, the pluck which resists temptations to discouragement and stands by its guns in the face of fierce assault, is a quality which may fully merit the generous commendation it sometimes receives. It often distinguishes the faithful from the faithless, the brave from the cowardly, the self-reliant from the self-depreciating, the earnest and reliable from the superficial and indifferent. Nevertheless grit is not sufficient, not redemptive, and its failure often lends pathos to tragedy. It may put forth a splendid effort, make a heroic struggle, yet in itself it is but weakness in so far as it rests upon the sand of self-centeredness and self-will. If it is not grounded in divine Principle, it is without God—without an anchorage that will hold, and hence without hope.

Honest endeavor to lay hold of the truth expresses that improved belief which indeed paves the way to progress, but which must and will be passed over and beyond, as knowledge replaces good impulse and inquiry. He who has acquired even the beginnings of a demonstrable understanding of the truth, is freed in so far from the struggle of trying to hold on to the truth. The pupil who has made the multiplication table his own, has no further sense of the necessity of trying to keep hold of it. Instead of his straining to possess it, he is now possessed by it. It has become a part of consciousness, a factor of his true self. It asserts itself in all his thinking, and corrects every habit of stumbling in his calculations. He is constantly protected by that which he knows he has not made and cannot mar, because it is forever true and quite independent of him, but which, having been received into a good and honest heart, enables him to rejoice evermore.

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