Editorial September 23, 1911 Issue

"AND SHUT THY DOOR."

JOHN B. WILLIS

THE apocalyptic call, as recorded by St. John, "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in," speaks not only for the compassion of divine Love, but for the necessity of an attitude of hospitality toward Truth upon the part of all who would be saved. On the other hand, the counsel of the Master, "When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and . . . shut thy door," voices that demand for exclusiveness toward error which must be coincident and coordinate with our responsiveness to Truth.

This thought of the necessary exclusiveness of a truly Christian life seems harsh to those who are enamored of a type of so-called liberalism, who are disposed to concede some good to everything, and who on the basis of an asserted love for good, feel authorized to open their thought to and to become possessed of much that is erroneous and blighting. To shut the door against the unconventional and repugnant is easy enough, but to shut the door against venerated opinions, against the tastes and impulses and appetites which have been long indulged, and mayhap much enjoyed,—this calls for a strenuous, independent assertion, a persistent loyalty to the Christ-ideal which, as mortal sense would have men believe, is unnecessarily exacting. Nevertheless, when one thinks over this mandate of the Master which Mrs. Eddy has so happily rephrased in her counsel to "stand porter at the door of thought" (Science and Health, p. 392), it is seen to be no less reasonable than necessary. Indeed it is the only thing for every sensible and aspiring man to do.

We instinctively turn away from the uncanny and malodorous accretions of a common dump, and have a feeling of commiseration for those whose need impels them to rake over its reeking rubbish, and in so far as we are spiritually minded we must experience a corresponding aversion to the yet more unsavory refuse of mortal thought. Nevertheless, how often do the dainty fingered and highly respectable of the earth open their "closet," the inner chamber of thought, to the very sewage of material sense! "Shut thy door"! Why, yes, how unseemly and self-polluting any other course; and yet custom and the dominion of habit bear witness that many "nice people" seem really fond of wading about in this noxious tide, and supply themselves with the gruesome opportunity to do it every day! "Shut thy door"? Yes, in the name of all that is sane and wholesome, that we may "keep our mental home a sacred place," sweet and clean. This is but one of the beginnings of that better daily doing which belongs to and certainly waits upon a genuine acceptance of Christian Science, for to Christian Scientists the hideousness of every falsity has been revealed, the unspeakable hazard pertaining to every hospitality we extend it.

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