Editorial April 13, 1912 Issue

"RISEN WITH CHRIST"

Annie M. Knott

At this season we find on every side reminders of the resurrection, and these may well lead us to inquire whether we have simply gone around a circle since last year, or whether our honest scrutiny can discover that we have really risen with Christ. St. Paul says that "If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged." If we were always to exercise toward our own thoughts, words, and acts the same keen discernment of which we are capable in respect to others, and if we heeded as we should the monitor which constantly and unvaryingly points us to the Christ-demand for perfection, we would spend little time in vain regreats for wasted opportunities to rise above mere earthliness. In this way we can prove to ourselves, if not to others, the sincerity of our desire to be Christlike.

True Christianity is always intensely practical and is inseparable from real progress. It concerns itself but little with "the lifted eye, the bended knee," and exalts being far above mere seeming. It makes the best possible use of present opportunities, and this inevitably lifts one to a higher sphere of thought and action. Contrary to the opinion of many who have not studied the teachings of Christian Science, these tend ever to make us more and more practical in our efforts to follow Christ "daily," as the Master said we should. We learn what it means to carry the light of Truth into every condition of thought into which we enter, and poorly indeed do we "follow" it we do not expect to find everywhere the divine idea, and to make this the basis of all our relations with our fellow men. In our efforts to do this we may well recall ofttimes these cheering words of our inspired Leader: "Whatever holds human thought in line with unselfed love, receives directly the divine power" (Science and Health, p. 192).

We cannot too often analyze our own motives to discover how much we are swayed by unselfed love for God and humanity. Could we but see that unselfed love is the secret of every really great thing which has ever been done for the good of mankind, we would understand better the doers, and love them more. Besides this, we would begin to see how our own efforts at well-doing can be made a thousandfold more effective, for how can any effort fail if it "receives directly the divine power"? Too often do we forget that "with God nothing shall be impossible." This was what the angel declared to Mary in announcing the coming to humanity of Christ Jesus. It was not however a new truth, for we read in Genesis that when Sarah doubted the divine promise, the question was asked, "Is any thing too hard for the Lord?" The question for us, then, is whether we are "with God" in all our deliberation and our doing.

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