Article January 4, 1913 Issue

EXPRESSION

RAYMOND CHURCHILL.

It is surprising but true that people who express joy and sunshine so naturally and freely in the home are often the most reticent when it comes to speaking in public. Doubtless this unnatural reluctance is caused in many instances by the fear of not being able to express themselves satisfactorily; and the fact that many come to our testimonial meetings week after week without ever giving a testimony would indicate that they are consciously or unconsciously consenting to an error which would violate the fundamental law of their being, namely, to express always and every-where, in both word and deed, the love and the goodness of our Father-Mother God. "Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, ... that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he." The Master said, "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth." It is evident from these declarations that as divine witnesses we live only in proportion as we express God or good.

In our text-book, Science and Health (p. 89), our revered Leader says: "Mind is not necessarily dependent upon educational processes. It possesses of itself all beauty and poetry, and the power of expressing them. Spirit, God, is heard when the senses are silent. We are all capable of more than we do." If we do not express freely the gratitude which every Christian Scientist should feel, it is because we are obeying the voice of fear and not of Truth, and we should know that it is nothing less than suicidal to repress those gentle feelings of the heart that are ever pleading for utterance. Error was a murderer from the beginning, and it is because people allow these kindly feelings and impulses to be choked and throttled, through distrust of themselves or of others, that they appear to be reticent and cold and unsociable. No doubt they would recognize this error for what it is and make a greater effort to overcome it, if they but realized that they could never get out of life all the joy and happiness to which they are entitled until they filled to the full the measure of their own offering to others. The poet was probably thinking along this line when he wrote:—

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