Article January 4, 1913 Issue

REFORMING HABITS

REV. WILLIAM P. MC KENZIE.

The gracious work of Christian Science is manifest in the redemption of men from the control of habits which, though undesirable, they once considered fixed. They would resist and resent the control of an evil habit, but they believe it to have a strength and malevolence superior to man's divinely bestowed faculty of self–government. Yet men defeated by habits which they had indulged, and hopeless regarding freedom, have found life made new for them as they came to understand how man is governed by divine Mind. Science and Health says (p. 125): "Reflecting God's government, man is self-government." By this vision something entirely new has come into operation in their lives, and as they better understood what it is that governs man, they have seen how inevitably true it is that "of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end." Nothing shall be left unredeemed and uncorrected. As Isaiah foresaw, there shall be a complete change of nature and habit expressed, even in animals: "The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock."

Some habits are like tiger cubs which men adopt to their hurt. At first they seem harmless and perhaps amusing, but as they are nurtured they gain strength to dominate the man to the injury of his manhood. Indeed all evil habits and vicious tendencies have the appearance of innocence at their inception. Evil and bestial seems the condition of the drunkard degraded to the underworld of city life; but when in his youth he was honored, flattered, and banqueted the inevitable end was not foreseen. The tumult of angry passion in the young child which adults think amusing, may grow to be the flaming wrath which in a whirl of madness may lead to murder. The indulgence afforded by fond parents who seek to bring up their children in luxury, may develop imperative desires which must be satisfied regardless of the rights of others. The father may mourn over the wounding of his heart by the prodigal son, but he indulged the vainglory and pride of spending, perhaps congratulating himself that his son's position was superior to that of the laborer who first must earn what he spends. Sometimes, when a man's insane pride holds to a bitter feud with a brother, he will deliberately implant hatred in the mind of his son, so that malice may be prolonged into the next generation. This is as if he gave to the child a tiger cub for a playmate, careless of the wounding that must follow.

What strange results follow the dallying with taste! All manner of drugs are used to satisfy peculiar likings which by satisfaction grow to be abnormal needs. Sometimes the drug-user becomes so enslaved by his habit that characteristics appear whence he is described by his friends not as a man but as a fiend. It is unnecessary to make any list of the drugs whose use destroys manhood and self-control, but in every nation from the savage to the supercivilized may be found preparations which minister to abnormal taste with degrading results. Yet many of these disintegrations of moral character which bring calamity to a man and grief to his friends, begin with the suggestion of delicacy and luxury. Furthermore, many of the opiates and narcotics have in the inception of their use the sanction of medical advice. Many a man knows, however, that he would have fared better if he had taken a tiger cub to his bosom, since the laceration from feline claws would more readily heal than the wounding caused by his drug-habit.

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