Editorial January 11, 1913 Issue

A SONG OF ASSURANCE

John B. Willis

A thoughtful reading of the ninety-first Psalm brings one a keener sense of the fitness of the union of truth and beauty, of the expression of the highest ideal in the highest art. This realization enables one, withal, to discover a new meaning in the Master's counsel that we "consider the lilies of the field," for we at once relate his thought to that majestic opening of the nineteenth Psalm: "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handy-work." The thought of the psalmist might have been expressed in unembellished prose, but instead he uses a refined poetic form, and appeals to the reader's imagination in a series of wondrously beautiful figures of speech. First we have the picture of the bird safely sheltering its little ones; then, by contrast, the picture of the impregnable fortress of God, to which all may flee, and then of the angel-accompanied pilgrim who is guided and supported to the end of his journey.

Interesting though it be, the question of form fades, however, when we come to consider the compass and completeness of the salvation from human ills of which divine Love here assures us. There is no darkness or doubt, as we are told, which it will not dispel, no affliction it will not relieve, no assault of malice or hatred it will not defeat, no possible danger from which it will not succor, and Jew as he was, St. Paul must have been thinking of the fulfilment of these rich promises in his own experience, when he said of the manifestation of this divine Love, that he "is able to save unto the uttermost."

The fulness and range of these promises are not more striking, however, than are the conditions named upon which their fulfilment depends, and Christian Science is not only scientific but stimulating in its recognition of these conditions, since it is proving the possibility of meeting them. "The secret place of the most High," in which the beneficiary of these promises must dwell, is the holy of holies of spiritual communion. Into it, under the old order, the high priest alone was permitted to enter, once a year, but today the healing and saving access of all to divine Truth is no longer subject to question. "He that dwelleth" expresses the all-inclusive democracy of the gospel, the freedom and privilege of which are again being made manifest. While the apprehension of the truth of being in Christian Science modifies in no degree the exactions of divine law, a fact which we all do well to remember, it does lead us to see how the conditions of promise may be met. We are freed from our long-time enslavement to ignorance and self-depreciation. Knowledge of the truth has conferred the ability to profit by the truth, and we are no longer impelled to cry out, "It is too hard, I cannot attain unto it!" The identification of man as the divine idea makes his companionship with God a comprehensible experience, and gently leads the spiritually aspiring over the threshold of the Father's house.

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