Article March 22, 1913 Issue

AUTHORIZED LITERATURE

ELIZABETH EARL JONES.

The American people, for the most part, are expressing gratitude for the recent pure food act, which assures protection to dealers and consumers alike by maintaining in Washington a commission whose duty it is to test and pass upon all foodstuffs offered the market. If so great care is taken to insure the purity of the material things which are but a passing and temporal provision, how much more should we exercise every possible precaution to have our mental food, the literature which we read, wholesome, unadulterated, pure, and elevating. The divorce evil, so widely decried today, is largely traceable, as is also much sickness, sin, and suicide, to the reading of novels and newspapers which instill and cultivate unwholesome and pernicious thoughts. On the other hand, many homes and hearts have been reunited, many bodies have been healed, many minds uplifted and reformed, by a thoughtful reading of the pure literature which Christian Science is giving the world. While there may be much that is beautiful, pure, and good in current mental foods which has not been passed upon and authorized, yet we must all agree that we cannot be too careful in excluding from thought everything concerning which we are in doubt as to its genuineness and purity. A good rule to be followed, both by readers and authors, is to take fiction as fiction, and fact as fact, and to keep them separately classified, since their confusion in our mentality is calculated to injure the fine moral fiber of intuition.

It is interesting, in reading the Acts of the Apostles, to note the great care exercised by the disciples to keep the Master's teachings pure and unadulterated. We read that the apostles "laid hands" upon those whom they considered worthy, and fitted to teach and preach the glad tidings of the ever-present healing Christ; and we are told that only those upon whom hands had been laid were received as loyal exponents by the early church. It is reasonable to believe that the apostles, in establishing the church of Christ, acted upon the instructions of Christ Jesus, and their example is therefore of inestimable value to us. This example was closely followed and applied to present-day needs by our revered Leader, Mrs. Eddy, who discovered for us the new-old ministry of the healing Christ, Truth.

To all who adhere to the straight and narrow way revealed by divine Love, in the activities and triumphs of our great cause, peace, health, and increasing harmony are assured, despite the seductive illusions of material sense. To those who miss the heavenly road and suffer accordingly, the way to recover the right path and to continue the demonstration of life in God, has been made plain in the statement of practical Christian Science as contained in The Mother Church Manual, one of the by-laws of which lovingly and forcefully assures us that "God requires our whole heart, and He supplies within the wide channels of The Mother Church dutiful and sufficient occupations for all its members" (Art. VIII, Sect. 15).

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