Editorial June 14, 1913 Issue

"TREASURE IN HEAVEN."

Archibald McLellan

When Christ Jesus said, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect," he doubtless recognized that he was setting a standard of conduct which only the greatest measure of love, goodness, wisdom, intelligence, and understanding could look forward to as the manifestation of man in the image and likeness of God. He had no false hope that mortal mind, the belief of life and intelligence in matter, could reach this perfection of being, and that this mortal mind and its substratum, matter, should be glorified. He did know, however, that humanity is capable of rising to that spiritual perception of God and His idea, man, which is the understanding that he said is life eternal. He knew that matter could not be spiritualized, but that thought could be raised to such a perception of God as Life, Love, divine Principle, Mind, as would give humanity a more spiritual outlook and a higher ideal; an understanding which would make real in human experience those qualities to which Mrs. Eddy refers when she tells us in Science and Health (p. 465) that "the attributes of God are justice, mercy, wisdom, goodness, and so on."

Mrs. Eddy's contribution to humanity was the discovery of the Principle and rule of Jesus' words and works, which ever pointed to the perfection he urged all mankind to seek and which he knew to be the reality of being, and the application of this discovery to the needs of mankind through teaching and practise. Through her book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," and her other writings, and the demonstration of the truth therein contained, she has shown the futility of depending upon mortality and material things for the perfection which Jesus urged; therefore Christian Scientists are turning away from the glamour and complexity of matter to the sublimity and simplicity of spiritual things in their progress heavenward.

Jesus said to one who came to him, asking what good thing he should do that he might assure himself of eternal life, "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me." At this supreme test of the earnestness of his desire, the young man faltered. He had kept the commandments, observed the outward forms of the prescribed religion, but his love of things material, "the god of this world," outweighed all else, and he "went away sorrowful." He was unable to balance temporal possessions against the heavenly treasure that fadeth not away, to estimate at their true value the things which though not seen are eternal. And when the disciples, wondering, asked, "Who then can be saved?" Jesus answered them, "With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible."

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