Editorial July 5, 1913 Issue

"CHRIST IN YOU"

John B. Willis

No more fitting symbol for St. Paul is found than in that great spreading oak whose roots have laid a mighty hold upon the earth and rock of the hillside, and whose knotted branches lift themselves into the upper air with a vigor that braves all storms. His faith was wondrously deep-rooted, and he gave himself to its all-conquering theme, "Christ, and him crucified," with an inspiring abandon. His loyalty to the logic of the fundamental teaching of the gospel was unreserved and insistent. He had no fear of the truth, no hesitation about attaining the Christ-manhood, and he stood for all that was involved in his theology as he met all that was involved in his world-defying ministry. His thought of man's spiritual possibilities had that tremendous outreach and expectation which is so startlingly expressed when he says, "Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ."

Elsewhere he defines the fulness of our possible spiritual experience in the phrase, "Christ in you, the hope of glory," and since his time no religious teacher has so embraced and projected this exalted thought of man appearing in the Christ-likeness, as has the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. Many reformers and saints have been splendidly devoted to the realization of the divine ideal as they apprehended it, but their identification of selfhood with the body of material sense has always darkened their outlook and handicapped their hope. Mrs. Eddy essayed flight upon the unfettered pinions of this Pauline concept of human privilege, and this explains the altitude she gained.

This thought of the Christ-appearing in human life pervades the Master's teaching. His life, as he constantly declared, was not to be unique in its inspiration and spiritual authority. It was the rather to be duplicated in every faithful believer. They were to know his Father, have his commission, exercise his power, and enter into his joy, and this is the teaching of Christian Science. It is a new vision of the continuing Christ, and it makes quickeningly intelligible the words of the Master, "I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you."

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