Editorial August 30, 1913 Issue

THE CALL OF TRUTH

Archibald McLellan

Our Master, when questioned as to which was the greatest or most important of the commandments, declared that "all the law and the prophets" were included in the commandment to love God supremely and one's neighbor as himself. In other words, he who loves God with the understanding, with all his heart, mind, and strength, will perforce keep all the commandments, since he will have no time or desire to do aught but the will of God, the will which Christ Jesus came to do and which he exemplified in his service to mankind. Paul had grasped the spirit of this teaching when he wrote to the Hebrews: "Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works."

In like manner the Preacher sums up man's duty to the creator in his counsel to "fear God, and keep his commandments;" and the call today is no less imperative, but it demands, as Mrs. Eddy points out (Science and Health, p. 3), "absolute consecration of thought, energy, and desire." Nor should it be forgotten that none are exempt from this call to service, and that it is to works rather than to professions of faith. As followers of the Master we are unfaithful to our trust if we fail in our duty to God or to our fellows through any lack on our part to discern and to do the right. If we are honestly striving to do the will of God, we shall not hesitate to obey even at the cost of dislodging and casting out the idols of self-will, self-love, hatred, and envy, to whose behests we have, though unconsciously, bent the knee.

"The guerdon of meritorious faith or trustworthiness," Mrs. Eddy writes, "rests on being willing to work alone with God and for Him,—willing to suffer patiently for error until all error is destroyed and His rod and His staff comfort you" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 118). To know the right and adhere to it at any cost is never easy, but we of today can scarcely appreciate the bitter experiences through which our Leader was called to pass, when she literally stood and worked "alone with God," with the hosts of theology, medicine, and the press arrayed against her; yet she emerged triumphant because she knew, through the works of healing she had been privileged to do, that she was being obedient to the higher law, obeying God rather than man, and that the "signs following" were the proofs that she had been walking with God and so had naught to fear from the condemnation of men.

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"MY STRENGTH."
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