Editorial September 20, 1913 Issue

Our Larger Privilege

John B. Willis

Mrs. Eddy gives a startling intimation of the all-inclusiveness of the place and privilege of the true Christian Scientist when she says that "God expresses in man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis" (Science and Health, p. 258). Christ Jesus realized this ideal of an ever expanding spiritual consciousness and efficiency, and if, as we all affirm, it is ours to do his works, it is certainly ours to gain his grasp of divine Truth. Cause always precedes effect. God is light, and as He rules in us it is manifest that our mortal sense darkness must disappear, and that our power to dispel darkness must correspondingly increase. Said the Master, 'If therefore thine eye be singly, thy whole body shall be full of light."

It is further apparent that thoughtful and thankful recognition of this wondrous fact of our "high calling of God" has directly to do with its demonstration. Spiritual power is definitely related to spiritual intelligence, and this knows no limit. Christ Jesus respected both the local sentiment and the local need when he counseled his disciples to go first to "the lost sheep of the house of Israel;" but when in due time he commanded them that they go and preach the gospel to all nations, he quite ignored the racial pride and exclusiveness of his people, and declared for the unlimited arena of Truth's redemptive compassion. Of us, as of all true disciples, it is to be said, "Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world," and our inspiration and joy should correspond to this tremendous orbit of privilege. To be sure that through our Christlike knowing and living Jesus' Messianic work is to be continued in the illumination and healing of those immediately about us, our family, neighbors, and friends, is to gain an abiding sense of the sacredness of life and duty, and yet how inadequately does this measure the extent of the vital interest and effective activity to which we are called.

Writing to Timothy, Paul reminded him that prayer was to be offered daily "for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority;" and this may have inspired Pym when he wrote that "a man's religion should show itself in having the country well governed." Mrs. Eddy has rephrased Paul's injunction in her expressed desire that every Christian Scientist should daily pray, "May Thy Word enrich the affections of all mankind, and govern them" (Manual, Art. VIII, Sect. 4). Christian Scientists are not only to be alert to human problems and meet all the demands of good citizenship, but they are to have immediately to do with the final solution of these problems by their conscious and purposeful radiation of the truth of being respecting them. Our responsibility thus articulates itself with every great issue and with all mankind; we are to live, to love, and to labor for all, as did the Master, and every true life is thus to become a great event; our daily prayer, "Thy kingdom come," is to be divinely determinative in the lift of the whole world into light.

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