Why Trouble Ye Me?

"Oh , well, what's the use! What difference does it make whether you call something matter or the projection of a false belief? Won't you experience just the same results if you run into it in the dark?" The inquirer was a very earnest Christian man, but for the moment he had assumed an attitude of thought which, strange to say, is soberly maintained by many who would class themselves as "plain common-sense people." They taboo what they call "metaphysical nonsense," and in so doing practically shut the door on that active desire to know the truth which is the harbinger and necessary antecedent of spiritual freedom.

"What's the use!" has assaulted the ears of all progressives and non-conformists. As our good-natured railer would concede, it expresses the thought of that tremendous social factor which includes "highly respectable conservatism," the lovers of undisturbed content, as well as the victims of prejudice, ignorance, and mental listlessness. Indeed, relatively few people are really glad to be prodded into a livelier pace, and this fact explains just how our best friends often make us exceedingly uncomfortable, and, too, why the appeal of Christian Science ofttimes becomes an offense. The average man finds it easier to follow the round of his modest orbit without exertion. Life thus becomes largely automatic, and mental struggle is quite unknown. He commits all determinations to habit or to unconscious bias, and so, instead of having to make his way through the brush of prevailing belief, he simply accepts the customary or the conventional and follows the curves of the common path.

This is the mental biography of the many, and this because of their love of mental ease. Christian Science awakens thought, stimulates its nobler assertiveness, and thus begets the growth of a sense of individual freedom and capacity in Christ. This is one of its greatest benefits. It discloses the "infinite capacities of Truth, in which God gives man dominion over all the earth" (Science and Health, p. 202). It places no limit upon the verities we are privileged to know and utilize, and it is proving conclusively that the Christian world has suffered an unspeakable loss as the result of its willingness to leave unmastered that spiritual truth which, as Christ Jesus explicitly taught, his every disciple should understand.

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Editorial
Perfection
January 24, 1914
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