Editorial October 31, 1914 Issue

Where?

Annie M. Knott

In the book of Job the heights and depths of human experience are many times touched with a pathos which shows that the vital questions of life have been the same in every age. We read that this patriarch, who had known an unusual measure of happiness, goodness, and prosperity, was suddenly shaken by the stormy blasts of adversity, so that nothing remained to him but his integrity. His flocks and his herds were carried away by barbarous enemies, his servants were slain, and, saddest of all, his children perished in a cyclone. We can scarce wonder that his wife, swayed by material sense, bade him "curse God, and die;" but the final outcome of Job's great struggle is made sure when we read that out of the depths of his sorrow and desolation he could say, "Blessed be the name of the Lord."

In his mournful soliloquies, as he ponders the mortal problem of life and death, Job asks, as men have been asking from that day to this, concerning each dear one who has gone from their side, "Where is he?" The only response to this question which can come from the material side, would be that our beloved are in their graves, and Job was apparently under the pressure of this thought when he prayed that God would hide him from his grief in the silent tomb. But Christian Science teaches us that as Spirit can never be submerged in matter, no more can spiritual sense, which is the crown of true humanity, accept the material evidence that man either begins or ends in dust.

Mrs. Eddy says, "Life is the origin and ultimate of man, never attainable through death, but gained by walking in the pathway of Truth both before and after that which is called death" (Science and Health, p. 487). After all of Job's hard struggles, and the unavailing attempts of his three friends to solve his problem, at length spiritual light broke through the darkness and he made the inspiring declaration which has cheered so many: "I know that my redeemer liveth." He also saw, as did Paul, that "though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day." He could therefore realize that in his true being he would see God, and reflect the Life which knows no death.

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