Editorial June 27, 1914 Issue

Man's Unlimited Endowment

John B. Willis

No chapter of the Book of books is more impressive, more wonderful in declaration, or more worthy of our study than the seventeenth chapter of John, for it is a marvel both of content and of diction. It voices the longest known prayer of the world's Redeemer, and opens to us the treasury of his heart of hearts, the depth of his love for God, for his disciples, and for all mankind. It is a poem of spiritual perception and filial piety; it is an epitome of the gospel, and speaks for the daring of trustful affection, the uplifting freedom and venturesome spontaneity of a grateful "confidence toward God."

This attitude of faith is at once recognized as ideal, as normal to the true Christian, and as supplying the condition of entry into the experience of joy and peace in every life relation. It should characterize the thought of every believer, even as assurance and expectation characterizes the thought of the mathematician as he applies the basic law of numbers to a problem in hand, and draws upon this law without the least reserve. Speaking of his Father-Mother God, and ours, the Master did not hesitate to say, "All ... thine are mine." He rejoicingly entered into the possibility of utilizing the infinite Life, Truth, and Love. He asked largely, that his joy might indeed be full, and he thus revealed the colossal dimensions of what the unknowing would call his presumption, the disposition personally to appropriate the universe of good. As we come to think about it, however, we recognize that this is the instinct both of the diamond and the dewdrop, with respect to light, and why, in the very nature of things, should it not be the instinct of man, as God's image, with respect to spiritual truth? Why should he not rejoice in the fulness of his freedom and authority as a son of God?

In this portrayal of the possibilities of a godlike life, one finds the richer meanings of the word "reflection," as Mrs. Eddy has used it, to express the relation of man to God, his endowment, as St. Paul says, with all the riches of grace in Christ Jesus. The understanding of the wide-awake boy is mirroring every truth, not only of the multiplication table but of mathematics, and this because he is dealing with universals, every one of which belongs by inheritance to intelligence. Christian Science declares that Principle is expressed in its ideas, and this metaphysical truth takes form in every uplift and compass of faith, even as it finds noblest expression in this wondrous prayer of Christ Jesus.

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