Article September 26, 1914 Issue

"They shall never perish"

HELEN ANDREWS NIXON

In the tenth chapter of John's gospel the above reassuring words occur. Jesus' message was for all mankind. To be sure, he did not promise that those who did not believe his message should be saved in their sins, but he did say that all who heard and heeded it should in his age and in every age know him as the way and follow him to the Father. He said, moreover, "All that are in the graves [in oblivion to his message] shall hear his voice." Each one is to awaken, sometime, somewhere, to the voice of Truth, and come forth.

Jesus' supreme confidence in the omnipotence of good inspires all his followers. This confidence in the immortality of good is the seal of discipleship. It is born with the advent of spirituality in human consciousness. Human experience untiringly repeats "the old, old story of Jesus and his love." However hard and soul-searching an experience may be, at the end thereof the mortal is brought face to face with himself, his innermost self, and with the reality of things. Erroneous, selfish interests alone are ephemeral. The universal problem with its true solution survives every conflict of selfish interests, and points to the operation of divine Principle in human affairs. Each human being comes to see that he is undergoing a purifying process, that he himself is being saved alive, though his "goods" (his selfish plans, projects, and purposes) perish.

Jesus' words, "They shall never perish," are wonderfully proven true as we realize—grow to realize, perhaps after years of blindness—that the purpose of life is not to destroy or cause to perish. We finally grow to understand that the purpose of life's discipline is to teach us to lay aside voluntarily and lovingly all that is unworthy of perpetuity. Thus to learn aright life's lessons is to gain the highest and purest joys. All mankind have but one teacher, one shepherd, one fold into which all shall finally be gathered. Through the exemplification of this fact the scientific verity of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man is brought to light. This is earnestly longed for by the better class of men and women today, and in Christian Science it is seen not as a far-off event, but as the present living fact of facts.

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