Editorial October 16, 1915 Issue

"As thyself"

John B. Willis

Despite all the confusions of Christian belief, the timidities and manifest uncertainties of the many who are sincerely seeking to be guided of God, it still remains true that the divine address to human sense is so specific as to render the misapprehension of essential duties quite impossible. The iteration and reiteration of the prophets respecting individual life and conduct is a distinctive feature of all their writings, while the teaching of Christ Jesus and the apostles is no less characterized by careful, oft-repeated directions.

This is well illustrated in the Master's words respecting our fraternal obligations. The loving of our fellow men is to be simply in the manner and measure that we love ourselves. This instruction is so perfectly lucid that all who have the will to obey can have no possible difficulty in determining how to do it. And yet how frequently one hears Christian people express the thought that they are quite at sea respecting their civic and communal responsibilities. They realize that they are their brother's keepers, and that the wrongs and injustices which burden the race can never be eradicated until Christian men and women are actuated by the spirit of brotherhood which fulfils the second commandment, which expresses genuine Christianity, and which if it were as universal today as is asserted faith in God, would speedily transform this turbulent world into a paradise of peace. Nevertheless they "don't know just what to do."

"As thyself"—these are the definitive words, and how fully explanatory they are! We all know the nature and the measure of self-love. At its best it is continuous. There is never any let-up to its assertion and activity, never a moment when we are forgetful of our interests so far as they are discerned and apparently imperiled. In this sense, sunshine or storm, the average man is always "on deck." Self-love never dies, never weakens or becomes torpid; it lasts like the stars.

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