Article March 6, 1915 Issue

"There am I in the midst of them"

ELIZABETH H. MURDOCK

In looking over some old copies of the Journal, I came upon an article in which the writer emphasizes the need of an "uninfluenced majority" in our business meetings, and of protecting and trusting that majority as the avenue through which God's will may be made manifest. The expression an "uninfluenced majority" attracted my attention, and brought up certain questions which I have found it profitable to think about: Why do we need such a majority? How shall it be protected? Why may we trust it to express God's way? As I tried to answer these questions there came to me the familiar words of the Master, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." Now who is the "I" in our midst? The Glossary in Science and Health tells us: "Divine Principle; Spirit; Soul; incorporeal, unerring, immortal, and eternal Mind" (p. 588). But if "I" is Mind, and Mind is ever present, must it not be just as near the individual as the group? So why is the promise given to the two or three gathered together?

This leads us to consider first of all why it is that any one of us can ever at any time fail to know and reflect this omnipotent, unerring Mind. Is it not because we are sometimes so governed by the personal sense of things that Truth is hidden from us for the time? Personal sense,—the view of things which comes to us as an outgrowth of the testimony of material sense, combined with the influences of heredity, environment, temperament, education, and similar human forces,—which also means personal prejudices, personal preferences, personal selves, and all that obscuring, dividing thought whose name is legion,—this is all that can prevent our gaining and manifesting a clear and conquering sense of Truth as ever present, one and indivisible.

It follows that the thing we need to do, if we wish to know the truth, is to free ourselves from personal sense. This is not an easy undertaking, since it is so ingrained in mortal thought that we often cannot seem to see what we are being influenced by. Fortunately, however, no two of us have exactly the same personal opinions, and so it is easier to see the absurdity of another's false view when we do not share it. In this way, when a number of persons are gathered together to consider a question in free and open discussion, as widely differing views are presented, manifestly incorrect when considered together, the personal sense of first one and then another is shown to be inadequate, illogical, prejudiced, or otherwise erroneous, and is so recognized even by the individual himself, if he has come with a willingness to have the truth revealed and a readiness to receive it.

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