Editorial March 13, 1915 Issue

Special Pleaders

Annie M. Knott

No one who has had deep religious experiences will deny that the psalms contain profound spiritual teachings. In them the very depths of mortal misery are touched, and then thought is lifted to see the real man's divinely bestowed possibilities. The varied phases of the mortal dream, its sin and suffering, are graphically described, but in the midst of the saddest strains there comes the assured declaration, "I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness." Gleams of light are to be found on every page, and in Christian Science we learn how to relate these to their divine Principle. Thus we discover the infinite depths which await the sincere seeker after Truth. Here we may well pause to ponder these words of our revered Leader: "The rays of infinite Truth, when gathered into the focus of ideas, bring light instantaneously, whereas a thousand years of human doctrines, hypotheses, and vague conjectures emit no such effulgence" (Science and Health, p. 504).

In the seventy-fourth psalm we find a sorrowful plaint that the enemy has invaded the sanctuary and defiled the dwelling-place of the Most High, which spiritually interpreted would mean that mortal mind had, to material sense, usurped the place and prerogative of infinite Truth, and claimed power to rule over men. Then comes the prayer, "Arise, O God, plead thine own cause." In the light of Christian Science we can see that one who is ignorant of the allness of divine power, and who admits that there is power in evil, is wholly unprepared to plead the cause of God and His idea, man. When in the depths of suffering, Job cried out, "O that one might plead for a man with God;" but in due time he learned, as must we, that God never withholds any good thing from us, and that our plea should be addressed to the human sense which is embedded in error, that it may be aroused to see that God is infinite in goodness and power and is ever ready to deliver those who are willing to accept the truth. It thus becomes clear that we do not need to plead with God, but for Him.

Later in the book of Job we read of a special pleader, "a messenger," "an interpreter," who comes to plead man's uprightness as the image of God, and who graciously says, "Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom." Then we are told of healing, of uplifting; the poor sufferer learns that God is "favorable unto him," not a stern judge, and so he looks up and with joy sees the Father's face. He has found that there is no profit in sin, and so he forsakes it. This pleader in the book of Job prefigures in a wonderful way the work of the Christian Science practitioner, who is cheered by remembering that "all these things worketh God oftentimes with man,"—not alone in Job's day, in the time of the psalmist, or even in the glorious healing ministry of Christ Jesus, but "oftentimes;" yes, daily and hourly now as the pleaders for God and His law gain a hearing.

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