Editorial May 15, 1915 Issue

Remembrance

Annie M. Knott

A Great deal is said in the Bible about remembering and forgetting. Sometimes God is called upon in poetic strain to remember His covenant with His people, and more often they are bidden to remember all the goodness which has passed before them,—the triumphs of spiritual law and divine power over all the threatenings of evil. We sometimes find stern warnings, as when Jesus said to the caviling Pharisees, "Remember Lot's wife." This woman perished because she persisted in looking back to conditions from which she and her family had been bidden to flee. It may be that she had forgotten the command given by the angel: "Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed."

When the great Teacher bade the Pharisees remember Lot's wife, he was outlining the struggles of humanity when the demands of God's kingdom are pressed upon them. He made it very clear that any clinging to materiality in such an hour would cause one to lose his life, whereas he who was willing to surrender the mortal sense would preserve his life. Mrs. Eddy says (Science and Health, p. 261): "We should forget our bodies in remembering good and the human race. Good demands of man every hour, in which to work out the problem of being." In his second epistle St. Peter makes a stirring appeal to the followers of Christ to rise to the heights reached by their Master. He reminds them that all things pertaining unto life and godliness had been bestowed upon them, so that they might even be "partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." He urges them to add to their faith virtue, knowledge, patience, godliness, and other Christian graces, and says that he who lacks these things has forgotten what it means to be "purged from his old sins." His appeal is very touching, for even then the shadow of martyrdom was falling upon him. He says, "I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things," and he assures them that if they are diligent in this spiritual endeavor, they will neither fail nor fall.

Christian Scientists undoubtedly remember spiritual realities and spiritual obligations in a way they never deemed possible before they learned, through Mrs. Eddy's teachings, the truth of their own being,—that man is a partaker of the divine nature, as the apostle assures us. This fact is brought to their remembrance each time they essay to overcome evil, whether manifested as sin or sickness. If their task ever seems difficult, it is because they have burdened themselves with many things which should have been forgotten, and have not remembered daily, hourly, the blessings which divine Love has provided all through the years. Thus Whittier says,—

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

Lecture in The Mother Church