Editorial June 5, 1915 Issue

Saving Goodness

John B. Willis

No forest monarch figures more prominently, perhaps, in Scripture than the fir-tree, and all wood-lovers will recognize how fittingly it stands for true greatness, for the union of strength and sweetness. It ministers not only in its towering uprightness, but in the fragrant atmosphere with which it surrounds itself and in which all may find both refreshment and delight. It thus symbolizes the Christlike man, one who gives equal expression to truth and love, to unyielding integrity and to unfailing compassion. Here Christ Jesus comes immediately into view. The "strength of the hills" was in him, while his spirit distilled a loving-kindness which with pervasive generosity brought comfort and joy to all who were troubled and distressed; and this is the kind of man which Christian Science projects and evokes.

Fenelon was noted for his sterling inflexibility of character, and yet it has been said by one who was ever with him, that he was "never known to speak brusquely to any one ... nor did a harsh or contemptuous word ever escape him." This remarkable equanimity of good temper and good cheer which marked his bearing toward all and under all circumstances, is accounted for by the fact that he had learned to "love God in all men," a thought upon which he himself enlarges in one of his celebrated letters to the Duke of Burgundy. "Nothing," he writes, "is so sterile, so cold, so constrained as a heart that loves only itself in all things; while nothing can excel the frankness, the tenderness, the gentle loveliness of a heart filled and animated by divine love."

Christian Science emphasizes the teaching that the goodness of the Christian life is to be very much more than a comfort and a delight; that there is a very great difference between the belief of being good and goodness itself; that while to be kindly and good-natured toward all men is well, it is by no means sufficient; that redemptive love is compellingly though perhaps quite unconsciously corrective, a fact which is not apprehended apart from divine Science. Respecting this Mrs. Eddy says, "A pure affection takes form in goodness, but Science alone reveals the divine Principle of goodness and demonstrates its rules;" and she further states that when this kingdom of heaven reigns within us, "sin, disease, and death will diminish until they finally disappear" (Science and Health, pp. 147, 248).

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