Article August 14, 1915 Issue

Love's Sure Reward

ROBERT NALL

Whittier's picture of "the passive soul" who "in waiting stands" to receive the blessings of "the one true Life," makes a very insistent appeal in moments of quietness. It portrays a halcyon mental condition that seems to be a foretaste of the attained perfect ideal. A similar thought is evolved by the psalmist's counsel of trust: "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him;" but a literal interpretation is, as we know, often misleading. Passivity and rest are relative; they may be the only true activity. The mightiest forces are the most silent; all nature evidences this. If we lived more in the unseen, to mortal vision, we should know more of the power of Love.

The only effective healing treatment for our ills is that which rises above the clamor of the mutable and the mortal, and apprehends that spiritual law which ever operates peacefully and gently in the fulfilment of its majestic and sacred function. Yet is it not human experience, as Mrs. Eddy has so clearly explained, that "because God is Spirit, evil becomes more apparent and obnoxious proportionately as we advance spiritually (Science and Health, p. 207)? One might understand its becoming more "obnoxious,"—our whole mental world becomes transformed under the gracious influence of Truth,—but why more apparent? We do not desire to see more of evil, but less; that is the longing of every earnest heart. And it is just this surely that Mrs. Eddy meant, for she concludes the sentence quoted above by saying, "until it disappears from our lives." This stamps its unreality.

We may take it for granted as an axiom that in the study and practice of Christian Science there is nothing to discourage but everything to encourage. Spiritual gravitation is heavenward, not earthward. Love makes no demand upon any of us that we cannot fulfil. Every divine command, every promise, every instruction, is accompanied by enabling power. This is implied—involved indeed—in the eternal truth of the unity between God and man. Thus it is that in Science the fear which sometimes besets the pilgrim that he will falter and fail, and perhaps not be able to persevere to the end, is seen to be an illusion. We are not to be afraid even when evil or any mortal belief takes what appears to be an aggravated form; it may be this is a token that in a measure we are doing our work aright, and thus forcing the entrenchments of the enemy. Error will have caused us to retreat if it can make us discouraged. Our privilege is to press on, ever faithful to the spiritual ideal of God and His perfect creation.

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