Article September 18, 1915 Issue

"Mental swaddling-clothes"

KATE W. BUCK

All who believe in freedom, "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," — and who does not? — can but rejoice when a way is shown them by which they may escape from time-honored customs that have grown "stale, flat, and unprofitable;" and this way is made plain through the teachings of Christian Science.

The "mental swaddling-clothes" (Science and Health, p. 255) which bind us are of various kinds, and what might easily bind one does not necessarily bind another; but bondage in one form or another is here. We cannot judge for or condemn another, because it matters not at all what may be the texture of the bandages that restrict, retard, and obscure, each must be loosened and cast aside before the one it encircles can be freed.

Mankind are certainly wrapped in swaddling-clothes, well-nigh smothered by the anxieties, fears, and false beliefs impressed upon them by their so-called progenitors. Nevertheless the "seed is in itself," and that seed is the indestructible spiritual identity which must needs develop and expand, sooner or later, regardless of or in spite of any circumstances, conditions, or environment. God's will is done, and the God-idea eternally is, and only awaits recognition. As one becomes dissatisfied with the conventions of materiality, a restless longing and consequent reaching out for something better is born, and he begins to stretch and ultimately break the bands that would suppress the ideal. Thus it gradually comes to its native freedom and spiritual dominion.

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