Editorial September 25, 1915 Issue

Finding One's Self

Annie M. Knott

The wise man says, "Most men will proclaim every one his own goodness: but a faithful man who can find?" Again he asks: "Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies." Here the Christian Scientist may ask, How may one find himself,—a self that is both faithful and virtuous? As we read the wonderful parable of the prodigal we have a picture of one who expressed neither of these qualities until his illumination came. Failing to link his thought to Principle, he failed in everything until he was ready to give up his material and sensual concept of man. When he was ready to do this, "he came to himself;" more than this, he found the true self well worth knowing, one worthy of the father's loving embrace, and fit to wear "the best robe," the ring, and the shoes which betokened sonship. This happy experience is well expressed by Mrs. Eddy's words on page 171 of Science and Health: "Through discernment of the spiritual opposite of materiality,... man will reopen with the key of divine Science the gates of Paradise which human beliefs have closed, and will find himself unfallen, upright, pure, and free."

In thinking upon the prodigal's experience it would at first seem that it was a case of instantaneous healing, as a Christian Scientist would term it; but the story shows the working out of spiritual law, which proved first the utter wickedness of mortal belief, and next its entire failure to satisfy man's immortal cravings. It presents a slow and painful process on the human side, up to the point when the whole of the mortal concept was abandoned as worthless and the man found himself. We are not told much about this new-found self, because the greatness and goodness of the father so fills the thought; but richer far than any jewel was the rare and beautiful virtue of humility with which it was adorned, and we are told that "by humility ... are riches, and honor." We also read that such an ornament is "in the sight of God of great price."

The student of Christian Science will readily see in this parable a hint of the vital fact that the infinite Father never loses sight of His own idea. He never ceases to know this idea, and it is almost startling to human sense to be told that He was apparently unconcerned about the wanderings of the false concept known as the prodigal. The wanderer had evidently started out as a devotee of pleasure in the senses, and on his quest had wasted all his substance, till at length grim want stared him in the face; but it is not necessary to assume that he was merely a sensualist. The prodigal is simply a type of mortal man who strays as far as it is possible to do from the Father who is Spirit, Mind, and the "riotous living" may mean that one believes he can revolve in a self-chosen orbit and compel all others to bow before his sway. Mortals alternately indulge self-conceit and self-condemnation, oblivious of the fact that neither of these mental states has any relation to the true selfhood which delights in doing the Father's will and deserves His commendation.

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