Editorial November 18, 1916 Issue

Putting on the Armor

Archibald McLellan

There is a story of a certain legendary warrior who, because no arrow the enemy might launch could wound him, came to be looked upon as under the special protection of the gods and therefore invulnerable. Then one day a subtle enemy discovered the one weak place in the warrior's defense, and forthwith hurled the weapon that compassed his defeat. History, even though it be mythological, has a way of repeating itself, and it behooves the religious warrior of today to look well to his armor, that from helmet to heel-piece he is equipped to meet unafraid the assaults of evil.

Even as the three Hebrew children faced the fiery furnace with undaunted courage, and Daniel the den of lions, David the Philistine giant, with many other heroic standard-bearers, so the Christian Scientist, conscious that he has behind him that same invisible host which spread their sheltering wings over these children of the one God, may declare as did the psalmist, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me," than which there is no higher defense. Clothed with the consciousness of the omnipotence of good, he can bid defiance to that which, though ever boasting itself to be some great thing, our Leader has shown us is "nothing, no thing, mind, nor power" (Science and Health, p. 330).

Mrs. Eddy goes on to enumerate some of the various forms which error assumes in its pretense of reality,—"lust, dishonesty, selfishness, envy, hypocrisy, slander, hate,"—that Christian Scientists may be on guard against these pretenders, recognize their nothingness, and displace them, as St. Paul counsels, with those things which are honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report, to the end that "the peace of God, which passeth all understanding," may keep their hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. These would-be destroyers of our peace and prosperity of mind and body, though ofttimes pleasant to the eye and promising much in the way of sense gratification, must be relentlessly unmasked and known for "the works of darkness" which they are, and then the Christian Scientist in his "armor of light" will come off victorious in the encounter.

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"Likeness"
November 18, 1916
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