Editorial November 25, 1916 Issue

Protection in Divine Originality

William D. McCrackan

THE growth of the Christian Science movement has been so wonderful in so many ways that it has sometimes occurred to the onlooker to ask himself what this movement will be like, say, in another of a century. No uninspired mortal can draw the exact outline which the future holds in store for our cause. Apart from its inevitable growth and the conditions prescribed by the Manual of The Mother Church, as well as those necessarily resulting from the teaching and practice of Christian Science itself, nothing can be definitely predicted of our cause itself except its continued originality. Herein lies safety, for if uninspired mortals could foresee the exact outline of this movement, mortal mind might be tempted to plan its destruction, might even now initiate an attempt to efface that outline. Since, however, no uninspired mortal can foreknow God's ways, which are always original, mortal mind itself is powerless to forestall or frustrate His plans. Divine unfoldment is meaningless to that state of mind which desires to overthrow Christian Science.

A study of Mrs. Eddy's career reveals the fact that she did not endeavor to fulfil the expectations of mortal mind, or to follow its methods, but on the other hand constantly surprised and frequently antagonized it. Herein lay her eventual security from the various efforts made to destroy her work both in discovering and founding Christian Science. It may be added, without thereby expressing any criticism of her followers, that Mrs. Eddy rarely acted in a manner which was understood at the time by Christian Scientists themselves. The stamp of divine originality marks every phase of the work which she founded. The Metaphysical College, the Church of Christ, Scientist, and the various provisions for reading-rooms, periodicals, committees on publication, lecturers, teachers, practitioners, etc., all reveal the touch of inimitable uniqueness. Not mortal ingenuity but divine inspiration worked out these plans through a consciousness willing and obedient to take necessary human footsteps under divine impulsion.

The rules and by-laws in the Manual of The Mother Church are thus described in a letter to be found on page 148 of "Miscellaneous Writings" : "They were not arbitrary opinions nor dictatorial demands, such as one person might impose on another. They were impelled by a power not one's own, were written at different dates, and as the occasion required." Evidently they were far removed from any theoretical or doctrinaire influence, and we may add, they reveal the touch of woman as well as of man. The Mother Church nourishes and cherishes, and its Manual is therefore designed in the first instance to protect, not to penalize. It is clear, then, that scientific protection does not lie merely in following the line of least resistance, or in a perpetual attempt to smooth things over. In Isaiah we find a rebuke uttered against "a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the Lord: which say . . . to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things." Protection follows the line of obedience, and may sometimes lead temporarily into places humanly conceived of as rough.

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