Editorial December 9, 1916 Issue

Choosing the Better Part

William D. McCrackan

On the occasion of the dedication of the extension of The Mother Church in June, 1906, our Leader sent a message to the members entitled, "Choose Ye." It was a clarion call to draw the line of demarcation between good and evil and to choose the former. It may be safely stated that every Christian Scientist now within the ranks of the movement has found Christian Science by choosing what appeared to him to be the better part, until the best dawned upon his consciousness. Only by a process of selection, impelled by right desire and guided by understanding, can any human being advance from better to best.

It is obvious that passivity, indifference, apathy, or what is technically known as neutrality, can never under any circumstances further obedience to the Leader's call. The consciousness of a Mary of Bethany, who was finally able to recognize the Christ, must have been previously at work choosing the better part; while a Martha, confused over many things, accepting all that came to thought as equally real, was like the foolish virgin who had no oil in her lamp when the bridegroom came. Better to have made mistakes in choosing, than never to have chosen at all, for the end of the latter state of inaction is marked by an inability to distinguish between good and evil, that is to say, by a state of moral idiocy.

In unmistakable terms Mrs. Eddy has laid down the following rule for human conduct on page 289 of "Miscellaneous Writings": "From a human standpoint of good, mortals must first choose between evils, and of two evils choose the less; and at present the application of scientific rules to human life seems to rest on this basis."

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