Article May 6, 1916 Issue

"The guest of God"

WINIFRED M. BENJAMIN

"Stranger, thou art the guest of God." These interesting words, found on page 254 of Science and Health, at once awake the query, "What does it mean to be a guest?" In social experience this privilege involves the propriety of coming at once into agreement with the plans of one's host, and to become the guest of God surely requires no lesser exaction. The Scriptures, read in the light of Christian Science, present a divine plan for our contemplation. Through the institutions of the various covenants, the laws of sacrifice, of Sabbatical observance, there appears a federative idea or a recognition of a bond between the sacrificer and God, the salvation of mankind from everything unlike God and His attributes being accomplished through the observance of certain rules, the divine purpose being brought to the human sense at one time by the commandments, and at another by the beatitudes. In proportion to his observance of these one finds his unity with a divine plan, and perceives their idea to be federative rather than expiative.

Until God's purpose is understood and we recognize that one's place in the kingdom is that of guest rather than host, the kingdom of God will be meaningless to us, and the belief that man is a creature of chance will never give place to the conviction that man and the universe are alike governed by divine Principle. The Sabbatical observances of the older Scripture were designed to lift the thought of the Hebrews above the sense of absolute ownership of anything, the great underlying law of God's ownership of man's time and property being developed, unfolding a law of assured supply as well as certain demand; and in addition, of spiritual salvation from covetousness and from the fear of limitation or lack. Of old the psalmist wrote, "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein." Who then can question the divine authority?

The Sabbatical observances consisted of a system of tithes: one day in seven to be God's day, the tithe of time; the seventh month, the tithe of the first fruits of the harvest; the seventh year, the tithe of the land, in which the land was to enjoy its Sabbath, or rest, after six years' sowing. In the twenty-third chapter of Exodus we read: "Six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the fruits thereof: but the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still; that the poor of thy people may eat: and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thy oliveyard." After seven of these years of rest the year of jubilee followed, a season of rejoicing in work well done and its sequence, spiritualized consciousness, or at-one-ment with God. In spirit and in truth were they found to be guests of a bounteous host, in fulfilment of the prophecy: "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it."

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