Editorial May 13, 1916 Issue

"Be courteous"

Archibald McLellan

Mere courtesy, what the world terms politeness, is an art which may be easily acquired by those who are willing to devote sufficient time to the observance of certain accepted forms and conventions for reputation's sake, but courtesy in its truest sense is that outward manifestation of kindliness and consideration for others which springs from an inward grace. That is why we sometimes find the most exquisite courtesy tendered by those from whom, as the world judges, one would least expect it.

We are accustomed to think of Peter as the Master found him, a rough fisherman, unlettered, untutored in the gentler arts, and yet the story of his life from the day when with loving compassion he said to the man who lay helpless at the temple gate, "Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee," is an exemplification of that grace which comes from the heart alone. It is he who counsels the members of the early Christian church, "Be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous." How he had come to perceive the necessity for and the occasion of this grace is very simply told by the chronicler of the acts of the apostles: "Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus." Peter had listened to that gentle voice which still speaks to earth's burdened ones, "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart," and had learned the secret of Jesus' "power ... over all the power of the enemy,"—he loved God supremely and his neighbor as himself.

Nowhere is the Master's loving-kindness more clearly manifested than in his tender compassion for the sick and the sinning. The multitudes thronged him; they brought their sick and helpless ones and laid them at his feet, and we read that "he healed them all." He dealt gently yet justly with the sinning; in his intercourse with all men he sought ever to demonstrate the supremacy of good and the consequent nothingness of error. It is this same loving compassion of the Master, the love, the pity, the courtesy which he who had been with Jesus urged, that Mrs. Eddy has embodied in the teachings of Christian Science, the Science epitomized in that gentle precept, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."

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