Editorial February 10, 1917 Issue

The Freedom of the Sea

William D. McCrackan

Every human right has its counterfeit in some human abuse. Thus the phrase "the freedom of the sea" when rightly understood spells sea safety for men, women, and children of all nations, but when perverted it would legalize the pirate, the gun runner, and the slave ship. A catch phrase of this kind must therefore be closely scrutinized, and the only safe procedure for a Christian Scientist in weighing the value of such a phrase is to turn from matter to Mind, from physics to metaphysics. What in reality is freedom and what is the sea?

In accordance with the teaching of Christ Jesus, Christian Science admits of no real freedom except that which is associated with Truth. While mortals are recognized to be free moral agents, capable of mixing what seems to be good with what seems to be evil, of being sick and of sinning, the real man of God's creation is incapable of evil and therefore cannot be said to possess the right or the freedom to sin. Spiritually considered, therefore, freedom is inseparable from Truth, and cannot be connected even remotely with error of any sort.

And what of the sea, as interpreted metaphysically by Christian Science? Mrs. Eddy, recognizing the need for an interpretation of words according to both divine truth and human error, has given us the two explanations of the sea in Science and Health. Thus on page 559 she refers to the sea as "elementary, latent error, the source of all error's visible forms;" and on page 536, as "a symbol of tempesttossed human concepts advancing and receding." These definitions obviously refer to the beliefs of mortal mind and present a suppositional and human concept of the sea.

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