Editorial September 15, 1917 Issue

Habits

William D. McCrackan

Humanity prides itself on its good habits,—but is there reason to set so high a value upon mere habits, even if they are accounted good? That which passes for habit is so often merely an attempt to circumvent inspiration. It is apt to be based upon fear and to smack of mental laziness. Limitation sets its prison mark upon almost all human habits. They run in grooves and prevent human beings from hearing or heeding the voice of Spirit. The political habit makes a man vote with his party, right or wrong; the ecclesiastical habit keeps millions in bondage to false gods and places a barrier between them and the only true God. The habits which make men follow the same daily routine, use the same paths, turn the same corners, remark on the same features of the landscape, repeat the same jokes,—these habits belittle and confine. They may induce people to pride themselves on being reliable and sedate, but there is no true growth, no possibility of progress in them.

Spiritual progress involves a constant change of habits. Inspirational living is not at first habitual, but spontaneous. Man's attempt to outline his own mode of living exposes him to the doom of all flesh, but obedience to spiritual intuitions insures safety. The worst that "spiritual wickedness in high places" can wish for its victims is to have people consider themselves of settled habits, whether for good or bad. Then supposititious evil intelligence can always know where to find its prey, and the good human off guard falls easily into every trap of mental deviltry. There is nothing more disconcerting to intentional evil than the obedience of the Christian Scientist to spiritual inspiration. Since evil cannot understand spiritual spontaneity, it is necessarily baffled by the one who follows Spirit instead of mere habit.

But some one will say, Surely the habit of going to church is good, the habit of keeping the body clean, the habit of not contracting debts. The answer is, Yes, and no. As a mere habit, going to church has no efficacy for good, and might indeed bring one into subjection to the worst scourge of the human race, namely, ecclesiasticism. But if the desire to know God and His man actuates one in going to church, that desire is blessed and not the habit. Mrs. Eddy found herself under the necessity of warning the readers of her textbook even against "the mere habit of pleading with the divine Mind, as one pleads with a human being," which, she writes, "perpetuates the belief in God as humanly circumscribed,—an error which impedes spiritual growth" (Science and Health, p. 2). On the other hand, she assures us that "the habitual struggle to be always good is unceasing prayer" (p. 4) ; and on page 11 she writes, "Prayer cannot change the unalterable Truth, nor can prayer alone give us an understanding of Truth; but prayer, coupled with a fervent habitual desire to know and do the will of God, will bring us into all Truth."

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