Article January 12, 1918 Issue

"It is he that hath made us"

JESSIE C. E. KIRBY

These words from the one hundredth psalm,—"It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves,"—with the jubilant note of confident rejoicing over the everlasting mercy and goodness of God, whose "truth endureth to all generations," come as a reproof to those who are struggling with that false sense which so insistently claims to be "ourselves;" while echoing down the ages comes Pilate's question, "What is truth?" The answer to this question is most clearly given in our textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 472): "All reality is in God and His creation, harmonious and eternal. That which He creates is good, and He makes all that is made. Therefore the only reality of sin, sickness, or death is the awful fact that unrealities seem real to human, erring belief, until God strips off their disguise."

"He makes all that is made." What, then, is this man we ourselves attempt to make, this being with whose personality most of us busy ourselves from the cradle to the grave? To this Christian Science answers: Nothing but the illusion of material sense, which, like the monster in Frankenstein (that strange story of the human-made man), breaks away from and passes beyond the control of its maker, while, grown to gigantic proportions, it sweeps aside or tramples underfoot all that would oppose its progress. What a pitiful sight is this material man, the ignorant slave of his own false beliefs, as he moves wearily on toward a saddened old age! How dreary the outlook as time passes! How aches and pains and limitations accumulate with advancing years, thinks this victim of his own false beliefs, and then sighing miserably he says: "I must not forget that I am growing old. My age is nearing the allotted span of human existence, and this being so, I must necessarily have something the matter with me; indeed, I am fortunate that it is no worse, and I cannot expect to be even as well as I am now if I go on living much longer." And so, ceaselessly accumulating and making a reality of the delusive evidence of the material senses, he sinks into an old age which Shakespeare pitilessly describes as "second childishness and mere oblivion." Such is the man "we ourselves" make.

Contrast this picture painted by erring mortal mind with that of one who realizes in some degree the beautiful truth that God made us; of one who makes a daily practice of realizing to the best of his ability that man as God's likeness is not material but spiritual. Claiming perfection as the only reality, he fears neither sin, sickness, death, nor any form of limitation, because he knows that they are none of them true; for him there is only one reality, and that is God, good. Thus he goes serenely on, conscious of a God-given dominion over all sense of error, all fear of the whispered suggestions of mortal mind as to the reality of old age and decay, to the realization of the truth of our Leader's inspired teachings as to the real man's possibilities.

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