Article December 7, 1918 Issue

The Magnet of Principle

AGNES E. LOCKE

Christian Scientists are very grateful to-day for the inestimable benefits they have gained from the careful study of the interpretative writings of their Leader, Mrs. Eddy, in the illumination of the words and works of Jesus. They feel that so much depends upon the right understanding of his demonstrations of Truth. The spiritual import of the old Bible stories associated with childhood's first impressions, comes to enlightened thought as a messenger bearing a healing balm which saves and regenerates. The presence of the Christ is again felt as it was by the woman who in the days of Jesus "touched the hem of his garment" and was healed.

The parable of the prodigal son seems to be particularly illustrative in its application to the awakening thought in this judgment day of transitory human beliefs when, to many wanderers in dreams of sense, all is gloom, terror, and famine. Conflicting mortal concepts are being lost in a chaos of self-destruction. According to Luke's record of the parable, the younger son, seeking new imaginations of self-indulgence and sensuous enjoyment, leaves his home of affluence and love to wander in strange lands, taking with him all his worldly possessions, only to consume them in fatuous pleasures. Satiated and impoverished, he finds himself finally in a land of famine, bereft of even the bare necessities of existence. In this extremity he turns "to a citizen of that country" for aid, only to have a more wretched experience in squalor and fruitless toil, until at last he reaches the darkest hour of mortal misery. But in this mental midnight tempest of despair and anguish, an angel of compassion visits him. Like a gleam of starlight in the gloom comes this silent, unseen influence, touching a chord of memory in the heart. It is some tender reminder of the distant home of joy; of a patient, compassionate, loving parent! Remorse and repentance stir the awakening thought to a strange, new impulse of meekness. Famished, unclean, undeserving, the prodigal makes a resolve to turn his weary feet toward home, there to plead for the privilege of serving under the grace of parental bounty as a mere hireling.

There is a beautiful inference in Jesus' depiction at this point of the narrative: "But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him." Yet a great way off! Speaking of the restoration of lost Israel the prophet Jeremiah presents the idea of God as infinite Father-Mother Love, "I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee." Principle as Love never changes, never falters, never forgets. The bond of Love is never severed. The irresistible, unseen influence of everlasting Love is forever drawing to itself its own reflection. In the parable of the prodigal it drew from out a darkened sense of animality and fear a new resolve. As an angel of light it snapped the mental bondage which was intensified by human ignorance of the truth, the supposititious magnetism falsely claiming to be as irresistible in its downward gravitation as is the attraction of everlasting Love, drawing ever upward away from the falsity of evil!

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Poem

The Christian Science Reading Room