Editorial June 15, 1918 Issue

Living Witnesses

William P. McKenzie

Acquaintance with the truth of being enabled the psalmist to say, "Thou art near, O Lord; and all thy commandments are truth." He was able to see also how not distance but discord separated blessing from man, saying, "Salvation is far from the wicked: for they seek not thy statutes."

The joy and privilege of one who knows the truth as to God the Savior is clearly stated through inspiration by one who said, "I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord." Once a question was asked concerning a group of workers and students in Christian Science, Whence came they? The questioner had in mind locality and perhaps occupation. The one who made the reply, however, was reminded of the answer given by John to a similar question, "These are they which came out of great tribulation;" for the one questioned thought of the many victories over error and sickness which were represented in the group, and so said simply and truly, "Most of us came from our graves." Their experience had illustrated the truth of the statement found in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 323): "The true idea of God gives the true understanding of Life and Love, robs the grave of victory, takes away all sin and the delusion that there are other minds, and destroys mortality." It recalls also the statement in Ezekiel: "Ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves, and shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live."

The Christian Science movement has included in its workers and promoters thousands of those who saw first in their own lives the marvel and mystery of Truth in operation. Peter in his address to the household of Cornelius declared "how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him." "And," he went on to say, "we are witnesses of all things which he did." Likewise there are witnesses to the work of the Comforter, "the Spirit of truth," in these latter days. For the encouragement of those who are seeking Truth, who believe that they shall recognize it by the sign of salvation, the periodicals of our movement have always recorded such signs or evidences, naming them testimonies of healing. Those who write these testimonies are the living witnesses—not merely living but loving also, that is, living with a new sense of life. It may here be said that whatever the purposes of medication may usually be it is not the purpose of Christian Science healing to make anyone merely a healthy animal, or to give one such material successes that he may for example come under the ban indicated by Isaiah when he said: "Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!" The life and the love revealed through Christian Science make one spiritually minded, superior to covetousness and animality.

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