Article July 6, 1918 ISSUE

Guidance and Law

SAMUEL JOHNSTONE MACDONALD

No experience is trivial. No manifestation of truth can be insignificant. God being eternal and infinite Truth, every concept of truth must be apprehension of the infinite, a step toward that knowledge which is life eternal. As in mathematics the same basic law is proved whether we figure in units or millions; as in music the law of harmony appears as truly in a simple chord as in the full diapason of a mighty chorus; as truth dwells in an elementary statement equally as in the most profound; so spiritual law may be recognized as clearly in the sustenance of one of the smallest of the fowls of the air as in the feeding of the five thousand in the wilderness. Likewise in individual experience the omnipresence and omnipotence of divine Love is revealed as fully in some familiar daily action as in some so-called great emergency; in the purveyance of daily food as in the more dramatic and spectacular "hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach." In the same manner as the falling apple revealed to the observant eye and attentive thought of Newton the mode of action now familiarly known as the law of gravitation, and as the daily commonplace of the steaming kettle spoke to the inquiring mind of Watts of the dynamic energy of steam; so to the thoughtful student of Christian Science is made visible in "the trivial round, the common task," the ever present universal law of Spirit, controlling and directing all. He thus learns it to be practicably and demonstrably true that "the Lord is King for ever and ever" and that He is indeed "the governor among the nations."

The law of guidance, as for practical convenience it may be named, may be found stated succinctly but clearly and comprehensively in Proverbs 3:6, "In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths." In this law, it is evident at once, there are no reservations; it applies to "all thy ways," without exception. It is not reserved for what are known to men as striking events, vital emergencies, great crises, or deadly perils; it is equally operative in the simplest daily problem. As we constantly use the numeration table and its basic law in calculations which are apparently the most trivial, and are, also, equally guided by it whether the operations be elementary or abstruse, so we should learn to rely with equal confidence upon the universal law of guidance in our most familiar and intimate affairs. These surely need the direction of divine Mind to less than "Arcturus with his sons."

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