Article December 27, 1919 Issue

Jesus of Nazareth was the master-workman, and in this,...

The Christian Science Monitor

Jesus of Nazareth was the master-workman, and in this, as in everything else, he is the way. If the world would remember this, and would pay more actual heed to the example of his daily life, as he went about Jerusalem and Galilee intent upon his Father's business, it would be better for it. Unfortunately the claim of orthodox theology that he was God has almost stifled the world's effort to obey his command to walk in his way, and to repeat his works. Yet as Mrs. Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 46), "Jesus was 'the way;' that is, he marked the way for all men."

Can any person imagine Jesus taking a holiday? The gospel historians answer the question in one of those inspired flashes with which they illuminate an entire situation, or reveal a man's character: "And in the day time he was teaching in the temple; and at night he went out, and abode in the mount that is called the mount of Olives. And all the people came early in the morning to him in the temple, for to hear him." There the reader of the Bible story has recorded the day of Jesus the Christ, a day exemplified exactly in a sentence of Mrs. Eddy's, beginning on page 519 of Science and Health, "The highest and sweetest rest, even from a human standpoint, is in holy work." This must necessarily be so to anyone who has grasped the fundamental fact in Christian Science that causation is spiritual. For if this be admitted, it follows that there can be no exhaustion in the divine Mind or the "great First Cause," whereas the human mind, material in its essence, is, even on the showing of the medical faculty, not only liable to exhaustion, but ultimately doomed to decay. This accounts for the feverish excitement so frequently produced by amusement, and the restlessness generated by chronic indulgence in it; and explains the sardonic jest of a master of epigram, that "life might be tolerable if it were not for its diversions."

Every true worker knows the joy of work, as well as the joy of that rest, indistinguishable from the work, of the contemplation of and preparation for further work. This joy, in George Herbert's famous saying, is true of the sweeping of a room; it is the taking advantage of opportunity, and so paving the way to further opportunity. Carlyle has expressed this joy of work, whether of the broom or of the pen, whether of the spade or of the pencil, in the very perfection of words, "Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness." Yet it is a beatitude from which a goodly portion of the world is forever taking, or asking for, a holiday. No doubt Carlyle would have replied to such an objection, that your holiday maker was of the great family of the fleeing hireling, and could not leave his work because he had never found it. The true worker spends his days, because he cannot help it, in the temple, and his nights, because he cannot escape it, on the mount which is called the mount of Olives.

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Jesus of Nazareth was the master-workman, and in this,...

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