Article April 19, 1919 Issue

Inspiration Natural

JOHN B. WILLIS

Nothing can be more sure than that our thought respecting the possibility and naturalness of divine illumination will measure the everyday earnestness with which we seek for it, and the joy of our assurance of its realization in the time of need. He who looks upon the quickening which came to the ancient prophets, and especially to him who was greater than a prophet, as available only to the unique, the rarely endowed, and thinks that immediate touch with God is and can be gained only by the elect few—such a one will not be impelled to seek for this wisdom-bringing experience. Having no adequate appreciation of his privilege in Christ, he has no expectation and puts forth no intelligent effort to become the avenue through which Truth is revealed.

Christian Scientists are not infrequently criticized by other professed Christians for their seeming presumption in trying to do the Master's work, and for asserting that we may be so inspired that we can speak the word of truth effectively. To declare this to be one's privilege and prerogative, though entirely in keeping with the commands of Christ Jesus, has even been named "blasphemy" and correspondingly condemned; and no fact surely speaks in more telling terms than does this in illustration of the far removal of modern religious belief from the faith and practice of the early church.

Though Christian teachers as a whole have maintained that prayer is helpful, and that it is causally related, in some inexplicable way, to the betterment of the person prayed for, nevertheless the definiteness of the position taken by Christian Scientists with respect to the healing of sickness and sin through the spiritual apprehension of divine Truth, is so new, so contrary to the existing order, and withal so much of a rebuke to long indulged ministerial belief as to prove startling. And yet it surely remains true that "like produces like," and that there must be an at-one-ment between Spirit and every degree of spirituality. This fact renders both possible and true Paul's averment that "God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 136) Mrs. Eddy writes, "The disciples apprehended their Master better than did others; but they did not comprehend all that he said and did, or they would not have questioned him so often." The fact that they were sent out to preach and to heal when their spiritual development was as yet incomplete—as was so signally evidenced in the instance of Peter—gives proof that the inspiration of consciousness may be begun long before its perfection is attained; that the day of spiritual enlightenment has also its dawn, so that now, indeed, we may realize that we are the sons of God, even as John dared to say.

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