Article January 31, 1920 Issue

Rest is sometimes defined as freedom from anything that...

The Christian Science Monitor

Rest is sometimes defined as freedom from anything that wearies, disturbs, or troubles; peace of mind or spirit. We see, then, that rest is mental and not material, and if we can but have a right sense of rest at any time, we shall lose our sense of weariness. Jesus, the great Teacher, surely meant this when he said, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." He obviously did not mean the people to lie down beside him, but that they should come to the Christ, and "learn of me," the true concept of God as incorporeal Principle, and man as ever spiritual and perfect, with dominion over all false beliefs, including that of weariness.

We read in Job, "Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace: thereby good shall come unto thee," the plain meaning of which is that if we gain a right understanding of God, we shall find peace or rest. The question then arises: How can this understanding of God be gained? If we accept the evidence of material sense we might think that there is no God, for we cannot see, smell, hear, feel, or taste God materially. If we turn to the teaching of the churches, we find that, after nearly two thousand years of so-called orthodoxy, neither individually nor collectively has the world found peace. So it is clear that theology has not proved the proposition that acquaintance with its concept of God brings peace, nor has it come to the true concept of Christ; else it would have rest.

We must, therefore, look elsewhere,—to the Bible, you may rightly say; but that is what theology thinks it has been doing all these years, or as Jesus said to the theologians of his day, "Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me." Paul said, "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned;" which shows that Paul knew that the material senses, or the natural man, can have no knowledge of God, or the peace which comes from such knowledge.

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