Editorial November 6, 1920 Issue

On Hoeing Your Own Row

Frederick Dixon

One of the first things which a man learns in Christian Science, if he is wise enough, is that he has his own work to do, and that no one can do it for him. Then, if he really understands, he sets out to learn how to do it, and to do it, not perfunctorily, but with all the strength that is in him. He may as well do it joyously, for in the end he will have to do it, and if he does not do it joyously, it will be a certain proof that he does not realize what life is. Life, indeed, must be to him one of two things: either it will prove a desert of wasted opportunities, which never can return, or it will be a tide taken at the flood, and leading on to victory. And any man who has carefully read the gospels, in the light of Christian Science, knows that this victory is a victory over the human self, established in a demonstrated understanding of man as the image and likeness of God, Principle. "The Christian martyrs," Mrs. Eddy writes, on page 388 of Science and Health, "were prophets of Christian Science. Through the uplifting and consecrating power of divine Truth, they obtained a victory over the corporeal senses, a victory which Science alone can explain." They hoed their own row.

Now the word martyr really means witness, and it would be a good thing if more people would remember this, and give up looking at it purely as victim. There is no necessity for a witness to be a victim; there is, indeed, every reason why he should not. A knowledge of Truth, Principle, should bring to a man occasion for victory along the whole line, and not part of it: "If ye continue in my word," Christ Jesus said to the Jews who believed in him, "then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." The price of this freedom, be it however observed, is not a mere spasmodic realization of Principle, but a continuous demonstration of it, for it is quite impossible to continue in a knowledge of anything without giving proof of that knowledge. Paul was never tired of insisting on this. "Continuing," he wrote to the church in Rome, "instant in prayer." In just the same way, Mrs. Eddy writes, on page 360 of Science and Health: "Either Spirit or matter is your model. If you try to have two models, then you practically have none. Like a pendulum in a clock, you will be thrown back and forth, striking the ribs of matter and swinging between the real and the unreal."

The great specific against such failure is work, is hoeing your own row, and not attempting to hoe your neighbor's. The mistake of men throughout the centuries has been neglecting their own rows for their neighbors'. A man's row is always long enough and heavy enough to absorb all his energy, whilst it is a scientific fact that he lightens his neighbor's toil by confining himself to his own, whereas he adds to it by interference. "Little intermeddling," says the old proverb, "makes good friends." This wholesome minding your own business does not, of course, in any way conflict with the command of Paul to the Galatians, "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ." As a matter of fact, it is only by hoeing your own row that you can find it possible to fulfill the law of Christ. Love, every reader of the Bible knows, is the fulfilling of the law, but it is impossible to love your neighbor if you are minding his business instead of your own, and interfering in his method of working out his salvation. Such interference necessitates undertaking to know what is best for him, and the ordinary man rarely knows what is best for himself, much less anybody else. The student of Christian Science who strictly minds his own business and devotes his whole time to working out his own salvation, is bound to be the one to gain most fully the vision of the Christ, and so to be able to fulfill most completely the law of Christ, when he faces the claims of evil threatening humanity, or is called upon to help the individual oppressed by the terrors of disease or sin. Such is the man who bears his neighbor's burden, legitimately and scientifically.

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