Article November 6, 1920 Issue

True and False Prophets

OLIVER BOWLES

The early belief that a prophet was one who through some special gift of Providence could foretell future events has gradually given way to the conception of a prophet as one who by faithfulness to the highest ideals and consecration to supreme good has so cleared his consciousness of materiality that he is fitted to perceive in some measure the operation of divine law and is enabled to work out with more or less mathematical precision the results that must inevitably follow any line of activity. Such is true prophecy, and, as God is no respecter of persons, prophetic vision is attainable by all in proportion to their untiring loyalty to Principle.

False prophecy began, according to Biblical record, in the garden of Eden, and is still rampant in much the same form as when the lying serpent stated that eating of the tree of worldly knowledge would not bring death. The material world is so filled with the confusing cries of false prophecy that one must attune his ear to something higher than the evidence of physical sense if he is to discriminate between the true and the false. The course of human conduct depends in a large measure on the ability to make these distinctions, and hence it is a matter of supreme importance to every one to gain a sufficient knowledge of Truth to discern the pathway that true prophecy points out.

Every faithful student of Christian Science makes it his daily mental work to know the true idea, and to turn away from its unlikeness. This daily struggle to demonstrate the supremacy of good may seem no easy task; it requires patience and persistence. One of the surest supports for the student at times when error seems to exert an overwhelming power is a clear view of the fallacy of error's arguments. In other words, the seeming power of error is broken by uncovering its falsity. Mrs. Eddy has pointed out this important truth on page 540 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" in the following words: "In moral chemicalization, when the symptoms of evil, illusion, are aggravated, we may think in our ignorance that the Lord hath wrought an evil; but we ought to know that God's law uncovers so-called sin and its effects, only that Truth may annihilate all sense of evil and all power to sin." It is profitable, therefore, sometimes to look error squarely in the face, in order that we may clearly recognize its mode of attack, and thereby be prepared to guard against its false allurements.

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