Article February 14, 1920 ISSUE

Benediction

MARY H. CUMMINS

There are few words in the English language more beautiful than the word benediction. Its literal meaning is "good saying," or the utterance of blessing, and it is associated in the thought of many of us with such comforting passages from the New Testament as, "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all." Indeed the whole Bible is full of assurances that nothing but the divine benediction rests upon those who humbly and earnestly seek to know more of God, those who are making the attainment of righteousness their first aim.

The apostle Paul expressed this thought explicitly when he said, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." And yet a false sense of condemnation is just what the carnal mind is continually and incessantly arguing to the aspiring Christian. In fact the unenlightened human mind may be said to revel in mistaken condemnation. If one listens to the ordinary conversation of the day he must be impressed by the fact that this promiscuous condemnation runs through it like a thread; condemnation of some particular person, of the weather, of the government, of almost every existing circumstance and condition. How conspicuous by its absence is the "good saying," the word that blesses and heals, otherwise benediction.

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