Editorial March 6, 1920 Issue

Freedom

Ella W. Hoag

While men have always desired freedom, few have had the realization of what true liberty implies or of the nature of the bondage from which they long to be delivered. Jesus said, with great simplicity, "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free," and Paul stated as succinctly, "To whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness." In spite of this clear teaching, which has been proclaimed through more than nineteen centuries, mankind has been very slow to accept the fact that yielding to sin brings the only slavery, and obedience to Truth results in the only freedom.

When the revelation of Christian Science was given to the world, with its fundamental declaration, "God is Mind, and God is infinite; hence all in Mind" (Science and Health, p. 492), the door was opened for our complete entrance into the "liberty of the children of God." The Christian Scientist, having accepted this positive truth as the basis for all his thinking, has entered upon the path to perfect freedom. Henceforth he is without excuse if he does not separate between right and wrong, between good and evil, and thus win the freedom which follows divine thinking. Since God is not only divine Mind but is also infinite good, there is always the necessary consequence that the simple way of deliverance from evil is to think the thoughts of Mind. Because this Mind includes all right thoughts, constitutes all law, expresses itself in all spiritual substance, it may be readily seen that if no consent were given to any other thinking than that based upon and in and of divine Mind, no evil could ever claim to operate.

Mortals only express the error to which they consent. In "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 83), Mrs. Eddy writes, "No person can accept another's belief, except it be with the consent of his own belief. If the error which knocks at the door of your own thought originated in another's mind, you are a free moral agent to reject or to accept this error; hence, you are the arbiter of your own fate, and sin is the author of sin." Accepting beliefs in evil, mortals consent to their suppositional manifestation in forms of sickness and sin. While this places the responsibility for the acceptance of error where it belongs, it at the same time indicates that the intelligent refusal to consent to such unnecessary slavery is the way of freedom from all that is false and wrong. This shows conclusively that Christian Science is the only safety in this age when error is uncovered in all its most reprehensible forms. With error's efforts to claim for itself all the power of Mind, with its many claims to an intelligence apart from God, indulging itself in all sorts of mesmeric arguments and calling them power, it would walk in secrecy, entering every open mental door.

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit

Freedom

We'd love to hear from you!

Sign up for unlimited access