Article July 17, 1920 Issue

Rest

VIVIAN M. KUENZLI

Material medicine says: Lay aside your business cares, your household worries. Go to another climate and find change, relaxation, rest,—that is, go and find it for yourself, for we haven't it to give and cannot even direct your footsteps in the search. Students and philosophers, family and friends, are ever ready with the word of advice, "Go and rest!" Knowing well that bodily inaction is not rest, and that the effort to coax or browbeat the human mind into believing that the weary treadmill of material thinking can ever lead to peace or point the way to happiness, the thinkers of this age are being made ready for the acceptance of that which has been thrust aside through weary centuries. Students of Christian Science, whether so-called intellectual giants or those to whom Paul might be understood as having reference when he speaks of God choosing "the foolish things of the world to confound the wise," are daily proving in some measure the truth of Mrs. Eddy's statement in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" beginning on page 519, "The highest and sweetest rest, even from a human standpoint, is in holy work." Here we need to note that "holy" means "of highest spiritual purity," and in the effort to make our work of to-day, whatever it may be, measure up to that standard, great joy is experienced in the realization that the rest which we feared might be found only after what is called death may be demonstrated here and now.

"A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief"—but not hopelessly acquiescent nor acknowledging their supremacy, Jesus delivered his loving invitation to all humanity, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Error, a mistaken sense, seems always to be saying, "Come unto me, and I will give you—everything that the world has to offer, and the glories thereof"—but never rest. Christ Jesus, standing apart from all that materiality claims to be, ready to rise entirely above all belief in or acknowledgment of it as having power or existence, knowing that mere flesh and bones would soon be lost from sight and reach of tired hearts everywhere, issued his ringing message, vibrant with the reality of what we call mother love and fatherhood.

Never in the history of the ages had one been found who dared to offer to humanity such complete rest. Never, with this notable exception, had one been known who could find it so completely for himself. Jesus could offer it, could promise it in all naturalness, because he had proved the possibility of overcoming the flesh. Later Mary Baker Eddy, having through consecration and revelation attained in a degree that Mind "which was also in Christ Jesus," gave to this age the true concept of rest. On page 387 of Science and Health she writes: "Who dares to say that actual Mind can be overworked? When we reach our limits of mental endurance, we conclude that intellectual labor has been carried sufficiently far; but when we realize that immortal Mind is ever active, and that spiritual energies can neither wear out nor can so-called material law trespass upon God-given powers and resources, we are able to rest in Truth, refreshed by the assurances of immortality, opposed to mortality."

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