Article August 21, 1920 Issue

Practical Religion

RICHARD HAWORTH

What is religion? It is not a creed nor a pious belief. It is not something to separate us from our Maker or our fellow man. It is not something merely to console us in the seeming experiences of material existence, nor something to prepare us for a future heaven. It is not a vague abstraction. On the contrary, it is concrete reality, the understanding of our relation to God, dispelling fear and engendering trust in God, good, thereby enabling us to see human experience not so much as the outcome of what mortals do as of what they think, exemplifying Jesus' saying, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." In short, true religion takes earth to heaven and brings heaven to earth.

Jesus said, "The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise," signifying by this that man is not cause but effect,—the manifestation of the one perfect and infinite Mind or cause, God. The recognition of this destroys the belief in separation from God and enables us to see that man is the consequence of the great I am, thereby destroying any false sense of responsibility and the fear of failure, and enabling us to grasp the meaning of the Biblical admonition, "Be still, and know that I am God." Divine law is always operating. There is nothing left undone. Wisdom is in all God's ways. To believe otherwise would be to belittle omnipotence. Beginning on page 19 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, we read as follows: "Jesus urged the commandment, Thou shalt have no other gods before me,' which may be rendered: Thou shalt have no belief of Life as mortal; thou shalt not know evil, for there is one Life,—even God, good. He rendered 'unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's. He last paid no homage to forms of doctrine or to theories of man, but acted and spake as he was moved, not by spirits but by Spirit."

To endeavor to gain the approbation of humanity by conformity to material standards is futile and tends to degrade instead of uplift. "Ye cannot serve God and mammon," said Jesus, indicating the necessity of keeping thought in heaven, so to speak, thereby improving even one's concept of humanity; whereas to keep thought down on the low level of trying to please mortals usually ends in displeasure all around. Man is quite capable of doing and being all he was intended to do and be. He was never intended to be sick or sorry, surly or sinful. "His birthright," as Mrs. Eddy points out (Science and Health, p. 518), "is dominion, not subjection." Let us, then, emphasize this fact in our lives, remembering it is God working in us "both to will and to do of his good pleasure." Keeping this in mind we can have no regrets for past seeming failures. God never fails.

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