Editorial February 26, 1921 Issue

Human Footsteps

Frederick Dixon

It is the habit of the human mind to search diligently for excuses. If there is one thing from which it shrinks it is being compelled to admit its faults, or to reveal its weaknesses. So strong indeed is its revulstion from this that it will, on occasion, tear down the veil in a sort of ecstasy of bravado. Ordinarily, however, it prefers a policy of extenuation. Like the pirates of Aves, "A-swing with good tobacco in a net between the trees," it deadens its intelligence to the dangers of the course upon which it has embarked, forgetful that, as the same song says, "But Scripture saith, an ending to all fine things must be." In short, sooner or later, every man has to face squarely the same problem. It is this, that "the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh;" and the realization of what this means must force home upon every one who does not shut, or at any rate partially close, his eyes to it, the significance of that other warning by Paul, "For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do."

Polycarp insisted to the proconsul that he could not turn from good to evil in a day, and, no doubt, the Christians of Smyrna were even more convinced that they could not turn from evil to good in many days. "The divine demand, 'Be ye therefore perfect,'" Mrs. Eddy writes, on page 253-254 of Science and Health, "is scientific, and the human footsteps leading to perfection are indispensable." But, on page 9 of the same book, she warns her readers against hesitation and the disinclination to take those footsteps, when she says, "Are you willing to leave all for Christ, for Truth, and so be counted among sinners? No! Do you really desire to attain this point? No! Then why make long prayers about it and ask to be Christians, since you do not care to tread in the footsteps of our dear Master?" Human beings, just because they are human, cannot avoid these human footsteps. But they can avoid bargaining with Principle over taking them, and they can take them fearlessly and gladly, and not hesitatingly and perforce. Because a man needs to be clothed, he does not need to be clothed upon with vanity, and because he needs to eat and drink, he does not need to impart to eating and drinking any taint of sensuous appetite. The effort of the human being to turn from evil to good is, at all times, so deliberately accomplished that he need feel under no obligation to carry any unnecessary weights.

In taking even his first footsteps the student of Christian Science should keep his ultimate goal steadfastly before him. Mrs. Eddy makes this very clear indeed, on page 426 of Science and Health, when she says, "The discoverer of Christian Science finds the path less difficult when she has the high goal always before her thoughs, than when she counts her footsteps in endeavoring to reach it." Dwelling perpetually, as some people are apt to, on the necessity for suffering is almost bound to produce suffering, and, in the same way, insistence on the necessity for human footsteps, when the motive behind the insistence is the fabrication of an excuse for dwelling in them, can only end in painful and unnecessary delay.

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