Article September 24, 1921 Issue

Law

GEORGE C. FRANKLIN

Law is the fundamental of growth or the restriction of liberty, just as a man believes that it deprives him of something desirable or helps him to retain it. That is, a man's concept of whether the law is a help to him or a hindrance will result, so far as his own individual experience is concerned, in a sense of slavery if he thinks the law an unjust one, or in a sense of freedom if he thinks it protects him. A man's own attitude toward law therefore constitutes law so far as he is individually concerned and makes it either a help or a hindrance in just the proportion that the man's concept is correct or erroneous.

Jesus knowing this through his own clear sense of the unvarying changelessness of Principle, and knowing it was the human concept of the law which must be corrected, since Principle is changeless, summed up the whole situation in the words, "Whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain." In other words, if the law compels a thing, by going beyond the legal requirement you free yourself from the restriction of the law, and are free from any sense of restraint; whenever a person begins to try barely to keep within the actual letter of the law he is on most dangerous ground, for the sense that he is bound by certain requirements immediately results in a sense either of fear that he will be unable to keep the law or else in a greater desire to break it. Jesus illustrated this in his explanation of the Jewish law regarding adultery and showed that the only man who was free from the danger of breaking the law was the one who had reached such a stage of purity that he was not tempted to break it.

Mrs. Eddy had so far risen above temptation of personal ambition and had so blended her own desires with the demands of Principle, that she hoped her followers would readily do likewise. She showed in "A Rule for Motives and Acts," Article VIII, Section 1 of the Manual the way for the fullfilling of the law, providing that this section shall be read in The Mother Church, and in all the branch churches on the first Sunday of each month: "Neither animosity nor mere personal attachment should impel the motives or acts of the members of The Mother Church. In Science, divine Love alone governs man; and a Christian Scientist reflects the sweet amenities of Love, in rebuking sin, in true brotherliness, charitableness, and forgiveness. The members of this Church should daily watch and pray to be delivered from all evil, from prophesying, judging, condemning, counseling, influencing or being influenced erroneously." The more this rule is studied the more clearly it will be seen that the person who has reached the spiritual altitude and humility which will enable him to obey its precepts is in no danger of being tempted to break any other provision. The man who is impersonalizing error and seeing realities is not in the slightest danger of having his motives or acts impelled by "animosity" or "mere personal attachment" nor will he for one moment submit to any other government than divine Love, and he will be able to reflect "the sweet amenities of Love" in exactly the proportion that he casts the beam of self-will out of his own consciousness and is governed by divine Love.

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