Article October 28, 1922 Issue

"What is that to thee?"

ROBERT S. ROSS

In the twenty-first chapter of the gospel according to John, it is recorded that Jesus was once obliged to rebuke a disciple for becoming unduly concerned in the affairs of a fellow-disciple. Looking with what would appear to be doubt upon John's ability to work out his own salvation, Peter had asked, "Lord, and what shall this man do?" Confident that the parent Mind is capable of caring equally well for all His children, Jesus replied, "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me."

One of the commonest tendencies of mankind is to be meddlesome. One of its rarest achievements is to let other people alone. Are not most of us inclined to wonder, occasionally at least, why our neighbor does not do this or that? Would not our way, instead of his, be better? Are we not tempted sometimes to think and speak unkindly of our neighbor, even before we learn what are his motives and aims? Possibly, we have concluded that we are better fitted than he to solve the problems that are his.

In order to illustrate how necessary it is for us to "live, and let live," the following story may be helpful. A little girl one day directed her mother's attention to a curiouslooking object attached to a dry leaf on a near-by bush. When the mother saw the object, which the child was about to attack with a stick, she said it was a chrysalis, and that they would, by patiently waiting and watching, witness a wonder. If, however, they should meddle with or injure the object, notwithstanding all its apparent ugliness, they would interfere seriously with, or stop entirely, the process of development that was going on within. Every day thereafter the child visited the bush, hoping with each visit to witness the promised wonder, the while scrupulously observing her mother's warning. After about the tenth day, the little girl was rewarded by finding a beautiful butterfly perched on the twig above, moving its still creased, but gorgeously colored wings slowly up and down in the morning sunshine, as if practicing for its initial skyward flight. Below dangled the shell from which the graceful insect had but recently emerged.

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