Editorial November 4, 1922 ISSUE

Sacrifice

Duncan Sinclair

The Christian Scientist who has learned in some degree to demonstrate the truth which Christian Science teaches, that the power of God is ever available to deliver mankind from the false beliefs of sin and disease, is endeavoring to consecrate his life more and more to the service of the Cause with which he is associated. The teachings of Christian Science had come to him with healing power, possibly at a time of great need; and as he remembers this, and observes the enormous benefits which the world is deriving from Christian Science to-day, he rejoices that through the agencies of the Christian Science movement he is able to cooperate with others in the making of these teachings known to his fellow-men.

Questions that often stir the hearts of men when they allow their energies to go out in any direction which entails their giving up the old for the new, may be such as these: What shall I have to sacrifice? Shall I have to give up this or that? Shall I have to leave this perhaps well-beloved place for a distant region where there are none of the old friends and few of the new? Often the thought may recur that in pursuing the way along which Christian Science is now leading them, they must forsake, at least for a period, scenes and friends very dear to them.

If the questions be considered merely from the human standpoint, there is almost certain to be regret and, probably, sorrow. But Christian Science is revolutionary in its teachings. It positively brings to humanity "a new heaven and a new earth;" but almost everything has to be readjusted in one's thoughts when the truth Christian Science tells of the allness of God and the omnipresence of God is revealed to him; and finite considerations disappear in proportion to his understanding of reality. Whenever we begin to comprehend God as infinite Love, and as unlimited in the bestowal of His love, then we recognize the necessity for making these fundamental truths known to all mankind, not only by letter and speech, but more specifically in the demonstration of them; and other considerations take a secondary place. Was not that what Christ Jesus demanded of the scribe in the never-to-be-forgotten words which the latter himself uttered: "To love him [God] with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offering and sacrifices"?

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