Editorial June 17, 1922 Issue

Eternal Vigilance

Albert F. Gilmore

The author of that familiar saying, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty," expressed a truth applicable to many situations in human experience,—no doubt to many more than were recognized by him at the time of its utterance. For vigilance—that is, alertness and watchfulness against the machinations of evil—is a prime necessity if one would escape the toils in which mortal belief is constantly striving to enmesh him. To no other class of thinkers has this been made so clear as to Christian Scientists; for they learn that evil, the hypothetical opposite of good, claims to be unceasing in its efforts to gain entrance to the mental household, to the exclusion of the true ideas, which emanate from the only source of truth, the divine Mind. In its efforts to simulate Truth, evil lays emphatic claim to possess all the qualities which characterize divine Mind. Of the malevolents, termed sin, sickness, and death, with their constantly insistent demands to be recognized as real, Mrs. Eddy, in our textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 287), has well said: "They have neither Principle nor permanence, but belong, with all that is material and temporal, to the nothingness of error, which simulates the creations of Truth. All creations of Spirit are eternal; but creations of matter must return to dust."

In inspiring the leaders of the church to be sober, watchful, and steadfast in the truth, Peter characterized "your adversary the devil" as a "roaring lion" that "walketh about, seeking whom he may devour;" but he assured his readers that the God of all good would make them perfect, "stablish, strengthen" them, implying that God, through Christ Jesus, would furnish a protection equal to any attack the enemy might make upon their strongholds. Christian Scientists learn the necessity of being awake to evil's claim to reality in order to escape its toils. Of the need for constant watchfulness, Mrs. Eddy states in emphatic terms in her "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 114): "Christian Scientists cannot watch too sedulously, or bar their doors too closely, or pray to God too fervently, for deliverance from the claims of evil. Thus doing, Scientists will silence evil suggestions, uncover their methods, and stop their hidden influence upon the lives of mortals."

It is well known that when our Leader established the various means for planting the seed of Truth in the receptive human consciousness, she recognized the especial importance of the Lesson-Sermons, and urged upon students of Christian Science their constant study as the best means for assuring continuous spiritual progress. None can doubt the value of this day-by-day study in unison with a great host of readers throughout the world, all striving simultaneously to gain the spiritual understanding of the same passages, carefully chosen from the Bible and the Christian Science textbook by a committee of consecrated workers. It is as though, through this very unity of effort, they were immersed in a river of spirituality, aflood with living waters, flowing straight from the infinite fount, the divine Love that never fails.

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit

Eternal Vigilance

We'd love to hear from you!

Sign up for unlimited access