Editorial July 22, 1922 Issue

The Way of Holiness

Albert F. Gilmore

The joyful progress of Christ's kingdom is picturesquely described by the prophet Isaiah in a passage wherein he uses the familiar figure of the highway, or way, as the means whereby mankind may attain to a state of blessedness: "And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness." And he describes those who may traverse it, and those who by no means may enter upon its sacred precincts. "The unclean shall not pass over it," he declares, but the ransomed of the Lord shall walk in it as they return to Zion "with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads." Here is described, in Oriental metaphor to be sure, but none the less cogently and impressively, the way of salvation whereby mortal man may enter upon and continue the process of winning his ransom from the enslaving beliefs which constitute his conception of human selfhood with its environment of materiality. We read in the gospel of John, how Jesus, forecasting to his disciples his departure and continued absence, assured them that whither he would go they would follow, for they knew the way, declaring in specific language, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," and adding that meaningful phrase, "No man cometh unto the Father, but by me."

The students of Christian Science, through spiritual understanding, learn that the way is mental and spiritual; and they greatly rejoice, not only to know this all-important fact, but to learn the means whereby they may walk in the way which is Truth and Life, the "way of holiness," and that this way is the Christ, of which Mrs. Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 332): "The Christ is incorporeal, spiritual,—yea, the divine image and likeness, dispelling the illusions of the senses; the Way, the Truth, and the Life, healing the sick and casting out evils, destroying sin, disease, and death." Here, then, is not only a specific statement that the Christ is "the way," but a precise statement as to the efficacy of Christ's presence in destroying the erroneous beliefs which render the human experience discordant and burdensome.

A very common attribute of the so-called human mind is its obstinacy,—that is, its stubborn resistance to whatever would move it from its material moorings. This condition, be it said, should by no means be regarded as unnatural, since mortal mind's only possible chance of maintaining its claim to existence—that is, to be something—lies in its seeming power to resist the presence of the Christ, the divine idea, its sure destroyer. Because of this seeming active resistance of human thought, mortals appear to use every endeavor, to raise every excuse to hinder and delay the entering upon this highway to holiness, so open to those of spiritual vision that Isaiah could declare of it, "The wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein." How clearly the prophet has placed the situation before us! He who would traverse this way of Life, spiritually wise, though a fool,—that is, from the viewpoint of worldly wisdom,—may not go astray in it, so plain are the markings. Filled with the desire for spiritual truth, to know and exemplify the Christ, the wayfarer in this greatest of all adventures, in this richest of all experiences, as he advances step by step, finds the way defined so clearly that by no possibility can he go astray, if only he follows the route and heeds the signals.

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