Editorial January 20, 1923 Issue

Self-restraint

Albert F. Gilmore

The Bible contains many admonitions to mortals regarding the necessity continually to practice self-restraint, to refrain from thinking and doing wickedly. The Ten Commandments are so many explicit prohibitions forbidding sinful acts of a kind which bring punishment to the evildoer. The book of Proverbs sets forth many wise sayings,—"thou-shalt-nots" in effect,—restricting various acts commonly regarded as natural to mortals, which, if committed, lead to certain and often to swift disaster. "He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls," declares the writer of the book of Proverbs. This wise man clearly saw the danger of mortals' following their natural bent, of giving free rein to their desires and passions,—a course which inevitably leaves them defenseless, as it were, against the certain results of the wickedness. Like a city without walls, they are, indeed, open to the encroachment of false beliefs, the nomadic mental marauders which are the enemies of mankind.

The need to exercise self-restraint, then, may be said to extend to all the natural tendencies of mortals, not to the extent of complete abstention from all the demands of the flesh, to be sure, for mortals should be clothed and fed; but it requires moderation even in those indulgences not positively prohibited by the moral law which are deemed necessary to human well-being. Mrs. Eddy has summarized the situation with her characteristic directness in "Retrospection and Introspection" (p. 79): "Be temperate in thought, word, and deed. Meekness and temperance are the jewels of Love, set in wisdom. Restrain untempered Zeal. 'Learn to labor and to wait.' Of old the children of Israel were saved by patient waiting." The student of Christian Science learns that right thinking must precede right acting; hence, to set one's thought right is the first and prime necessity in the practice of self-restraint.

The familiar proverb, "He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city," leaves no doubt as to the wise man's estimate of the importance of self-restraint. To refrain from anger, as well as to rule one's spirit, must result from learning to mold one's thought and desire in strict conformity to divine will. Refraining from anger inevitably follows scientific understanding of God and His likeness, man. For if God, who is Love, is infinite, and man as His likeness partakes of His divine qualities, what has mankind to be angry about? Surely, no person ever having glimpsed the allness and perfection of divine Being, and the consequent unreality of all that falsely claims to possess opposite and unlike qualities, would willingly indulge the folly of anger over an unreality, something that has no existence and, in consequence, can be in no wise worthy of resentment. Anger is invariably the result of false thinking, due to a lack of understanding of God and His universe, and a failure to exercise self-restraint. Likewise, is not the ruling of one's spirit, or material sense,—the meaning of the word "spirit" as here used,—obviously the result of gaining the power of self-restraint through scientific understanding of God and His creation? What greater waste of energy than to indulge the passions of anger and resentment, when no good result is possible through such experience!

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