Article October 13, 1923 Issue

Obedience to Law

JOHN L. RENDALL

It is generally conceded that obedience to law is the mark of good citizenship. The good citizen is law-abiding, his thought and effort being to support and obey the laws of his country. To do this intelligently, he must be to some extent familiar with that which constitutes law and his own relationship to it, and thus be enabled to distinguish and differentiate between that which may pass as law and that which is fundamentally sound as the basic law of the land. That which is really law includes certain elements which are fixed and absolute. It must be based on divine Principle. It must be just, impartial, impersonal, not subject to variation in its provisions and operation. Government is the activity of law, the activity or operation of the essential elements which law includes.

Human laws are made for the government of humanity. So when one thinks of law, he thinks also of government; and so law and government have become almost synonymous terms. Throughout the ages mankind has been governed by what has been accepted as law, not only in its definition as the code of nations, but in its every other aspect. There has been the tendency to accept and believe in certain formulations of human thought under the names of laws of nature,—laws of anatomy, of physiology, of materia medica, and so on,—all of which under certain circumstances have been conceded to have power, force, or influence to govern or control humanity, none of which they rightfully possess.

The Bible says of a man, "As he thinketh in his heart, so is he;" in other words, what he accepts as law governs him. In commenting on this phase of human belief, Mrs. Eddy has said in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 227), "I saw that the law of mortal belief included all error, and that, even as oppressive laws are disputed and mortals are taught their right to freedom, so the claims of the enslaving senses must be denied and superseded."

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A Pure Language
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