Article April 28, 1923 Issue

Daily Duties

GEORGE WILKINS SHUFF

IN the Manual of The Mother Church there are three distinct references to daily duty. In Article VIII, Section 1,—the By-law which is read in Christian Science churches on the first Sunday of each month,—the student is reminded that to come up to the standard of membership in the Church of Christ, Scientist, he should "daily watch and pray to be delivered from all evil." In Section 4 of the same Article, we find the By-law which lays upon Christian Scientists the obligation to pray each day that simple and far-reaching prayer, " 'Thy kingdom come;' let the reign of divine Truth, Life, and Love be established in me, and rule out of me all sin; and may Thy Word enrich the affections of all mankind, and govern them!" A subsequent section, Section 6, is devoted entirely to the subject of defense against the claims of evil; and here, also, the word "daily" occurs prominently. Mrs. Eddy added to these three distinct commands a further warning, when she wrote in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 237), "See Science and Health, page 442, line 30, and give daily attention thereto."

Here, then, are four distinct calls to duty, requiring daily consideration, and affording an opportunity for loving and prayerful obedience. These four requirements indicate to Christian Scientists how they should make systematic and orderly efforts to gain the consciousness of absolute good. They provide a channel for particular activity, show how to lay the foundation and build the structure of daily right thinking; and in view of the evident importance that Mrs. Eddy has attached to them, surely no earnest Christian Scientist will consider his day's work effectually begun or properly complete without conscientious effort along the lines indicated in these passages. The obedient rejoice in progress and more rapid spiritual growth, and attain a larger measure of that consciousness which is indeed built upon the rock, against which the storms of mortal thinking prevail not.

The two prime requisites of obedience are contained in the Psalmist's reference to "those that remember his commandments to do them;" for how can we be obedient, if we fail to "remember" what is required of us; or how can we manifest that alertness which is so essential to progress, if we allow the multiplied demands of the day to cause us to forget and neglect our duty to our God and to all? Christian Scientists frequently express their love and gratitude to Mary Baker Eddy for the great good that has come to them through her discovery of Christian Science; but how may their gratitude be so well expressed as through daily prayerful obedience to her spiritual requirements, to those demands of divine Principle,—"his commandments,"—which have found expression through the inspired thought of our Leader? In order to give their gratitude effectual expression, will they not strive more earnestly to "remember" the commandments and "do" them?

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