Editorial June 30, 1923 Issue

True Independence

Albert F. Gilmore

The story of mankind's struggle for independence is the history of human progress. While there have been certain events standing out like mountain peaks above the plain upon which the sun of spiritual liberty has shone with extraordinary brilliancy, the whole trend of human experience has been steadily upward. The rate of progress of civilization has been exactly commensurate with the degree of spiritual independence won by mankind individually and collectively; for independence in the highest sense is freedom from the bondage of material beliefs, from the limitations of personal sense, gained through the right understanding of God and His perfect universe, including spiritual man. It is the knowledge that man is not and never was subject to material laws and conditions; that man is God's expression and reflection, and is dependent only upon Him of whom Jesus implored, "Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth."

One of the first brilliantly illuminated peaks in mankind's upward journey was mount Sinai, where Moses received the Decalogue written on tablets of stone, a true symbol of its permanency. None will deny that the Ten Commandments, which have come to be known as the moral law, were and always will be essential to human progress. How could mankind ever have ceased to worship the false gods of paganism had not the Hebrew Lawgiver revealed the one God? "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" is the very foundation of the spiritual structure which alone constitutes true consciousness, the realization of the facts of being. This commandment went far toward lifting human footsteps out of the quicksands of materiality and superstition on to the firm ground of moral responsibility. All the Commandments were necessary and directly pertinent to human progress. None is superfluous and none unimportant. They constitute a standard about which the national life of the Hebrews rallied, enabling them to make their great contribution to the history of human progress.

Another illumination came with the advent of Jesus of Nazareth. In the words of John, "The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." He struck an effective blow at the bondage of enslaved humanity. He turned the thoughts of men to God, the Father of us all, who creates and maintains His universe of ideas in unchanging perfection. The seed implanted by the Master in the waiting soil twenty centuries ago has borne much fruit; and now in the works of Mary Baker Eddy it is coming into its largest fruitage. Yet there have been many intermediary steps in the process of gaining liberty and independence between the brief ministry of the lowly Nazarene and the revival of primitive Christianity in the works of Christian Science. All too slowly the teaching of Christ Jesus has pervaded human thought, always seemingly obstructive of the healing Christ.

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