Editorial January 5, 1924 Issue

Self-Reliance

Albert F. Gilmore

There is much evidence to indicate that Paul's wrestlings with the beliefs of the flesh were no less poignant than were those of Job. Recognizing the seeming power of materiality as expressed in the laws of the flesh, and in apparent distress, the Apostle wrote to his friends in Rome, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Paul, in common with mankind, was seeking a way out of the distresses and discomforts of existence, which at times seemed about to overwhelm him. That his doubtings as to his means of salvation, grievous as they were, were brief, is indicated in the verse in his epistle to the Romans immediately following that quoted above. With an assured note of triumph, and in keen discrimination between the demands of Spirit and the seeming claims of the flesh, he exclaimed: "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God."

The reader of Paul's writings is impressed with his great assurance of God's presence, goodness, and power, as taught and exemplified by Christ Jesus. He is a convincing example to the Christian world of independent thinking, typifying the mental state wherein one looks to God rather than to men to guide his footsteps, to direct him in all his ways.

Christian Scientists are well aware of the necessity incumbent upon them always, so far as practicable, to make their own demonstration through looking prayerfully to God. "'Work out your own salvation,'" was Mrs. Eddy's loving admonition in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 22), repeating the words of Paul. On page 23, in writing of self-reliance and confidence, she says: "One kind of faith trusts one's welfare to others. Another kind of faith understands divine Love and how to work out one's 'own salvation, with fear and trembling.'" And she closes the paragraph with these words: "The injunction, 'Believe . . . and thou shalt be saved!' demands self-reliant trustworthiness, which includes spiritual understanding and confides all to God." The Christian Scientist strives for the attainment of just that type of faith which enables him to look to God as the source and sustainer of his being, the Giver of both strength and wisdom.

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