Editorial March 22, 1924 Issue

Love, the Only Solvent

Ella W. Hoag

"Self-love is more opaque than a solid body. In patient obedience to a patient God, let us labor to dissolve with the universal solvent of Love the adamant of error,—self-will, self-justification, and self-love,—which wars against spirituality and is the law of sin and death." Thus writes Mrs. Eddy on page 242 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." What Christian Scientist has not pondered over these words, prayed over them, struggled over them? And what one does not still feel he must continue to take them as the light which will make plain before him all the way from sense to Soul? Within them lies not only the analysis of the cause of all error, but also the way out of it.

How clearly and simply the words ring out; and yet how tremendous is their import! What an unparalleled arraignment of the claims of selfishness before the judgment bar of Truth! How definitely the words sum up all evil! What an unanswerable statement they make as to what constitutes the law of sin and death! And yet how beautiful is the method of deliverance! Rarely, if ever, has so much been said in so few short sentences.

In first studying these remarkable words of their Leader, students of Christian Science are perhaps most impressed with the manner in which they uncover the claims of error. The clarity of the statement that it is self-will, self-justification, and self-love, which war against spirituality and are the law of sin and death, sends each one home to his own consciousness to cast out these evils, which claim there to be reigning supreme. There is where he must vanquish these enemies to Spirit, God. There is where he must silence these outrageous claims to a selfhood apart from good. Were it not for the gracious unfoldment of the way to do this, which Mrs. Eddy's words reveal, who would have the courage to enter upon the warfare? The method, however, is defined in such a wonderful manner that one really longs to press into the fight.

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"The life-preserving power of spiritual understanding"
March 22, 1924
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