Article July 19, 1924 Issue

Justice

CHRISTINE H. BEALS

We sometimes hear the expression "blind justice." This concept has been personated by the Roman goddess Justitia, whom we see pictured as a blindfolded woman holding scales in her outstretched hand. The goddess is represented as weighing the evidence for and against, blindfolded, that she may be impartial. In the suggestion that justice is impartial, the figure is not inept. But we sadly miss its larger significance, if we look upon justice as coming through either a blind goddess or a human concept. In the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy (p. 465), we find the statement. "The attributes of God are justice, mercy, wisdom, goodness, and so on." Justice, then, as an attribute of God must be included in the divine law which governs man and the universe.

The attributes and qualities of God are ever present and available. If we so strengthened our faith in God that we could know without a doubt that man is never separated from or lacks the attributes of God, we should be saved much human suffering and heartache, even despair. Who has not at some time or other suffered from a belief of injustice at the hands of a fellow-mortal? Mortals in their blindness believe they can suffer from lack of justice, that some overpowering force is pitted against them stronger than the righteousness and truth of God. One might as consistently shut himself voluntarily in a narrow inclosure away from light and air, and complain of the suffering caused by suffocation!

Let us know that justice is not at the beck and call of human opinions or mortal convictions. Let us know that as surely as the universe of God exists, just so surely will ultimate justice be established on earth. Mortal mind is changeable, variable, impermanent, and nondependable; and if we trust to the verdict of a mortal sense of things, we are likely to return defeated from the field of our endeavor. But when we have learned even a little of the divine law of justice, we are willing to leave every issue to the safe and sure adjustment of this law. Mortal, personal sense finds many words and many arguments with which to express itself. It has its beliefs, its prejudices, its preconceived whims. It believes in its own arrogance, its own bigotry; and it would dominate, control, and destroy. Divine law in its operation is more silent and certain than the movement of the planets in their orbits, and mighty with the infinite power of God.

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