Editorial May 16, 1925 Issue

In the World but Not Of It

Ella W. Hoag

In a prayer to God for his disciples Jesus said, "I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil." He was evidently facing and safeguarding a situation that Christians have ever since been trying to understand for themselves; for there is no true-hearted follower of the Christ who does not have presented to him again and again the question as to how he is to be in the world but not of it.

The fact is that to live as true Christians in the midst of a so-called material world embraces for all time the whole of Christian practice, and there is no mortal who does not have to learn exactly what this effort means, as well as to demonstrate its present possibility. To do this successfully is to prove, as Jesus said, that "the kingdom of God is within you." No one therefore will ever attain the understanding of this kingdom except as he discovers and demonstrates its presence while he is still apparently in the midst of human surroundings. Even when Jesus was passing through his own earthly experiences he was able to speak of himself as "the Son of man which is in heaven."

Christian Science, in its revelation that God is the one infinite divine Mind, teaches that as a consequence all that ever has to be or can be dealt with is the mental aspect of everything. The acceptance and understanding of this basic truth immediately makes possible the fulfillment of Jesus' prayer for his disciples of to-day, even as for those of the time in which he uttered it. To recognize that whatever the situation, whatever the necessity, it is mentality only which must be watched, is to simplify every human problem and to make it possible always to be kept from the evil, even though apparently in the very midst of it. This is indeed to find that God, divine Mind, is a "very present help in trouble."

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