Editorial July 11, 1925 Issue

"Every knee shall bow"

Ella W. Hoag

The Psalmist of long ago sang reverently, "O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our maker;" while in Romans we read: "It is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God." From the beginning of time this necessity of bowing to God has been recognized by all who have desired to know Him, and the Bible records many an instance of God's obedient servants kneeling to Him. Peter and Paul both tell of their kneeling in prayer, and it is recounted of Jesus that he "kneeled down, and prayed." Mrs. Eddy says, in referring to her first visit to The Mother Church after the original edifice was built (see The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, pp. 302, 303), that she "knelt in thanks upon the steps of its altar;" and she adds, "There the foresplendor of the beginnings of truth fell mysteriously upon my spirit."

Now this bowing of the knee to God is something which has always deeply concerned His people. They have recognized that no approach to Deity could be truly effective and satisfactory were it not made in humility and in just acknowledgment of God's complete preeminence and absolute supremacy. A very natural result has been that the desire to express a right reverence and at the same time a right sense of complete dependence on God has frequently carried with it the outward symbol of bowing the knee. This act has, however, so often degenerated into mere form that Christians have sometimes felt they must rigidly and entirely turn from it if they were to avoid the appearance of hypocrisy. Like all things else, when considered from a wholly material standpoint there has been the tendency in this to sweep away what might still be both wise and helpful if used properly and sincerely.

When Mrs. Eddy instituted the communion service in the Christian Science church her purpose must have included her perpetual desire to bless all mankind. This same desire must also have been in evidence when, on page 126 of the Church Manual in the order of these same services, she placed the following: "The First Reader briefly invites the congregation to kneel in silent Communion." Here is, therefore, a definite place and time when Christian Scientists are still expected to kneel outwardly. The questions for us to consider must therefore be: How may we do this in such fashion that our Leader's great desire to bless may be brought to fullest fruition? How are we so to kneel that "the foresplendor of the beginnings of truth" shall fall also upon our spirit?

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