Editorial July 25, 1925 Issue

Moderation

Albert F. Gilmore

We are living in an age of superlatives. Human knowledge and ingenuity have so unfolded that nothing seems impossible. When one contemplates the extremes to which invention and discovery have gone in the last century, it seems that little remains to be revealed or invented. Since all outward manifestation is the result of thought, in this age mortals, in view of this unprecedented development, have come to hold an extraordinarily high estimate of their talents and capabilities. They are inclined to attribute to their own creative powers the marvelous steps which have been taken toward greater freedom, forgetting, apparently, that Jesus declared God to be the source of all good.

Material success has been so great that it has led to an exaggerated sense of its importance; and exaggeration, it seems, has come to be a common fault. In its efforts to challenge notice, to arouse and hold attention, the so-called mortal mind makes extreme statements, oftentimes having little or no basis in fact. Or, if the statements be fundamentally sound, because of love for the unique and spectacular they are distorted and misrepresented in detail. So fully acquainted was Paul with this trait of human nature that he dealt with it specifically in his epistle to the Philippians. "Let your moderation be known unto all men," he implored. "The Lord is at hand." The moderation which Paul thus enjoined upon his fellow-Christians is a virtue which may well be cultivated by all who are seeking to conform their ways with the teaching of Christianity.

The tendency to extremes in speech or habit arises from a false sense of man, from a belief that a mortal is something,—that he is the cause, source, creator, and finisher of his course. The direct result of this tendency is to exalt a mistaken sense of personality into something real and tangible, possessed of great capabilities. This trait is one to which all need to be awake. Christian Scientists, above all others, knowing as they do that all true selfhood is from God, are alert to the need of moderation in all things, especially in their speech.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Editorial

Our Universal Problem