Editorial July 25, 1925 Issue

Our Universal Problem

Ella W. Hoag

All men have the same problem to work out. They are seldom aware of this, and will often spend long hours attempting to convince themselves and others that quite the opposite is true. Each is apt to look upon what he is pleased to call his own life-problem as different in most respects from that of his neighbor; and he will also generally magnify it, claiming it to be the most involved and most difficult of them all.

The fact is that until the advent of Christian Science few understood much, if anything, of the true problem of being, and they consequently knew little of the way whereby it could be solved. Working as most men did from the standpoint of matter as real and substantial, and of life as existing therein, they have spent most of their efforts in striving to make such life comfortable and happy. If asked to define their life-problem they would probably have replied, even though mainly Christian in their desires and purposes, that they must be as good as they knew how to be and trust God to give them hereafter a better reward than they had a right to expect. They were always hoping that a merciful God would requite according to His mercy, not according to their deserving.

Now this was working so largely in the dark that few had much sense of security either for the present or for the future. The problem of being—that which includes all questions for all men—was apparently left hanging in the air, as it were, with each one attempting in a different way to catch hold of it, hoping it would swing him into success in some indefinable way. That this problem should be understood and dealt with in a perfectly scientific and at the same time Christian manner was something practically undreamed of.

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