Editorial August 15, 1925 Issue

"The powers that be"

Ella W. Hoag

"Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God;" so wrote Paul to the Romans, and he later added very significantly, "Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same." In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 249) Mrs. Eddy counsels in similar strain when she writes, "Let us have one God, one Mind, and that one perfect, producing His own models of excellence;" and she goes on to say, "Let us feel the divine energy of Spirit, bringing us into newness of life and recognizing no mortal nor material power as able to destroy. Let us rejoice that we are subject to the divine 'powers that be.'"

Now there is nothing which men are more desirous of ridding themselves of than fear. This tormenting companion seems so persistently at hand that they are constantly devising means whereby they hope to become separated from it. They believe they are afraid of sickness, and they pursue all sorts of methods which they trust to do away with sickness. They are afraid of lack, and they spend their days trying to accumulate that which they imagine will banish lack. They believe in an evil power and fear it and run hither and yon to avoid it, only to find themselves tumbling into yet more fear. In all this they are only temporizing with fear; they are believing in fear as real; they are obeying it, serving it, thinking thereby they may be able to controvert and quell its claims to power.

Christian Science teaches clearly that to battle against fear in such fashion as this augments rather than diminishes it, since such a method is dealing with effect rather than cause. Christian Scientists recognize, theoretically at least, that fear is caused by the belief in a power apart from God, good; and that fear can therefore only be overcome by learning to know and demonstrate the allness of God, good. It, however, seems to take them some time to discover just what this means—to see how simple this renders the way out of fear. Because mortals are slow to acknowledge that God, good, is the only good, they halt and hesitate to walk in this plain path.

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