Article November 27, 1926 Issue

Leaning upon Spirit

IDA WELKER MEYER

The desire to lean on a human person or a material thing as a means of support or protection, or as a means of gaining health or happiness, is a weakness of the so-called human mind. It tends constantly to depend on human personality rather than on divine Principle, on matter instead of Spirit, not knowing that this dependence on material ways and means deprives it of divine support. In some cases this individual weakness has increased to such an extent that whole nations have become imbued with it, as is shown in the Biblical account given in the first book of Samuel, where it is said that the Israelites desired a king to rule over them, one who would fight all their battles for them.

This request of the Israelites greatly disturbed the faithful prophet Samuel, and he hastily sought God's guiding hand to show him what he should do, and what he should say unto the people. "And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. . . . Howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and shew them the manner of the king that shall reign over them."

Then Samuel went to the people and told them "all the words of the Lord;" told them also of the trials and of the hardships that would befall them, and of the bondage that would beset them and their children, as a consequence of forgetting God and of allowing idolatry to hold sway in their affections. He told them, further, that the best of their fields, their vineyards and their olive yards, would be taken from them; and that they would, all of them, become the most menial of servants. Nevertheless, the people refused to listen to the voice of God which spoke to them through His prophet Samuel; and they said, "Nay; but we will have a king over us; that we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles." This request of the people was granted, and they reaped the harvest of discontent and suffering.

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