Editorial March 25, 1933 Issue

"To this end"

Violet Ker Seymer

There is no more ennobling, emancipating purpose than that which Christ Jesus presented when he said, "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth." As his followers, Christians may here and now bear witness to the truth about life, about health, intelligence, substance, happiness, and this entails denying false evidence.

Isaiah writes, "They that make a graven image are all of them vanity; and their delectable things shall not profit; and they are their own witnesses; they see not, nor know; that they may be ashamed." From this circumscribed self-witnessing of the material senses and its accompanying fear and idolatry, Christian Science is liberating its students. Through their study of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, they find themselves viewing a new world of life, joy, and spiritual freedom. But in order to maintain this true witnessing, they discover the necessity for implicitly obeying the injunction of Jesus, "First cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." In themselves and others they must discover and bear witness to perfect spiritual man.

By spiritualizing human thought and so destroying its sin and suffering, true witnessing accomplishes practical results which can be achieved in no other way. Continually, physical evidence presents sick persons, evil dispositions, sinister motives, national aggression and oppression, menace and uncertainty. Perpetually, true witnessing apprehends the very opposites of these misrepresentations of God's universe and of His perfect likeness. In "Retrospection and Introspection" (p. 61) Mrs. Eddy writes, " 'There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard;' and this voice is Truth that destroys error and Love that casts out fear." Then why not bear witness to the ever-presence of good and harmony, and enjoy them to the full? "To this end" is the true witness born, that he may prove to himself and others the healing action of divine Principle in human consciousness. Taking perfect God and perfect man as the basis of scientific judgment, one is compelled to refute the evidence of a world that seems to be awry, sick, sinful, depressed, for this is solely the picture of objectified mortal thinking presented by the five physical senses, which "see not, nor know," anything true or permanent. The corporeal senses cannot account for the fine qualities of uprightness, kindness, obedience to moral codes, spiritual devoutness and faith, for these are not material. They originate in God, good.

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