Article September 16, 1933 Issue

Following the Crowd

[Written Especially for Young People]

E. OLIVE DAVIS

One of the subtle temptations which present themselves to young Christian Scientists is the suggestion that by holding to ideals of conduct which are in accord with divine Principle they will be thought by their associates to be "peculiar" or "different." The desire to run with the crowd, to be a sheeplike follower of another's personal leadership, accounts for the tendency of many young people to adopt a faddish style of dress because others are doing so, to use current slang expressions because others use them, to take on mannerisms which are deemed popular, or to sacrifice even moral standards because it is considered smart to do so. While some of these propensities are obviously less harmful than others, it is well to analyze what it is that attracts one so strongly to follow the crowd.

On page 228 of "Miscellaneous Writings" our Leader says, "Floating with the popular current of mortal thought without questioning the reliability of its conclusions, we do what others do, believe what others believe, and say what others say." Young people who have been reared in Christian Science have learned promptly to question the reliability of mortal thought when it suggests disease or accident to them. We are alert to detect and cast out thoughts of sickness or physical discord, even though in so doing we must stand counter to the world's belief that matter is real and the associated belief in the necessity for disease. We learn to contend courageously and, if need be, persistently against the testimony of the material senses which would suggest failure in school work, incapacity in athletics, or lack of supply for daily needs. Does this not prove that we are willing to offer resistance to the practice of following the crowd when we see it is detrimental to our achievement or success? Yet if we can be made to believe even temporarily that some wrong conduct means happiness or good in our experience we may be misled into passively floating with the current of popular thought.

Now every pupil who has worked with mathematics in school knows that he cannot correctly call two times two four in one instance and five in another. Neither can he as a Christian Scientist correctly demonstrate Principle in his living on a basis of inconsistency. As timely for us as they were for the Galatians are Paul's wise words, "Let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another."

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