Article November 3, 1934 Issue

Protective Government

KATHERINE PUFFER

A STATEMENT of much interest to Christian Scientists may be found in Article I, Section 9, of the Manual of The Mother Church, where Mrs. Eddy says, "Without a proper system of government and form of action, nations, individuals, and religion are unprotected." All should be profoundly grateful that our Leader was divinely inspired to establish for The Mother Church a form of government that is based on divine Principle. Having this spiritual basis, it is distinctly democratic, with equal rights for all. Personal domination enters not into its activities.

That righteous government is evolved from the religious sense of a people is clearly seen from the experience of the children of Israel. Moses was chosen of God to lead them out of slavery, and they began the journey out of Egyptian bondage to the promised land of freedom under his leadership. God's clear revelation of Himself and His law found expression in the Ten Commandments, which are the basis of moral and civil law among Christian nations. It is clearly evident that the divine plan was for unity through faith in God. As God spoke to Moses, so he guided the children of Israel.

Afterward judicial functions were exercised by judges who were raised up as dangers arose or as occasion required. From Joshua to Samuel, a period of about three hundred years, that form of government remained. But when the sons of Samuel were made judges they walked not in the ways of their father, as the Scripture reads, and the Israelites were fast losing their national and religious life. Then the insistent demand went up, "Make us a king to judge us like all the nations." Samuel warned the people of domination, loss of individual rights, and of injustice, but the cry continued, and Saul was anointed ruler over Israel. To follow the career of these people is to be aware that as worship of the one true God waned, their sense of government was based more on personal domination and less on adherence to divine law. The reign of the kingdom of heaven in the consciousness of individuals helps to evolve a right form of government in national life.

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