Article August 11, 1934 Issue

"Am I my brother's keeper?"

RUTH R. WESLER

On page 151 of "Miscellaneous Writings" Mrs. Eddy writes, "God is our Father and our Mother, our Minister and the great Physician: He is man's only real relative on earth and in heaven." When the truth contained in this passage is fully discerned by mankind, the sense of human relationship, with its limiting and sometimes inharmonious phases, will give way to the divine idea of universal brotherhood as revealed in Christian Science; for it follows that since all are children of the one Parent, our Father-Mother God, we are spiritually akin. Jesus recognized no relationship but the spiritual. Once, according to the twelfth chapter of Matthew, when he was preaching, his attention was called to some of his human relatives who sought him. Stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, "Behold my mother and my brethren!"

This thought of the spiritual brotherhood and unity of God's creation, as set forth in Christian Science, quickens the affections and makes everyone, from the familiar members of our own household to the brothers across the sea, whom we have never seen, more dear to us. As the leaves of a tree touch and mingle in friendly fashion, all working in common, drawing sustenance and individuality from the parent tree, so God's ideas, moving together, derive life and individuality, not from one another, but from God, the one source of their being. Personal views as to man's origin may differ, but there should be no mistake among professed followers of Christ Jesus as to the correct attitude to be maintained toward their fellow men. Jesus, the Way-shower, said, "Love one another"; even, "Love your enemies." And so thoroughly did he put into practice what he taught, that he proved his understanding of Love to be the victor not only over the beliefs of sin and disease, but over "the last enemy," called death.

An instance of the direful results brought about by a state of thought opposite to love is found in the story of Cain, as recorded in the book of Genesis. Anger and jealousy had misled him into slaying his brother, Abel, and when the voice of Truth came to his consciousness, asking, "Where is Abel thy brother?" Cain replied, "I know not." And then, to cover the lie and ease his conscience, he asked the counterquestion, "Am I my brother's keeper?" In her spiritual interpretation of this incident our Leader has written in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" as follows (p. 541), "The erroneous belief that life, substance, and intelligence can be material ruptures the life and brotherhood of man at the very outset."

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