Article December 21, 1935 Issue

"Weightier matters"

JOHN SIDNEY BRAITHWAITE

Most people shrink from what they imagine to be the burden of serious thinking. They seek respite in such forms of self-indulgence as may seem to afford a temporary escape from the responsibility of thinking for themselves. Soon they learn that along this way there is little or no refreshment to be found. What seemed like levity and airy trifling proves before long to be leaden-weighted, dissipating noble aspirations and leaving one quite dispirited.

Hence these challenging words of our Leader: "The time for thinkers has come" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Pref., p. vii). This call, which obviously includes all mankind, and not just a favored few, is urging that the weightier matters of life must be faced squarely with right thinking, and that the time is now. Throughout the whole of her teaching Mrs. Eddy has insisted that the crystal-clear simplicity of the Master's words is still adequate to loosen the heavy burden form the oppressed shoulders. It matters little that the conditions of human experience appear to be so different today from what they were in Jesus' time. If Jesus should reappear among us today, we should not find him old-fashioned or behind the times. The spiritually-minded would recognize instantly that here was one who, in the midst of all this confusion of tongues, could speak such words as would begin instantly to clarify the turbid thoughts of men, and show them the way out. If the human Jesus were with us today, would his personal presence among us give us more than we already have? And would the world be more ready to listen than it was in his time? The Gospel narrative is almost photographic in the vividness of the portrait that it presents, and his words ring out as clearly from the text as they ever could through the human voice, or any mechanical reproduction of it.

Moreover, we have in Christian Science that which he promised should come later, but which he himself was not able to give in that age, because the people were not ready for it, namely "the Spirit of truth" or divine Science, which was the very background of his thought, the point of view form which emanated those clear pronouncements of eternal truth, stated in such simple language that all may understand. Not more today than in his own time would he compromise with the self-assertive conditions of mortal mind, pride, greed, lust, envy, and so forth. He would denounce the error without condemning its victims, just as he did nineteen hundred years ago. The high achievements of civilization, those evidences of progress in the arts, he would not despise. One can almost hear him say that these things are well enough in their way, but what about "the weightier matters of the law, judgement, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone."

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