Article April 13, 1935 Issue

"Be ye therefore perfect"

BEATRICE DE F. BARTLE

In those quiet moments when the clamor of the world is less insistent, it is well to look at some of the motives that impel our pursuits and aims, and to ask ourselves, Are they worth while? At heart most of us are not satisfied; maybe we are disturbed by a "divine discontent" when we view the distance between our ideal and our practice. In our best moments, from the heights of our aspirations and desires, do we feel an urge towards greater and nobler things? It is because of man's divine origin that nothing can wholly satisfy our deep yearning but an ever-unfolding, growing sense of goodness and perfection.

How well Christ Jesus understood this when he said to those who were privileged to hear the greatest sermon ever preached, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect"! Until Christian Science came shedding its light upon much that had seemed difficult and obscure, this saying was looked upon as an impossible ideal. The difficulties in the way of its practice appeared so insurmountable that mankind generally had considered perfection to be unattainable, and therefore imperfection was regarded as unavoidable and excusable. This conclusion frankly abandoned the standard raised by the Saviour.

It has remained for Christian Science again to raise that standard by exposing the falsity of the belief, which has existed throughout the ages, that man was created by God with a dual physical and spiritual nature. This belief that man is both human and divine, material and spiritual, has been the great stumbling block of all time for mankind. Christian Science, however, reveals the truth that there is but one man, God's image and likeness, sinless and pure, and this includes the real selfhood of each one. It also shows the wondrous possibilities of spiritualized thought as the individual awakens to this likeness—to his spiritual sonship with the Father, which is now as it was in the beginning and always will be.

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