Article May 25, 1935 Issue

"My brother's keeper"

RUTH J. SAUER

Ever since Cain asked the question, "Am I my brother's keeper?" mankind has tried to excuse itself for its lack of brotherly love by declaring that it is not. We read in Malachi, "Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us?" Our brother or neighbor is the one about whom we think, and in so far as we rightly keep him in our thinking we are "our brother's keeper."

As Christian Scientists our chief concern should be to keep our consciousness in line with Truth, realizing only that which is spiritually correct about all. We cannot manifest brotherly love unless we know one another in Truth. God knows all there is to know about His children, and imparts that knowledge to us. Thus, by reflection we are able to gain a vision of reality—God infinitely good and man in His likeness. If Cain had known the truth about God and man and about their relationship, he would have kept his thought of Abel in the consciousness of Love instead of in the sense of resentment, hatred, and jealousy.

One may say, All this is quite true in God's perfect plan, but how can I help being resentful when I have been wronged, ill treated, misjudged? Human reasoning offers no solution to the problem, but the ever-available help of divine Love is equal to the task. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes in her Message to The Mother Church for 1902 (p. 19), "The Christian Scientist cherishes no resentment; he knows that that would harm him more than all the malice of his foes." One student learned that resentment is a form of hatred, a belief in a presence apart from God, and that forgiveness is a quality of Love, is an acknowledgment of God's allness. Unless a Christian Scientist is honest and alert, resentment or condemnation may lurk unnoticed in his thought, to spring forth at some unexpected moment; for as our Leader writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 446), "Ignorance of the error to be eradicated oftentimes subjects you to its abuse."

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