Article July 6, 1935 Issue

The Power of Gentleness

FREDERICK C. CLARK

It is inspiring to watch a brilliant sunset. Each little cloud is tinged with heavenly colors, some delicate, some more vivid. Anon the sun sinks lower in the west, and the brightness of the sky takes on the soft grays and deep blues of twilight. A star appears. The blue grows deeper as the last rays of light depart. A multitude of stars now gleam, and for a few short hours stud the heavens with their beauty. Then comes the dawn. The first faint rays light up the heavens, now pink, now gold. And in its glorious splendor comes the sunrise. How gently is each transformation wrought! There is no confusion, but a gentle blending of colors until the day has come.

The power of gentleness is ofttimes overlooked by a world too much accustomed to mistaking gentleness for softness or weakness. Consider for a moment the gentleness with which the master Christian taught and healed, thus foreshadowing, in his ministry, world salvation. At a time when tyranny was rampant, oppression the order of the day, and the iron heel of the Romans ground into the dust all who opposed them, came Christ Jesus with a message of freedom for all. He called no army to his standard. Brute force he did not need. Instead, he faced a hostile world with gentleness.

Down through the centuries error tried with rack and scaffold to stamp out that message, and so a world struggled on in sickness, sin, and death, until the gentleness of Love won out, and a New England gentlewoman, Mary Baker Eddy, discovered the spiritual meaning of Jesus' message and gave it to mankind. She, like Jesus, faced a hostile world, and in addition revealed, according to prophecy, the teachings of the Comforter or "Spirit of truth." And though the rack and scaffold no longer threatened her, the age-old lie tried by subtler, but no less deadly methods, to destroy the message and its bearer. Our Leader, like Jesus, met the challenge, and with gentleness she fought and won.

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The Way Out
July 6, 1935
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