Article August 10, 1935 Issue

True Recognition

LILLIAN B. WYAND

One of the most discouraging, as well as one of the most stubborn convictions of mankind is the belief that one can be deprived of just recognition for faithful and right endeavors. This belief seems to permeate every department of human activity, giving rise to a sense of injustice and resentment which, in turn, either results in such a breakdown of courage and morale as utterly to paralyze continued right endeavor, or else diverts one to the employment of questionable, if not dishonest means to gain that which it is believed has been unjustly withheld. The remedy for this distressing condition lies, as it always does in every erroneous condition, in one's discerning the true facts in the case. And through the light of Christian Science this discernment of true facts is made possible.

In Science we learn that God is Mind, the all-knowing, all-seeing Mind, in which originates all true knowledge or cognizance of being. Therefore there can be only one true recognition—that which God bestows. This true recognition was embodied in those immortal words relating to our Master: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Since true recognition is God-bestowed, man cannot withhold it. Balaam must have recognized this fact, for when Balak berated him for blessing the children of Israel when he had been called upon to curse them, that is, to withhold true recognition from them, Balaam replied: "Behold, I have received commandment to bless: and he hath blessed; and I cannot reverse it. . . . Told not I thee, saying, All that the Lord speaketh, that must I do?"

Since true recognition is an activity of Mind, God, it is expressed through and by Mind's ideas. Then man, being the full and perfect expression of Mind, God, of necessity expresses true recognition. On page 18 of "Miscellaneous Writings" Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, gives the following as one of the "prominent laws which forward birth in the divine order of Science": "Thou shalt recognize thyself as God's spiritual child only, and the true man and true woman, the all-harmonious 'male and female,' as of spiritual origin, God's reflection,—thus as children of one common Parent,—wherein and whereby Father, Mother, and child are the divine Principle and divine idea, even the divine 'Us'—one in good, and good in One. With this recognition man could never separate himself from good, God; and he would necessarily entertain habitual love for his fellow-man."

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