Article August 24, 1935 Issue

Meeting Our Obligations

HAROLD THOMAS LOGAN

Cain's question, "Am I my brother's keeper?" still calls to us for an answer. But before answering it, we must first consider our obligation to God. In reality, all that we have we owe to our heavenly Father, the Giver of every good gift. Therefore we owe Him an endless debt of gratitude and praise and loving obedience. We should begin paying the debt now, and continue doing so with steadfast fervor and devotion. It is helpful and inspiring to view even the material things we possess, not as owned by us outright, but as evidencing good which we can share with others, and thus glorify our Father which is in heaven. This attitude helps to destroy and confidence.

Thus we find that a better understanding of our obligation to God gives us a clearer view of our responsibility to our brother. We are indeed his keeper. No matter what the outward seeming, our first and continuing obligation to him is to know him as he really is, spiritual, perfect—in truth, God's image and likeness. In the Bible story, in Genesis, Jacob apparently had every reason to fear and hate his brother Esau, whom he had wronged, but after his night of wrestling with false material concepts, terminating in the dawn of spiritual light, he was able to say to his brother, "I have seen thy face, as though I had seen the face of God."

What though aggressive mental suggestion may knock again and again at the door of thought with hideous images and perverted mental pictures? It is our joyous privilege to "guard against false beliefs as watchfully as we bar our doors against the approach of thieves and murderers," as Mrs. Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p.234). Though we may not be able to prevent these mental marauders from coming and knocking for admission, we can refuse to let them gain entrance or entertain them.

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