Article December 5, 1936 Issue

"Go ye ... and buy for yourselves"

[Original article in German]

GABRIELE ENGELMANN

In the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew we read of the ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. The five foolish ones, however, took no oil with them. At midnight there was a cry of rejoicing, "Behold, the bridegroom cometh." Then the foolish said to the wise, "Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out." The others answered, "Not so; ... but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves." And as they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and the door was shut.

When the writer was a little child she felt an unconquerable aversion to the wise virgins at the reading of this Bible passage. She could not understand how anyone could be so narrow and merciless toward others. This attitude seemed anything but Christian, and it was wholly incomprehensible to her that this refusal to share, apparently so lacking in love, should nevertheless be rewarded.

Years later, through the understanding of Christian Science, the writer found this passage, which had seemed so dark, illumined. Through the "key" in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," the meaning of "oil" became clear to her. Mrs. Eddy gives its metaphysical meaning, in part, as "charity" (Science and Health, p. 592). Then, if the wise virgins had oil, in its spiritual meaning, they had charity, and their conduct towards the others could not be described as hard and narrow, in a word, unchristian. On the contrary, their conduct was conditioned actually by love and mercy. This lesson of true love was surely what our Master, the greatest teacher of all times, gave in this parable.

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