Article April 4, 1936 Issue

"When thou fastest"

MARGARET H. ANDERSON

IN every Christian's heart there lies the undying intuition that man's true life and being are not material, but spiritual. This conviction, which has no relation to mere human instinct, is referred to by Paul in the eighth chapter of his epistle to the Romans, where we read, "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God." This great truth sooner or later arouses individuals, with increasing urge, to seek for and to find man's true life and dwelling place in Spirit, God.

The efforts of mortals in this direction have too often been based on the supposition that man has become separated from God through sin, and must, through material sacrifice, regain the favor of a so-called punishing God. Fasting, or abstaining from material food at certain seasons and for stated periods, as atonement for sin, has been included in the teachings of some religious systems. The higher intent of fasting is, however, moral and spiritual self-purification, in order that closer individual communion with the divine may be realized.

The day of atonement, the only fast ordained in the Mosaic law, required certain symbolic rites performed in expiation for sin. There can be traced, however, throughout the Old Testament a golden thread of ascending thought rising from a material standpoint to more spiritual concepts of God, and consequently to a clearer perception of the nature of true worship. Centuries before the advent of Jesus, Isaiah glimpsed the contrast between merely outward ceremony and the gladness of the true fast with its practical healing results in human life. This distinction is graphically portrayed in the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah, where we read: "Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? ... Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? . . . Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily."

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