Article April 25, 1936 Issue

Loyalty

EYRE SANDFORD CARTER

The English word "loyalty" is derived from a Latin root meaning law. In the Sermon on the Mount, and indeed throughout his ministry, Jesus expounded the noblest concept of law, and exemplified the highest degree of loyalty to Principle, that the world has ever known. His wholehearted and glad obedience to the law of God stood out in sharp contrast with the almost fanatical devotion of the Pharisees to their codes. For this reason his precepts and practice are no less valuable today, since mankind is still being drawn away to render unquestioning allegiance to earthly personalities, or to man-made systems of religious, political, or economic labels.

Through his own unswerving loyalty to God, his divine Principle, the master Christian opened up for each and all a way of escape from the attempted domination of a person, or of an ideology, or of any so-called law that is foreign to this eternal Principle. Today, Christian Science is restating the truths taught by Jesus in a from adapted to the present state of human thought. It is showing us that in order to be truly loyal to God we must understand Him. This task, as Mary Baker Eddy states on page 3 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," "demands absolute consecration of thought, energy, and desire." She says again (ibid., p. 183): "Divine Mind rightly demands man's entire obedience, affection, and strength. No reservation is made for any lesser loyalty."

At first sight, this may appear to be so exacting a requirement as to be outside the possibility of achievement. And certainly no student of Christian Science would claim that he has yet reached the point where he consistently maintains "absolute consecration of thought, energy, and desire." But he keeps his goal ever in view, and earnestly directs his footsteps towards it. Thus he strives to express his loyalty to God in studying to understand His spiritual law, and so to obey it and prove it.

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