Editorial July 25, 1936 Issue

Work and Rest

Violet Ker Seymer

Christian Science takes the tenseness out of work and the laziness out of leisure. It does away with the human belief in overaction and inaction by unfolding the fact of divine Mind's harmonious omniaction. It teaches us that in both work and leisure there should be a sense of resting in eternal Truth and the assurance of unlabored spiritual strength. True thinking is true living. In "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 254) Mrs. Eddy writes: "Watch, pray, demonstrate. Released from materialism, you shall run and not be weary, walk and not faint."

Fatigue and restlessness result from ignorance or forget-fulness of the fact that all inspired vision and loving service is traceable to God, infinite Mind. Of anxious toil it is written in Ecclesiastes: "For what hath man of all his labour, and of the vexation of his heart, wherein he hath laboured under the sun? For all his days are sorrows, and his travail grief; yea, his heart taken not rest in the night. This is also vanity." Have not many of us lain awake at night, disturbed by mental pictures and feeling unable to break away from them? This may be due to a lack of spiritual vigilance and fidelity to divine Principle during the daytime. Or it may be due to an undestroyed belief in the unrest of many minds, claiming to be transmitted. Christian Science holds the remedy in either case, and in proportion as we use it, we enter into the rest of spiritual-mindedness.

The refrain running in the thoughts of Christian Scientists should be that man is spiritual, incorporeal, complete and satisfied. Could one think of divine Principle and its ideas as physical and finite, incomplete and unsatisfied? Material belief alternates between a sense of physical activity and fatigue, but spiritual man has no alternative than to express the everlasting power and action of infinite Spirit. In all our work there should be a sense of rest, and in all our rest a sense of mental activity. Our Leader says (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 153), "Truth is restful, and Love is triumphant." What could be more restful, more fruitful, more heavenly than always to realize that life, intelligence, and health are spiritual, invariable, our very own by individual reflection of God? But so persistent seems the belief of dependence on matter that we need to remind ourselves of Jesus' words, "I can of mine own self do nothing."

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