Editorial April 3, 1937 Issue

Freedom

Violet Ker Seymer

Basic freedom includes more than free choice of one's religion, profession, or mode of living. It includes freedom from sin and disease, poverty, and other forms of bondage imposed by material codes. Christian Science shows us how to win full freedom. The first step lies in relating freedom to the perfection of God expressed in man. This essential freedom is spiritual, comprehensive, immune from attack, interference, or destruction. God's likeness is never deprived of the badge of freedom resting upon his health, his intelligence, his power of achievement. He has never forfeited his God-bestowed freedom, for the good derived from God is irreversible and everlasting.

As Christian Scientists we set ourselves to demonstrate this freedom by looking steadfastly to God, its source. If the freedom we are gradually gaining seems subject to fluctuation, we have but to enlarge our spiritual understanding of freedom and press on to seek it in its entirety. On page 481 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy states, "God's being is infinity, freedom, harmony, and boundless bliss." Divine Love is free, for Love's infinitude is not assailable; in the expression of Love there is harmony. Life, God, is incorruptible, indestructible, beyond the reach of material sense. The freedom of Spirit excludes the least shadow of materiality or restriction. On this basis the Christian Scientist sets himself to demonstrate harmony and dominion. To this end he must divest himself of the notion that freedom is variable or subordinate to human conditions. In order to express the freedom of God and man he must exclude from his thought the various suggestions of evil by which he is tempted. Understanding the spiritual source and nature of freedom, he can rejoice in proving its permanence.

"Uphold me with thy free spirit." Freedom is lawful; bondage is lawless. Upheld by Spirit, the student of Christian Science finds release from mortal bondage through his own spirituality; he is strengthened by bearing in mind that man is free to express God's perfection. He is impelled to see himself as God's idea, untouched by fear or sinful tendencies, for on no other basis can one demonstrate freedom. He must rejoicingly affirm that his freedom is established by Spirit through spiritual law, and prayerfully obey this law according to his highest understanding. The only way to establish one's freedom from evil is through consistent willingness to relinquish every thought and desire, every habit and misdeed, which one knows is contrary to divine Principle.

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