Article June 18, 1938 Issue

"The accuser of our brethren"

CONSTANCE A. DYER

Foremost among the many blessings bestowed upon humanity through the teachings of Christian Science is the clear light thrown upon the commandment, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." We are told in Revelation, "Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night." The human consciousness from which "the accuser of our brethren" is "cast down," is one through which the divine nature shines with such steady radiance that the mists of material sense are dissolved, and the voice of "the accuser" is thereby silenced.

Are we alert enough to recognize that only as "the accuser" is cast out of our own consciousness do we realize the establishment of "salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ"? At times we are apt to think that the casting down has to take place, not in our own, but in someone else's thinking, and thus we may allow ourselves to be used as agents for "the accuser." Did we all remember that, fundamentally, our whole duty as students of Christian Science is to keep our own thought clear; that to love our neighbor as ourself is to recognize that every suggestion of imperfection presenting itself to us regarding ourselves or our neighbor—whether as sickness, sin, poverty, or death—is but the lying voice of "the accuser," which must be silenced, we should accomplish far more than many of us are at present accomplishing towards establishing "the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ" within our own consciousness, and in that measure within our churches.

An essential preliminary to the successful silencing of "the accuser of our brethren," and the consequent learning to love one's neighbor as oneself, is the fearless searching of one's own heart, in order to discover what errors "the accuser" is presenting regarding oneself. These errors take the form of suggestions concerning past or present sicknesses or sins, hereditary or family beliefs, self-indulgence, self-pity, self-consciousness, fear, lack of moral courage, and other multifarious phases of material belief presented by the carnal mind in its attempt to blind one's eyes to his true spiritual status as a son of God.

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