Editorial September 16, 1939 Issue

Authority

Evelyn F. Heywood

"When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice," observed the writer of Proverbs. The exercise of unwelcome authority, religious or political, against which men have rebelled, to which they have sullenly submitted, is in large measure the history of the human race.

The usurpation of power was everywhere in evidence in the Judea and Galilee of Jesus' day. It was here he sought to establish the Christ-teaching, which should make men free, physically and spiritually. About him were a people dominated civilly by the cruel militarism of the Roman yoke; dominated theologically by a despotic priestcraft, cramping and darkening their sense of God.

The Master came to teach men where true authority is to be found. The liberation which he brought was not that of a temporary ruler or benefactor; it was eternal and divine. It was the outcome of his understanding of that oneness of man with divine Principle, whence alone comes law and the power to enforce and maintain it. On page 26 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy has written: "Divine Truth, Life, and Love gave Jesus authority over sin, sickness, and death. His mission was to reveal the Science of celestial being, to prove what God is and what He does for man." It is this divine authority and its infinite, ever-present availability, which is revealed in the Science of Christianity.

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