Article September 23, 1939 Issue

Promptness

WILLIAM HALE COOMBER

Students of Christian Science find that promptness is a very desirable quality, to be practically applied in their undertakings. The real man, the image and likeness of God, reflects alertness, spontaneity, and exactness, qualities of the all-governing, all-controlling, all-acting divine Principle. If one would be really prompt, therefore, one should be on guard against laziness, inactivity, apathy, and lethargy. To be prompt is to be mentally active and alert; to take action at the right moment, in accordance with divine direction.

Our revered Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, appreciated the importance of being prompt and, recognizing that promptness is a demand of divine Science, she wrote (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 117), "Be sure that God directs your way; then, hasten to follow under every circumstance." It is said that Mrs. Eddy required everything in her household to be done with dispatch, as well as with neatness and orderliness. We also know that when the original edifice of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, was being built, she found it necessary to fix a date for its completion. And in writing of the By-Laws of The Mother Church, as set forth in the Church Manual, she states (ibid., p. 148): "They were impelled by a power not one's own, were written at different dates, and as the occasion required. They sprang from necessity, the logic of events,—from the immediate demand for them as a help that must be supplied to maintain the dignity and defense of our Cause." Likewise, once our Leader, under God's direction, had determined that the time had come for launching The Christian Science Monitor, arrangements were made for its prompt publication.

Paul, in his second epistle to Timothy, points out the necessity of being "instant in season," and Christian Science teaches us to be prompt always in the rejection of error, and so to be obedient to divine Principle, Life, Truth, and Love—to be truly spiritual, right thinkers. In this connection Mrs. Eddy says in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (pp. 273, 274), "Science shows that material, conflicting mortal opinions and beliefs emit the effects of error at all times, but this atmosphere of mortal mind cannot be destructive to morals and health when it is opposed promptly and persistently by Christian Science."

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