Editorial March 9, 1940 Issue

Responsibility

Evelyn F. Heywood

God, the divine Principle of man and the universe, is alone responsible for that which He outlines and maintains. In oneness with this eternal purpose, man fulfills the sole responsibility which is his—obedience to the divine will. Christ Jesus recognized no other behest and sought to fulfill no other requirement than to bear witness to the divine nature. In confirmation of this he told those who were willing to listen to him that the two great commandments on which "hang all the law and the prophets" consist of loving God, wholly and primarily, and one's neighbor as oneself.

Without a willingness to obey the First Commandment, men find themselves powerless either to understand or to conform faithfully to the second. Sometimes because of indifference, at other times moved by fear because of their own precarious involvement, as in the case of Cain, they ask, "Am I my brother's keeper?"

The fact is that our brother, the man for whom God is responsible, whom we are responsible for seeing in His likeness, is never outside our keeping. To maintain the thought of him untouched by condemnation, as did Jesus, even while we see clear-eyed, without partiality, without indifference, the dangers and falsities with which the counterfeit presentment may be involved, is to walk unscathed and yet constantly alert amongst the shoals and quicksands of material sense. This is the great teaching of Christian Science, as revealed to us by Mary Baker Eddy, wherein she elucidates for us the meaning, the practical availability, of the Christ-example. On page 18 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," she writes of Jesus: "He did life's work aright not only in justice to himself, but mercy to mortals,—to show them how to do theirs, but not to do it for them nor to relieve them of a single responsibility."

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