Editorial June 8, 1940 Issue

Let Us Go Forward

George Shaw Cook

The children of Israel, pursued by the Egyptians, found themselves confronted by an apparently impassable barrier—the Red Sea. At this juncture they listened to the erroneous suggestion that they would have been better off had they remained the slaves of Pharaoh. However, Moses, their intrepid leader, was not dismayed by this defeatist attitude of thought on their part. On the contrary, he said to them, "Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will shew to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever." And it is further recorded that the Lord said to Moses, "Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward." Bible students are familiar with the story of the parting of the sea and of the passage of the Israelites through it "upon the dry ground."

Men and nations, in their attempt to gain freedom from human bondage of one kind or another, may reach the point in their experience where they wonder whether it is worth while to continue the struggle; and they may even be tempted to believe that they can go no farther, or that they would be justified in returning to conditions which have already proved undesirable, if not unendurable. To such, Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, says (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 22), "If your endeavors are beset by fearful odds, and you receive no present reward, go not back to error, nor become a sluggard in the race."

Writing of the passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea, which she likens to the "dark ebbing and flowing tides of human fear" (ibid., p. 566), and to their later experience in the wilderness, Mrs. Eddy says, "So shall the spiritual idea guide all right desires in their passage from sense to Soul, from a material sense of existence to the spiritual, up to the glory prepared for them who love God." When confronted by obstacles in their mental journey out of bondage to sickness, sin, and other forms of mortal belief, Christian Scientists may be tempted by discouragement. In such circumstances, they will do well to recall the enheartening statement with which their Leader ends the above-quoted paragraph: "Stately Science pauses not, but moves before them, a pillar of cloud by day and off fire by night, leading to divine heights."

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