Article December 5, 1942 Issue

"Moral courage is requisite"

DELOS EDWARD JOHNSON

The word "courage" is often thought of as meaning physical bravery, or animal courage. Especially is this so to those unenlightened by the truth of being, as revealed through Christian Science. Mary Baker Eddy has written in the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 327): "Moral courage is requisite to meet the wrong and to proclaim the right. But how shall we reform the man who has more animal than moral courage, and who has not the true idea of good? Through human consciousness, convince the mortal of his mistake in seeking material means for gaining happiness." Moral courage, therefore, is of paramount importance today, in order to overcome the mesmeric belief that material possessions, happiness, and power can be gained through war.

Christ Jesus, our Way-shower, definitely appreciated the value of moral courage, and he practiced it continually in his daily life. When the devil tempted him thrice after his forty-day fast in the wilderness, finally offering him "all the kingdoms of the world," moral courage enabled him to resist the temptation, and the devil departed from him. When the people sought forcibly to make him king, "he departed again into a mountain himself alone," fully appreciating that spiritual understanding was far more needful than temporal power. Mrs. Eddy likewise showed abundant moral courage. In presenting the truth of Christian Science to the world in her textbook, through the founding of The Mother Church and its activities and the writing of the Church Manual, she manifested great moral courage, wisdom, and spiritual understanding.

In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy writes (p. 368): "The confidence inspired by Science lies in the fact that Truth is real and error is unreal. Error is a coward before Truth." The beliefs of evil which seem to impede spiritual progress and right activity, being based on false premises, have no power, This fact affords the student of Christian Science an opportunity to prove the truth about the situation, whatever it may be, by courageously and continually following the example of Jesus. Thus if evil is given no opportunity to abide in his thought, it is not expressed in his experience.

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