Editorial March 14, 1942 Issue

Reliability

Evelyn F. Heywood

He who relies upon God in confidence that divine Love will preserve him, and that divine intelligence will direct him, ceases to fear or question the unreliability of others or of the world in which he lives. He no longer feels himself at the mercy of haphazard events and untoward circumstances; he no longer fears that evil men and evil deeds can master or destroy him. "He that is of God heareth God's words," said Jesus with utmost simplicity and directness to the Jews. When men learn that their reliability is in God, and that they can in conscious awareness of His guiding presence cease to think of their happiness, their well-being, their very existence as dependent upon mortal uncertainty or irresolution, they do hear His words, comforting, encouraging, instructing them.

Fundamental is the need of the human race for reliability. And where shall it be found but in God? Thoughtful men and women, in touch with modern youth, have stated in recent years that one of the problems of the day is the combating of cynicism and disillusionment among those who have seen the old landmarks, ethics and lawfulness, ruthlessly swept away; have read and listened to the glorification of tyranny and slavedom in the name of progress and enlightenment. The subtle and persistent advocacy of ideologies based on force and irreligion, on distortion and dishonor, have even, if not accepted, not infrequently found no practical idealism to combat and replace them. Evil, boastfully auguring its own triumph, has been by many admired and accepted as inevitable; by others it has been ignored in the pursuit of ease or skepticism; by the intellectual it has often been ably yet irresponsibly analyzed. Only he who combats evil at all times fearlessly with vigor and intelligence, because he is Godreliant, is himself reliable in every relationship. Thus did Paul admonish the Corinthians, "Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong."

Men must learn and in their turn teach youth that not in dependence upon human leadership, influence, or ability, not in human events, but in reliance upon divine Principle, is safety to be found. Confidence and conviction in the triumph of good then take the place of perplexity, disbelief, and inaction. Cynicism and distrust must disappear when the individual learns that it is not the nature of learns that it is impugned by the callous infamy of evil minds; rather is it the evidence of the inevitable self-destruction of that which separates itself from good. On page 203 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy writes, "Spiritual perception brings out the possibilities of being, destroys reliance on aught but God, and so makes man the image of his Maker in deed and in truth."

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