Editorial August 1, 1942 Issue

Attraction

Evelyn F. Heywood

It is wise to heed the warning of Mary Baker Eddy on page 449 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," where she writes: "The inoculation of evil human thoughts ought to be understood and guarded against. The first impression, made on a mind which is attracted or repelled according to personal merit or demerit, is a good detective of individual character."

Any attraction, whether it appear harmless or even advantageous, which dethrones men's judgment and appeals to their senses, arousing admiration, curiosity, or submission to another's desires and opinions, is a form of inoculation. "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him," said Jesus, thus protecting himself from the false adulation and meaningless discipleship of those who would follow him for vain or sinister motive.

Mortal mind, ever seeking what is outside itself to feed and lean upon, to worship or exploit, must not be allowed, however flattering the attention and favors or however exciting the pursuit, to rob men of that spiritual intuition and judgment which alone directs and guards them aright. The desire for power may cause men to use means mental and physical, allurements of human ingenuity, to attract, to influence and control. The pursuit of excitement, of novelty, of personal advantage may, when the exercise of detection and discrimination is lacking, draw them in mindless crowds to follow and adopt what they should repudiate and denounce. On page 159 of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany," our Leader writes, "Material theories tend to check spiritual attraction—the tendency towards God, the infinite and eternal—by an opposite attraction towards the temporary and finite." With the same earnestness that they analyze their ambitions and motives, men need to analyze the influences by which they are attracted or repelled. Beauty and charm, ease and security, parade before mortal man in alluring disguises and temptations, promising so much, but in the final issue proving to be mere will-o'-the-wisps, unless their basis is Spirit.

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