Like a great bell the words, "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy," ring in the mind. Remember the day. What day? What is the Lord's day? Is it just twenty-four hours at one end of the week or is it the well-lighted consciousness in which God's goodness continuously appears? You and I know that goodness never had a beginning; beauty and substance never began. They are of the nature of God, and He has expressed them always. But sometimes, all of a sudden, the warmth and spontaneity of unselfishness expressed by ourselves or another makes the whole world begin to glow with well-being. The ancient records call this appearing of new and beautiful ideas to consciousness, creation. Our beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, says of this appearing of good, "This unfolding is God's day" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 584). This is the day we celebrate.

Did not the people that Moses led out of slavery experience this good? Of course. Gradually, through obedience, a new day dawned for them. Moses saw Spirit face to face. What appeared to them was a land of health and abundance and progress all theirs. This was the beginning of the appearing of God's creation to them in a way they could understand. Is it any wonder that Moses saw that if this progress was to continue, a regular time should be set aside for all people to acknowledge the presence of God and be grateful for it—that this was a needful help to them in realizing His ever-presence? Now, it does not take any great astuteness to see that materialism (that do-nothing, know-nothing tendency) would like us to forget the day, or to make it just like any other.

Someone asked an American Indian why he drew horses with broken lines instead of a continuous one. He said, "Oh, I leave spaces for the spirit to come in." For us Sunday is, in a sense, a space for Spirit "to come in."

Not that it does not come in other days, as this true story shows. Harry, a young man just starting in business, boarded a fast train for the coast. It was an important trip to him. When the conductor asked for his ticket, he could not find it anywhere, although he had bought it just before train time. As people turned around to stare, he became more confused. Finally the conductor moved on after demanding a cash fare which left Harry no money at all.

Then he thought, "I'm not using what I know."

So he declared, "I have not lost my ticket."

But then it argued, "How can I say I've lost nothing when according to the testimony of my senses I have?"

"Because 'all is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation' (ibid., p. 468). Mind is expressed in me and nothing essential to my completeness can be separated from me. Mind makes and maintains me whole and complete."

With that positive statement of fact and law Harry's self-condemnation and worry subsided. Fifty miles away in the station a man was at that moment picking up the ticket and turning it in; and in a short time the conductor came through the train saying, "Your ticket has been found." Harry was impressed by this fact: that in sticking to the truth the thing that belonged to him appeared, while a sense of loss, which was not his, disappeared.

This work that he did, this active and alert thinking according to law, was obedience and brought the blessing that is referred to at the end of the commandment: "Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it."

You and I, as we really are, may appear more spiritually alert at Christian Science church services and Sunday school on the day called Sunday. There, the light in which we see ourselves is the truth contained in the Bible and Science and Health. It heals us because when we listen to it the success, the assurance, the stability that we have as ideas of God dawn in consciousness and the incoherence, uncertainty, even futility we are beset with as mortals fade away. This, then, is our independence day, or rather it illustrates the independence day that is always ours. So let no one tell us that lying in bed, reading the funnies, listening to the radio, or oversleeping because of a party the night before is independence. It is not independence but the trickery of self-deception to let our moral stamina be undermined and our thought befogged and bewildered until we forget what God can do for us. Of course, we can have as clear a sense of reality one day as another, and in one place as another, but the Sunday school and Sunday services help us to establish this.

Youth has sometimes been deceived. To its sorrow and disappointment, it has sometimes been sold the idea that it was smart to be indolent and careless of the substantial things of Spirit. But we need not be deceived. It is natural, not unnatural, for us to understand our Father-Mother God. In this safe family association we are able to detect the propaganda of mortal mind, the common enemy. In this secure consciousness thought reflects both the quality and the clarity of Mind itself, so that we can act intelligently, work tirelessly, and love fearlessly, and show forth the supremacy of our God.

Then we can laugh at the ingenious devices of materialism that stuff Sunday with movies, sports, and parades just to keep us on the run and stop us from thinking. Our thought will not be stereotyped and dull when it is associated with God, the source of infinite ideas. Through them we move into the vista of new activities and undiscovered abilities. Mrs. Eddy says this (ibid., p. 249): "Let us feel the divine energy of Spirit, bringing us into newness of life and recognizing no mortal nor material power as able to destroy. Let us rejoice that we are subject to the divine 'powers that be.' "

No one is too young to move in this freedom. Janet was not. But in Sunday school she could not see how the fifth commandment, "Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee," could help her.

"I can't honor my father and mother," she said firmly, and pressed the book together.

"But it's God, your Father-Mother God," the others said, with anxiety. It appeared that Janet's home was unhappy, with very little love and hardly any money coming in. The neighborhood was evil, too. The mother, depressed and blinded by a sense of injustice and poverty, said that it was impossible for them to find better quarters at a rent they could pay.

"Let's see what our Father-Mother is giving us, and then we shall see if we cannot honor Him," the teacher said. They talked about "thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." They considered that land is a dwelling place, and that in its true sense it must be a secure and happy dwelling place; that it was her land, for God had given it to her; that it was spiritual, for God did not know anything about houses, good ones or poor ones; that this land must be made up of good ideas, and therefore there were no limits to where she could go and still be in her own beautiful land. And finally one of the classmates exclaimed, "Why, that sounds like heaven."

"It certainly does," replied the teacher, "and Jesus says it is within us."

A week went by. Janet confided that Sunday afternoon she had gone for a walk by herself in her "land." She went up and down several streets, knowing that she was one of God's dearest possessions and that she had a secure and happy dwelling place. The result of that was that she looked up suddenly and there was a building just being converted to living quarters. She had found for her family a place that was clean, in a reputable neighborhood, and at a rent of four dollars less a month than they had been paying. Was not this commandment Janet's passport to power?

With such understanding Mrs. Eddy writes in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 236): "Love and honor thy parents, and yield obedience to them in all that is right; but you have the rights of conscience, as we all have, and must follow God in all your ways."

This is the third of five articles on the Commandments. The others will follow at monthly intervals.