Article April 8, 1944 Issue

Love Loosens the Bonds of Materiality

CAROBETH LAIRD

Today the problem of human bondage looms even larger in the general thought of the world than in the days when the children of Israel were carried into their various captivities. Nations are enslaved and numbers of their citizens carried away to forced labor under inhuman conditions. As these tragic scenes present themselves to us, our hearts overflow with pity, and we resolve to make more consecrated efforts to realize the omnipresence of that Love which, mindful of the sparrow's fall, is able to correct and govern mankind, even to save and comfort it abundantly.

Today the triumph of righteousness will bring release to millions of earth's captive children. But the more decisive battle for complete freedom from every form of bondage must be fought and won in individual human consciousness. The outwardly prosperous citizen of an uninvaded country may wear unseen chains which are more hampering to spiritual activity than are steel shackles or barbed wire entanglements to physical freedom.

To a practitioner's attention came stories of husband and wife, parent and child, teacher and pupil, employer and employee, fellow workers and fellow church members, all complaining of bonds that chafed, sometimes intolerably. Turning to God for inspiration, she saw that these situations seemed unendurable because hatred and suspicion, rebellion and contempt, warred in the thoughts of the individuals; whereas tolerance, courtesy, good humor, respect, and consideration would illumine the midnight hour of human experience with the presence of divine Love. Bondage of any sort is mental, therefore mesmeric, and that which is bound is always the material personality, the human concept. But when even a little love is reflected, thought grows more spiritual, and rises spontaneously toward the mental freedom of divine Love, wherein abides the spiritual idea, the incorporeal individuality of every one of us which cannot be imprisoned or enslaved.

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