Article November 10, 1945 Issue

God's Man Knows No Impairment

ELLA H. HAY

We can make a helpful contribution to our returning service men and women, some of whom may have been maimed, by taking them back into the routine of daily life as naturally as possible. This is their desire. By their very insistence on living usefully and normally, those who have suffered serious injuries are demonstrating that manliness is not lessened by the loss of a limb or the injury of any portion of the body.

In a heartening passage in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy writes (p. 172): "What is man? Brain, heart, blood, bones, etc., the material structure? If the real man is in the material body, you take away a portion of the man when you amputate a limb: the surgeon destroys manhood, and worms annihilate it. But the loss of a limb or injury to a tissue is sometimes the quickener of manliness; and the unfortunate cripple may present more nobility than the statuesque athlete,—teaching us by his very deprivations, that 'a man's a man, for a' that.' "

The Psalmist said (Ps. 8:4): "What is man that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet." True manliness is expressed in Godlike qualities—qualities which are wholly apart and separate from matter. Integrity, justice, alertness, poise, willingness to serve— these are spiritual qualities, not found in matter, but in Mind. The true selfhood of each one of us is the reflection of God, divine Mind. We express infinite Spirit, God, not in a material body, but in spiritual consciousness.

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