Editorial December 15, 1945 Issue

Would You Know Dominion Over Depraved Appetite?

John Randall Dunn

Appetite does not necessarily connote depravity. One may have an appetite, a craving, for good literature, good music. Certainly those who have companioned with ill-health, who have had an aversion for food and have been restored to normality through the Christly ministrations of Christian Science, will many times express gratitude for a wholesome appetite for meat and drink and the ability to digest them.

Our concern should be aside from striving for temperance in dealing with all mundane desires, intelligently to meet and master the subtler and more dangerous appetites which can be classified as depraving. What an unlovely word is "depraved"! Search as one may its etymology, not one good or desirable human quality does it portray. It indicates that which is the perversion of all that is lofty, pure, and righteous; it is that which degrades, enslaves, and makes friends with corruption and degeneration. If you would know more of the close companions of depravity, read the list which Mary Baker Eddy gives on page 115 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" under the caption "Scientific Translation of Mortal Mind."

Is it not unthinkable that a mortal, capable of reasoning, should deliberately choose, in the language of Proverbs (2:13), to "leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness"? Christian Science teaches that mortals in the final analysis are not deliberate sinners. Through ignorance of spirituality they become victims of the mesmerism of animality or, to use another expression, animal magnetism. Therefore we can understand the Master's compassionate prayer for those who crucified him (Luke 23:34), "Father, forgive them: for they know not what they do."

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