Editorial May 19, 1945 Issue

"A man's a man, for a' that"

John Randall Dunn

The well-known expression of the poet Robert Burns is the motif of an arresting paragraph on page 172 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." The inspired author of this volume, Mary Baker Eddy, writes: "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.'"

From the war zones of the world are returning many veterans bearing the scars of battle. Suppose I meet an old friend, a soldier who has been severely wounded and who is walking with an artificial leg. Could I possibly be tempted to think, Why, here comes three quarters of my friend! Or if I should meet another, even more unfortunately handicapped, would I refer to him as what is left of my friend? Most certainly not. Just what, then, am I recognizing as my friend, as the individual whom I have known and loved? Do I not go instantly to the realm of consciousness? My friend's manhood or womanhood, his or her identity, has never been at the mercy of or dependent upon a material body. This body is wholly mental—even what we are pleased to call the material concept of man. But the man God knows is not the creation of mortal thought. He springs from and has his being in Mind. His body, his substance, his identity, is the reflection of indestructible Spirit, and, no matter what corporeal sense has to say to the contrary, nothing can happen to that man which has not first happened to his Father, God.

With what courage, therefore, may the Christianly scientific warrior who presents the appearance of impairment go forward! Let him read especially pages 260 and 261 of Science and Health and learn that most necessary lesson of looking away from the material picture of body to the spiritual facts about Mind and its unimpairable expression. Let him, first of all, turn on that most subtle and plausible of enemies, self-pity, and refuse to accept its dangerous defeatism. Let him trample on the poisonous suggestions of resentment and bitterness as he would on deadly serpents. Maimed, indeed, is he whose mentality is warped with unrebuked rancor.

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