Article March 30, 1946 Issue

The First Commandment: Why Is It so Important for Us?

[Original Article in German]

WILLIAM BREYMANN

Our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, says in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 340), that the First Commandment is her favorite text. And in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 28) she explains its significance in these words: "Then the commandment means, Thou shalt recognize no intelligence nor life in matter; and find neither pleasure nor pain therein."

Then the cause of all the difficulties, all the sorrows, all the thorns in our human experience is the belief that life exists in matter. Freedom from this mistaken belief of life in matter is attained only through conscientious study and application of Christian Science in daily life, just as the false concept that two times two is five is replaced only by the understanding and application of the mathematical fact.

"Only by persistent, unremitting, straight-forward toil; by turning neither to the right nor to the lift, seeking no other pursuit or pleasure than that which cometh from God, can you win and wear the crown of the faithful." Thus admonishes our Leader in her article "Fidelity" in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 340). In similar vein was the exhortation of the writer of the sixth chapter of Proverbs many thousand years ago (verse 9), "How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep?"

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