Article May 18, 1946 Issue

Kindness

MYRTLE R. BIGGINS

Paul wrote in his epistle to the Ephesians (4:32). "Be ye kind one to another." This was written a number of years after the great change took place in Paul's character, when he awoke to the truth of Christ Jesus' teachings. After his awakening, his heart became tender toward those whom he had formerly persecuted; intolerance and tyranny were replaced with benevolence and compassion. Kindness certainly had not been one of Paul's outstanding qualities in his earlier days. When we see the kindliness and love animating his epistles to the various churches, can we doubt that he was a happier individual and a nobler character after this change than before? This Christian conversion of Paul's marked the beginning of his new birth, an experience which must come to all at some time in accordance with Jesus' statement to Nicodemus, "Ye must be born again."

Paul's aim in writing to the Ephesians was to appeal to them for a higher recognition of the greatness, unity, and dignity of the church, and to foster among the members a desire for pure and worthy living. This is indicated in his words (Eph. 4:1), "I ... beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called." This letter to the Ephesians is a message quite as vital to our own time and to our own churches as it was to the Ephesians at the time it was written.

Can there really be any true dignity, strength, or unity apart from kindness? In "Miscellaneous Writings" Mary Baker Eddy tells us (p. 312), "Love is consistent, uniform, sympathetic, self-sacrificing, unutterably kind." That which makes words enduring is the vitality that the spirit of Truth gives them, and probably no quality expressed humanly has a more enduring influence than kindness.

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