Article January 4, 1947 Issue

Safety

ELMA S. WHITMORE

A Skillful teacher sometimes emphasizes an important point of instruction by a question which has a self-evident answer. This method of instruction was noticeably used by Scriptural writers, as when the prophet Jeremiah asked (Jer. 23:23), "Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off?" It was also a method used by the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. Mary Baker Eddy. In her volume "Christian Science versus Pantheism" she writes (p. 9), "What mortal to-day is wise enough to do himself no harm, to hinder not the attainment of scientific Christianity?" The obvious answer to this question is that mortals have much to learn to avoid hurting themselves, and that the great need is for more spiritual wisdom and understanding.

Harm of some sort seems often to descend upon mortal man, and the search for security from bodily suffering, mental anguish, unemployment, displacement, or property damage continues. And yet Mrs. Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 404). "Hatred, envy, dishonesty, fear, and so forth, make a man sick, and neither material medicine nor Mind can help him permanently, even in body, unless it makes him better mentally, and so delivers him from his destroyers."

The true method for finding safety is contained in the Bible, where we read (II Pet. 1:5-7, 10), "Add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity." Then we are assured, "If ye do these things, ye shall never fall."

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