Editorial April 12, 1947 Issue

Are You Almost Persuaded?

John Randall Dunn

Now and then one comes across a person who acknowledges openly that he is a student of Christian Science, that he turns to it for healing and systematically reads and studies the literature; but he avers that he has not felt an urge to unite either with The Mother Church or with one of its branches. By way of justification he may say that he never was a joiner, and that he feels he may gain and give as much good as a so-called free lance as he could were he a member. Two more excuses are occasionally voiced: the first, that rumor has it that harmony is not always in evidence in the affairs of branch churches, and the second, that the would-be applicant is not good enough and does not know enough to qualify for membership.

Let these arguments be considered briefly: first, reluctance to join and support the Christian Science movement. Does it seem consistent for one to be a recipient of good from this beneficent activity and to be reluctant to aid in its maintenance? How could there be such things as church services, lectures, Sunday School: how could there be the great daily newspaper and weekly and monthly messengers of healing without the stately Mother Church organization? What is thought of an individual who may have lived for years in a country other than his birthplace and has made no effort to apply for citizenship papers? The Bible has a very unlovely name for a certain type of mortal; in fact, the book of Proverbs in several places contains uncomplimentary references to those whose inactive thought merits the appellation "sluggard." In the Hebrew, the root meaning of this word is "to lean idly." Who wants to be an idle leaner, or a drone, when there is great work to be done?

Now for the second excuse. Should the fact that inharmony claims to strike at the councils and activities of this sin-challenging movement deter the grateful recipient of its blessings from lending his aid in promoting and preserving harmony? How often has just one right thinker been able to lessen and even abolish friction in some gathering of mortals by pouring on troubled waters the oil of impersonal love, with perhaps a bountiful mixture of good humor! Discord cannot long lift its unhappy head in a congregation wherein are assembled men and women who love Truth, and who are learning that separation and dissension are the products not of the Christ, but the anti-Christ— or, in other words, the mesmerism of animality. When error can be seen not as reality but as hypnotic nothingness, its annihilation is ensured. Should it seem surprising that soldiers of Christ, Truth, should have to meet and give battle to the carnal mind in all its phases? Is not their glorious task expressed in the words of a hymn,

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