Editorial July 5, 1947 Issue

A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE— AND DEPENDENCE

John Randall Dunn

Some readers of these lines in countries other than the United States may not be aware that July 4, 1776, was a notable day for the American colonies. It was then that representatives of the budding federation of states in the North American continent issued their famous Declaration of Independence, which was the prelude to the final separation of free men in the so-called New World from many of the despotisms of the Old. The Fourth of July has thus become a national holiday in the United States. A broad-minded Englishman of this generation has felicitously described the revolt of those colonists as "the Britons' traditional protest against tyranny."

The Christian Scientist sees in this Declaration of Independence vastly more than a great political document or charter for free peoples. In their stand for the right of the individual to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness," were not the Principle-governed pioneers who drew up this declaration mapping the path for another band of protesters who were destined to appear about a century later, and who were to be known as Christian Scientists?

In the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 106), the great nineteenth century protestant against sickness as well as sin, Mary Baker Eddy, writes: "Like our nation, Christian Science has its Declaration of Independence. God has endowed man with inalienable rights, among which are self-government, reason, and conscience. Man is properly self-governed only when he is guided rightly and governed by his Maker, divine Truth and Love."

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