Article December 18, 1948 Issue

COMPARISON

HELEN LOUISE HOCKETT TURNER

The urge to compare, which seems so natural to mortal thinking, presents a danger signal to those who earnestly desire to obey Christ Jesus' admonition (Matt. 26:41), "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation." This warning needs to be heeded when one is tempted to compare two mortal concepts for the purpose of finding good. Thus when we find ourselves making comparisons, whether of traits of character, capabilities, accomplishments, or any other of the myriad human differentiations, we may be sure that we are looking upon the Adam-dream, not upon man created in the image and likeness of God, Spirit.

Mary Baker Eddy states in her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 301), "As God is substance and man is the divine image and likeness, man should wish for, and in reality has, only the substance of good, the substance of Spirit, not matter." Was not this the spiritual fact Moses demonstrated to the Israelites?

According to the first chapter of Deuteronomy, when Moses and his people had departed from Horeb and passed through the wilderness. they came to the mountain of the Amorites. There they tarried and sent twelve men ahead, one from each tribe, to bring them word by what way they should proceed. The messengers reported the promised land to be "a good land which the Lord our God doth give us." They compared the people they saw, however, with those of their own company. "Whither shall we go up?" asked the Israelites. "Our brethren have discouraged our heart, saving. The people is greater and taller than we." By comparison the Israelites deemed themselves inferior to the Amorites. And because they doubted their attainment of the promised land, their journey was fraught with hardship and delay.

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