Article March 20, 1948 Issue

LESSONS FROM PETER

WOODRUFF SMITH

Peter of Galilee, zealous and rugged, forsaker of nets, fisher of men! This sturdy disciple, to whom the Christian church owes so much, began his career with many human frailties. But his underlying motive was right; and his record remains to show us that whatever we have said and done or left unsaid or undone, we are not unhealable. We too can progressively prove that the good we would, we do; and the evil we would not, we do not. Christian Science shows us exactly how to do this, revealing the reality of the good we desire to express and the unreality of the evil we are determined not to manifest.

Peter's denial of the Master was threefold. First he implied that he had not been with Jesus; then that he was not his follower. Finally he said that he did not even know him (see Matt. 26:69–75).

While the personal Jesus is not with us today, the Christ, Truth, which he demonstrated, is here as surely as it was with the prophets in the centuries preceding the appearance of Jesus. Are we any more loyal to the Christ than was Peter? When we admit that some inharmonious condition is with us, we associate ourselves with error; we believe that we are not with the Christ, Truth, for we cannot simultaneously accept the presence and reality of both Truth and error. When we follow the interests of the flesh and seek for comfort and safety in matter, we deny that we are followers of the Christ, Truth, for we do not adhere exclusively to Truth. If we regard error as reality, it must be said that we do not really know the truth. "If we trust matter, we distrust Spirit," says Mary Baker Eddy on page 234 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures."

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