Article February 4, 1950 Issue

MAN VOICES THE LANGUAGE OF SPIRIT

JAMES K. WESTOVER

Christian Science teaches that man exists as God's image and likeness. Then, since God images Himself in man, the action of man is not of his own volition, but is God's expression of Himself. Proof of this fact is evidenced daily in many diversified demonstrations of Christian Science. Testimonies are given not infrequently in Wednesday meetings in Churches of Christ, Scientist, which offer proof that the habit of profanity, for instance, is among the many difficulties overcome by the understanding that God's man voices only the language of Spirit, wherein profanity plays no part. No one need accept the conclusion that the tendency toward profanity in oneself cannot be overcome or that it cannot be restrained in others.

A salesman who had been trying to adopt the wholesome manner of living taught in Christian Science was engaged to travel throughout a section of the United States to call on one or two small concerns in each town or village. After a few weeks he became conscious of the prevalence of profanity among these particular tradespeople. Without apparent reason it seemed that the majority of them were given inordinately to the mouthing of oaths. It was a language perhaps more senseless than iniquitous, but nevertheless very offensive to the ears of the salesman, and he gave much earnest prayer and thought to the question of how to heal it in Christian Science.

One noon he arrived in a small town where he expected to call on only one customer. He was at lunch. The salesman parked his car in the shade of a maple tree overlooking a lovely valley and sought to uplift his thought by reading aloud from a copy of a Christian Science lecture which he had been carrying in his car. In the lecture he came across the quotation from Genesis (1:27), "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." Instantly he thought: "Why, yes, that's true. How then could man be the unlikeness of God? How could man give voice or expression to that which is unlike God, good? And because man cannot express profanity it is impossible for me to hear it."

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