Editorial February 4, 1950 Issue

"THESE OUGHT YE TO HAVE DONE"

George Channing

Does the Christian Scientist emphasize his affirmation of truth or his denial of falsehood? In his prayer whereby the healing of discord of any nature becomes manifest, does the Christian Scientist regard it as sufficient to declare God's allness and to leave evil to be the nothingness it is? The answer to these questions was as surely given by Christ Jesus as was the answer to the query regarding the neglect of human obligations in favor of the divine, when he made his pointed statement (Luke 11:42), "These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone."

In conformity with this statement, it is a rule in Christian Science that its students shall be whole in their thinking and knowing in order to manifest wholeness, that is, health, in their experience. The affirmation of the presence of God without the understanding of the total absence of evil is an abstraction ineffective and insufficient. For the nullification of specific evil in human so-called experience is always needed as the sign that one is praying correctly and effectively. If the sign is lacking, then obviously the words of truth need to have for him more practical meaning.

Such a situation calls forth the stern rebuke the master Christian gave to hypocrisy when, addressing the Pharisees, he said (Matt. 23:28), "Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity." Whenever mortal sense is left unchallenged and undestroyed, there can be no compensation in the mere mouthing, however earnestly, of the marvelous and meaningful words of absolute spiritual reality.

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