Article September 9, 1950 Issue

"AM I MY BROTHER'S KEEPER?"

SAUL HEARST

"AND Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?" (Gen. 4:8, 9.) One definition of the word keeper is "one who watches, guards, maintains, etc.; one having custody, as to guard or maintain in condition." We are our brother's keeper as we maintain our thought, or concept, of our brother in "the secret place of the most High." We are our brother's keeper as we rebuke sin whenever and wherever we are confronted with it because we know that in truth it does not belong to man. Is there a greater love than that which beholds man as he eternally is—the image and likeness of God? The child created by God, the idea of divine Mind, is always perfect and is wholly dependent upon Mind for life, action, energy, and power. "The erroneous belief that life, substance, and intelligence can be material ruptures the life and brotherhood of man at the very outset," writes Mary Baker Eddy on page 541 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures."

Mankind's ignorance of God, who is ever-present divine Love and Mind, and of man, His likeness, has brought about, in belief, all the fear, sin, and discord so rampant in the world today. The five physical senses present man as a mortal, having a mind of his own. They aggressively suggest that he hears, feels, and sees materially, that his life starts at human birth and ends in death, that his happiness and joy are dependent upon matter.

This mortal presentation of life is not the true picture, or concept, of God's creation. Therefore it must not be accepted as reality if one is to be at peace with himself or with his brother men. Mrs. Eddy says (ibid., p. 318): "The material senses originate and support all that is material, untrue, selfish, or debased. They would put soul into soil, life into limbo, and doom all things to decay. We must silence this lie of material sense with the truth of spiritual sense. We must cause the error to cease that brought the belief of sin and death and would efface the pure sense of omnipotence."

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