Article August 11, 1951 Issue

MORAL COURAGE

MAY LUCINDA FRANKS

In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy writes (p. 514): "Moral courage is 'the lion of the tribe of Juda,' the king of the mental realm. Free and fearless it roams in the forest. Undisturbed it lies in the open field, or rests in 'green pastures, . . . beside the still waters.' " This passage is symbolic of the security, confidence, and fearlessness which one may feel when equipped with the courage born of the understanding of the allness of God, good, and the nothingness and powerlessness of matter and evil. To one thus equipped, all claims of evil, however pretentious they appear to be, are unreal; or, in other words, such a one recognizes them as misconceptions, or false beliefs, which vanish when the truth as taught in Christian Science is correctly and courageously applied.

There is much in the way of Biblical authority to warrant our Leader's reference to moral courage as "the lion of the tribe of Juda." The history of this tribe, as recorded in the Bible, is resplendent with a long line of leaders, kings, and prophets who understood the allness of God and had the moral courage to repudiate, to a marked degree, the idolatrous beliefs in a power apart from God. David was of this lineage. His encounter with

Goliath is an outstanding example of the efficacy of moral courage. Had David allowed the formidable display of animal courage and the latest in military accouterments to make him falter in his calm trust in the all-power of God, he no doubt would have fallen a victim of his own false, fear-filled concepts.

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