Editorial November 7, 1953 Issue

RESPONSIBILITY

Helen Wood Bauman

Christian Science acknowledges the fact that God is responsible for the control of His infinite spiritual creation. But it also shows that human beings are responsible for the demonstration of that control at every point. In fact, a proper sense of responsibility is proof that one is receptive to the ever-present influence of God, Truth, and is answering Truth's demand that one live his conviction of Truth. When the March Primary class, taught by Mary Baker Eddy in 1889, presented her with an album containing their autographs, she said to them (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 281): "Among the gifts of my students, this of yours is one of the most beautiful and the most costly, because you have signed your names. I felt the weight of this yesterday, but it came to me more clearly this morning when I realized what a responsibility you assume when subscribing to Christian Science."

There is no restless anxiety, no labor or burden, in the true sense of responsibility, which Christian Science unfolds, but rather a serene determination always to prove that God's government, His wisdom, and His power are supreme. No joy equals that of the individual who subscribes to Christian Science because he has grasped its vast significance as the divine law destined to break the dream of life in matter and reveal God's spiritual kingdom. He has figuratively signed his name, assumed individual responsibility for the progress of Christian Science.

Cain's petulant cry (Gen. 4:9), "Am I my brother's keeper?" is the plaint of selfishness, which would refuse to accept the responsibility of working out the love and mercy of God in Christly brotherhood. Mrs. Eddy explains Cain's attitude as a new lie of the, serpent, suppositional evil, which it adds to its original usurpation of divine power as recorded in the third chapter of Genesis. Of this lie she says (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 541), "Now it repudiates even the human duty of man towards his brother."

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