Article April 3, 1954 Issue

INVIOLABLE INDIVIDUALITY

E. PEARL TRAVIS

In "Unity of Good" Mary Baker Eddy answers the question, "Do you believe in God?" with these words (p. 48): "I believe more in Him than do most Christians, for I have no faith in any other thing or being. He sustains my individuality. Nay, more—He is my individuality and my Life." In this one brief statement our beloved Leader implies the reason for mankind's unceasing quest to establish the freedom to think, worship, and live as they are divinely impelled and guided. This desire for true individual freedom runs like a golden thread throughout the tapestry of human experience and has inspired men to heroic endeavors.

Moses, under God's guidance, led a nation out of bondage into its rightful heritage of freedom. Christ Jesus came preaching, "I and my Father are one" (John 10:30), thereby declaring man subservient to God alone. The Pilgrim Fathers were divinely led to establish in a hitherto unknown world, at great self-sacrifice, a new order, under which a greater freedom was attained to worship God in the way that their conscience dictated.

Various human methods of government have been employed in order that the sanctity and dignity of the individual might be protected and his freedom of expression guaranteed. But governments, however democratic they may be, can never of themselves bestow true individuality or guarantee its freedom of expression, for this individuality is based on divine law.

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