Article January 22, 1955 Issue

BROADER BOUNDS FOR BLESSING

MARIA SOUBIER

In a statement quoted in The Christian Science Journal for April, 1895, Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, says, "Make broader your bounds for blessing the people." She follows this with the admonition, "Learn to forget what you should not remember, viz., self, and live for the good you do."

This plea to broaden one's vision is echoed in Mrs. Eddy's words from the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 258), "God expresses in man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis." The Bible furnishes a correlative passage. In poetic imagery the prophet Isaiah sings (54:2), "Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes." These passages urge upon the student a more expansive view, a compassionate concern for mankind and the problems confronting it. Moreover, the passage from Isaiah suggests the way in which this objective may be consummated. He says plainly, "Strengthen thy stakes." The passage might be paraphrased, "Be firmly grounded in divine Principle."

In Isaiah's time tents were made of heavy goats' hair cloth. When the desert dweller upon occasion desired a larger tent, it was customary to add more curtains or panels of the heavy material and thus enlarge the circumference of the tent. With this in mind, we see the aptness of Isaiah's figure of speech. Certainly the more curtains added to the tent, the stronger the stakes required to hold up the heavy structure. Similarly, the broader the student's work, or the greater the area its blessings embrace, the deeper should be his roots, the more firmly should he be grounded in a clear understanding of divine Principle, God.

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