Article June 4, 1955 Issue

LOYALTY

NANCY H. ADAMS

One of the qualities most discussed among young students of Christian Science is loyalty. Loyalty to our movement as well as loyalty to home and family seem sometimes to have divergent claims.

In "Miscellaneous Writings" Mary Baker Eddy says (p. 12), "Every man and woman should be to-day a law to himself, herself,—a law of loyalty to Jesus' Sermon on the Mount." The Sermon on the Mount contains rules of conduct of the very highest order, wherein the false sense of self is overcome through spiritual love. It is impossible for one good objective to rule out another; each has its place and necessity. How, then, can there be opposing loyalties—legitimate family demands perhaps on one side, church duties on the other? If these are right demands, they are all governed by Love.

We read in the Bible that even the disciples felt the pull of conflicting loyalties. When about to follow Jesus, one of them said to him (Matt. 8:21), "Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father." But Jesus said, "Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead." Release from binding claims comes from fulfilling right obligations in God's way with a sense of joy and hope rather than of servitude and darkness. Our companions, family, and friends often demand of us understanding, help, and love. To meet their needs we sometimes have to go the second mile spoken of in the Sermon on the Mount. May this not mean the service we learn to do with love, proving our loyalty to divine Love?

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