Article December 4, 1978 Issue

The light of leadership

ELIZABETH GLASS BARLOW

One of the spiritually refreshing aspects of Christian Science is that it brings new color and meaning to familiar ideas and earth-worn words. It invites us to remove our gaze from matter and to look at our world through the lens of Spirit. Here our horizons widen. Our dimensions stretch. We get a sort of see-through into the infinity of the things of Spirit. A new light is thrown on reality, and this light uplifts and illumines the words "leader" and "leadership."

The world is desperately looking for leadership of a high order in government, leadership that embodies integrity and honesty. Mary Baker Eddy knew that the essence of these qualities could never be found in or based on personality. And she knew that no lasting form of government or of religion could be founded without them.

Her own work as Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science and as Leader of the Christian Science movement testifies to her search for and demonstration of the leadership of the Christ. It was not personal adoration but the presence of the Christ that underlay her work. She wrote to the members of her Church, "I again repeat, Follow your Leader, only so far as she follows Christ."^{Message to The Mother Church for 1902, p. 4;}