"Thou art the Man."

Few human impulses are more alive to opportunity than that which leads us to dispense to others the counsel or rebuke which is peculiarly fitted to our own needs.

We feel much gratified sometimes that the sins and weaknesses of others are being opportunely reproved, when the same weeds of error, perchance, are growing even more rank in our own gardens, and at the moment when we might profit by the gracious ministry of Truth we are remembering our neighbors so generously that our own wants are wholly neglected.

David could wax indignant at the recital of the petty thievery and imposition portrayed in Nathan's story, and pronounce immediate and unreserved condemnation upon it, and yet remain so wilfully stupid and self-forgetful as to find no reminder in the tale of his own hideous and much-loved sin. He thus illustrates in vivid colors a characteristic tendency and disposition which we all very much need to recognize, and against which we should be on our guard. The temptation to part with that which begets a sense of humiliation and self-contempt is peculiarly subtle and alluring, and it easily becomes controlling, unless we learn rightly to value rebuke, and see clearly that the unworthy self it reveals is our greatest enemy; then the appeal of both humility and gratitude will lead us to welcome the sword that cleaves to its center this coddled seeming of sin.

Our attitude toward this self of material sense is one of the most reliable tests of character,—the degree of our present spiritual awakening. If its inherent ugliness and falsity are so apparent to us that we gladly hail the coming of any word from any source which acquaints us with its unsuspected presence and domination, if we greet rebuke with the fair and ready assumption that its coming is an evidence of our personal need, and so appreciate and profit by it ourselves that we have neither time nor disposition to see how well it suits another's faults, then we may be encouraged to think that we are in a wholesome, growing condition; but if, on the other hand, we have acquired the habit of so dressing our feathers with self-complacency as to be impervious to even a shower of merited reproof, then we may be sure that in denying a hearing to our best friends we have closed the door on improvement, and that Nathan's "Thou art the man" is addressed to us, whether we will or no.

"Evil which obtains in the bodily senses, but which the heart condemns, has no foundation; but if evil is uncondemned, it is undenied and nurtured. ... Evasion of Truth cripples integrity and casts thee down from the pinnacle" (Science and Health, p. 448).

Jesus located the essence of wrong-doing in motive and found occasion to liken to ghastly sepulchres those who were occupying the highest seats of self-satisfaction, and remembering as we must that the human impulse still dishonors every command of the decalogue, in our mortal thought, even though we would shrink appalled from its externalization, we can but know that no rebuke of evil can possibly be expressed which has not a vital application and significance to each,—that no uncovering of error can ever come to us which we do not need humbly and thankfully to appropriate.

If as Christian Scientists we each devote our entire attention to the gathering of good for ourselves from every corrective statement which Love may send us, leaving our neighbors entirely free to practise the same virtue without any intrusion whatever of our unsolicited aid, then surely we shall be known as a blessedly "peculiar people," and the angels of peace and prosperity will hover over us as though the day of our redemption had fully come.

No alert Christian Scientist can ever forget the exemplary humility expressed in those words of our Leader, "During many years the author has been most grateful for merited rebuke. The sting lies in unmerited censure,—in the falsehood which does no one any good" (Science and Health, p. 8). W.

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Knowing as we are Known

August 1, 1903

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