Article March 9, 1918 Issue

Thinkers

ETHEL PUTNAM

In the Preface of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. vii) Mrs. Eddy has written, "The time for thinkers has come." This is a comforting statement to one who looks with some dismay at certain tendencies of the times, when apparently the world wishes to achieve even its pleasures with as little mental effort as possible. Through our Leader's wonderful teaching and practice, humanity is, however, shaking off its mental indolence, and instead of depending on one set of men to do its religious thinking, and on another to do the thinking deemed necessary to keep the body well, men and women are learning to understand God for themselves. So doing, they invariably find that in proportion as they think correctly about God they have healthy bodies and contented minds.

The breadth of Mrs. Eddy's own mental horizon makes it evident that she did not intend to limit thinking in any direction, and in proof of this we have The Christian Science Monitor,—"an international daily newspaper." Perhaps few of us get from the Monitor all that we should, but the past year has made the writer, for one, more grateful for the work it is doing for the world, and increasingly conscious of its clarion call to us all to think.

With the new privilege of the ballot and the duty to use it as wisely as possible, came the realization that the Monitor is an educator competent to fit women for this responsibility. One who did not understand might fancy that women would be led like sheep to the support of this candidate or that, this party or the other; but Christian Science does not encourage blind following, even when the leadership is wise and good. If one were so mistaken as to want to be led without much thought, this easy way would soon prove itself a hard one. None is exempt from the apostolic demand, "Work out your own salvation."

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