Toiled All The Night

One of Simon Peter’s noblest qualities, namely his genuine trust in the Master, made him willing to declare, “We have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net.” Toiling all the night in vain is the human method, but letting down the net in obedience to God’s command incloses “a great multitude of fishes.” Ecclesiastical ingenuity in its conceit has planned to further the progress of Christianity by the human method, only to find that the poor in spirit using the divine method inherit the kingdom and see God. The simple, single minded, poor in material belief but rich in spiritual perception, show the faith of the mustard seed and learn by obedience to remove mountains. Fears, tall as towers and acting in human consciousness as walled obstructions to spiritual progress, have vanished in a night with the dawning light of true understanding. The word of God was the healing touch which Jesus Christ brought to the world, the first ray of light to the dark ages. Mrs. Eddy toiled many years in the night, until Christian Science came into her consciousness with the light of revelation, and restored Christian healing to its rightful place.

Many parents have toiled all the night over the cradle in fear during the wakeful hours of their little ones, only to realize in the crisis how futile are human efforts in comparison with the application of Christian Science treatment. Practitioners have labored through the night in order to bring out a healing, until there came the quick assurance that God is the only physician and power, the only cause, and that His creation is the only effect. Then leaving the patient entirely in this powerful protection of God, that is, casting the net on the right side, the practitioner found that the work was finished, as it was in the beginning with God. To know the right words at the right time is to be constantly under the injunction to let the Spirit speak which quickeneth. Did not Jesus advise his disciples that Spirit would supply the needed words, when he said, “But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you”? Then let the Holy Ghost be heard through God’s word. Let there be no resistance to the outflow of the divine word, that the channels of consciousness may be opened wide to the golden tide of Christian healing. The compassionate touch of human kindness and gentle love, and the all-enduring spiritual power of Truth break the long night of toiling and discord and usher in an eternal day of concord.

Christian Science is needed in the sick room. The downhearted and downtrodden call for its uplifting, healing qualities. The spiritual glow of true metaphysics throws an effulgent light upon human sorrows, and wipes out the old way with the new. Every example of overcoming error given by Christian Scientists is a step forward and upward and an encouragement to those who are real workers in righteousness. All those who are willing to obey God can learn to handle and heal error of every kind, including disease, in the way of His choosing. Mrs. Eddy states clearly on page 378 of “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures”: “Disease is not an intelligence to dispute the empire of Mind or to dethrone Mind and take the government into its own hands. Sickness is not a God-given, nor a self-constituted material power, which copes astutely with Mind and finally conquers it. God never endowed matter with power to disable Life or to chill harmony with a long and cold night of discord.”

Those who are learning to “let down the net” in obedience can also handle the scourge of gossiping, the betrayal of confidences, the habit of condemning and judging, of defacing as well as debasing character. Such practices cause the perpetrators to drop the net on the wrong side, thus for the time being thrusting themselves out of the kingdom of heaven into perdition. The poisonous fires of jealousy, hatred, and envy burn up even the good human character, leaving only the charred outline of pitiless revenge. Human greed is never satisfied and cannot be satisfied. It finds no real reward in using evil elements, whether unconsciously or with evil intent. This sort of toil is carried on in the long night when mortal mind problems are met with mortal mind answers. Chaos, perplexity, dejection of spirit, and distrustfulness prove that the workings of the evil-minded contain no correct answers, but force from mankind the cry of distress, “Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt!” The only real answer to human problems is God’s answer. He bids mankind turn aside from the ways of the carnal mind, for His way is one way, that of Spirit and not of matter.

As Simon Peter and the disciples found the true way after they had toiled all the night, so Christian Science has shown the people of this age the way out of toiling in sin, suffering, sickness, and sorrow, lifting the thought into health, joy, and spiritual content. As a rule people prefer to hear what pleases them, for the human ear readily admits the suggestions of educated beliefs and inherited doctrines, as well as the easy talk about matter. But the power of God through the discovery of Christian Science by Mrs. Eddy has forced humanity to listen to the new tongue, has caused scholastic beliefs to give way before the understanding of God and what He really is. Christian Science is breaking the night of cold conventionalities, material laws, and religious creeds and persecutions. It has brought the day that knows no toil and has placed man on the throne with God, coexistent with Him, giving him his true inheritance as the son of God and manifesting the aristocracy of God, man made in His image and likeness.