The Single Eye ELLA W. HOAG, CSD          No divided purpose has ever been brought to perfect fulfillment. No aspiration can win its desired heights except the eye be kept single to its exalted demands. Work in a direct line is always necessary to success in any endeavor. Jesus taught this with great clearness when he said: “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness.”          Jesus’ entire life work was wrought out with the single vision. He had one purpose and one only, — to do the will of God. He listened to no temptation to relinquish this purpose; his every thought and his every act were in obedience to its requirements. With this perfect purpose always in sight he walked in the light which kept him on guard against every possible phase of evil. He ever held his desire loyal to his purpose; for he knew that with a correct desire or motive, right action must follow. In “Miscellaneous Writings” (p. 162), in speaking of Jesus Mrs. Eddy says: “Materiality, worldliness, human pride, or self-will, by demoralizing his motives and Christlikeness, would have dethroned his power as the Christ.” No human sacrifice was so great, no steadfast effort so severe in its requirements, as to cause him to swerve even momentarily from the straight path of his endeavor; for he understood perfectly how all that was to be desired lay in the path of righteousness he trod. We all know he won the Christhood, and thus proved himself the Son of God. A world calling itself Christian testifies to his success, and today as never before it is reaching out to find the way to follow him.          Right here Christian Science comes to define that way so plainly that “wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.” One definition given of the single eye is: “To be divinely and clearly instructed and unremittingly desirous of knowing the will of God in order to glorify Him. Where this is, the whole consciousness must be full of light, the individual is rightly directed;” and Mrs. Eddy states it yet more succinctly on page 106 of Science and Health, where she says: “Man is properly self-governed only when he is guided rightly and governed by his Maker, divine Truth and Love.” In other words, Christian Science shows that to have a single eye one’s purpose must be to seek constantly the guidance of divine Principle in order that God’s will may be known and obeyed and He thereby be glorified. Isaiah says: “But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, . . . I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth; even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory.”          To accomplish this, one’s motives or desires must always be watched and guarded, lest some claim of evil enter and defile. What we desire, is that for which we labor, that for which we watch and work and pray. Then the Christian Scientist must be perpetually watchful that his motives be pure and true. What could be more helpful than to keep the glorification of God as the one great object? Every belief of physical inharmony, every claim of sinful desire, must surely fall before the right desire to cast off all falsities because they dishonor God, instead of for the selfish reason that they are uncomfortable companions, to work that God’s name may be known upon earth, His “saving health among all nations,” rather than to free one’s self from some tormenting belief in evil.          Paul said, “Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” Christian Science teaches the way to bring every purpose into perfect keeping with this demand. It says, Do not let a single purpose pass the guard until it has been proved to be in strict accord with all that is pure and holy, with all that is noble and good, in other words, with all that is like the Christ. Think of the wonder of it! That through Christian Science we can keep the eye single to God’s mighty purpose for us, the purpose that we shall glorify Him, that every thought and word and deed shall redound to His honor. Who would be satisfied in the presence of such marvelous possibility to sit down content with the husks of materiality, to sit down satisfied with phantasmal, transitory nothingness of a false, human concept of good, when by keeping an eye single to Truth and its possibilities one could rise continually into the larger glories of infinite Mind, Life, Truth, Love? Why does the Christian Scientist so often stop to play by the way, that is, to allow himself to become absorbed with the material sense of things? Because he has not yet seen clearly enough the beauty of holiness, the desirability of the single eye, — because he still believes that something can be gained through beliefs of pleasure and ease in matter.          Since God is “divine, supreme, infinite Mind” (Science and Health, p. 465), we glorify Him as we reflect Mind in its divine supremacy. What an incomparable privilege it is to be Godlike, to reflect the divine ability along every line of endeavor, to express perfect intelligence, perfect Life, perfect Love, all good! All this ability belongs to the one who keeps his eye single to Truth; who seeks only the will of God; who measures every desire, every motive, every purpose by the law of Principle. Oh, let us so contemplate and learn to understand the bliss of always starting with God, of always staying with Him, that temptation to the darkness of double vision — the evil eye, the belief of good in matter — can never turn us aside for a moment from the singleness of purpose to know God’s will and to obey it!   "The Single Eye" by Ella W. Hoag, CSD Christian Science Sentinel, May 24, 1919

 

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