Independent Christian Science articles

A Better Country

From the November 19, 1904 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel by

In the 11th chapter of Hebrews, Paul says, “By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went…. For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God…. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off,… and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country…. They desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.”

Joseph Rotherham, in his translation of the New Testament, writes the fourteenth verse of this chapter, “For they who such things as these are saving, are making [it] plainly manifest that a paternal-home they are intently seeking.”

In the Twentieth Century New Testament the same passage reads, “Those who speak thus show plainly that they are seeking their fatherland.”

In all sacred literature, there is no clearer portrayal of the transitory nature of earthly experience and the inborn hunger for a secure and heavenly heritage, than this reference to Abraham’s journey as a type of the mental pilgrimage undertaken by every man who abandons the selfish and unworthy, for the attainment of the highest ideal. Abraham “went out, not knowing whither he went.” Over and over again, upright and earnest men and women are called upon to “go out” from sinful or outworn conditions of thought not knowing whither they go. They know only that they must leave behind them that which is inconsistent with the highest selflessness, and that they must walk in obedience to the best they know, whithersoever it may lead.

To all such expectant ones, the message of Christian Science is calling continually, “Come higher.” And the responsive hearts, saying with the Prodigal’s earnestness. “I will arise and go to my father,” turn from the restless dwelling-places of selfishness, toward the Christly consciousness of which Isaiah has said, “My people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places.”

Every student of Christian Science knows that this question of “seeking a fatherland” is, purely and primarily, a transformation of consciousness, and that only in the degree that right consciousness is attained, can he hope for improved conditions. Yet he is so prone to measure his happiness, his success or his failure, by external matters, that he often puts forth personal effort to effect an outward change, to the neglect of that inward growth which alone can accomplish it. The beginner is sometimes tempted to believe that if he could alter his surroundings immediately, he could make rapid growth in the knowledge and practice of Christian Science; whereas the scientific fact assures him that as he grows in understanding he will be able to alter his surroundings. Each man must begin just where Christian Science finds him. He cannot change places with any brother whose opportunities for growth may seem to be more favorable. But as his thought arises and goes to the Father, all his personal conditions will begin to change. Fears will be allayed, associations will be purified, obstacles will be removed, bonds of sin and disease will be loosened, and the habits of a lifetime will fade from thought and action. And all this because he is mentally rejecting evil and coming into the spiritual possession of a better quality of thinking.

It is a truism that mind thinks. Mind must, because of its very nature and existence, think continuously, and because of this ever-operative activity, mind cannot, by any possibility, stop thinking. The Christ Mind, then, must be perpetually manifested in Christly thinking, and he who entertains these God-like thoughts must, in the measure of his fidelity, be an inhabitant of God’s “country.” Material surroundings, however discordant, cannot hold one’s thought from seeking and finding this better country, and one may dwell in it to-day, if the determination for righteousness governs the heart. Here, now, in the problem of this very hour, one may substitute a generous thought for a selfish one, a loving thought for an unkind one, a grateful thought for a complaining one, and a trusting thought for a doubting one. And in the measure that thought advances along these higher pathways, the bondage imposed by the conditions of the “old country,” disappears.

The well-known illustration of the mist in the valleys can be remembered with profit. Dwelling in the valleys, one is subject to valley conditions, and must climb to a higher altitude to enjoy perpetually sunlit peaks. In like manner, a higher mental and moral standpoint will set one free from bondage which seemed hopeless when thought dwelt among the lower ranges. Tarrying in the realm of the valley-fogs, one may fight bravely, but in vain, to resist them; abandoning the lower land, one escapes all its conditions. So, a higher moral and spiritual altitude will lift one into a realm beyond the reach of error’s suggestion or attack.

Again, one does not expect to live in arctic regions, and gather tropical fruit by the putting forth of one’s hand. The fruit simply cannot and does not grow there, and no amount of wishing or struggling on the part of the inhabitant will cause it to grow there. Occasional fruits may find their way into the frozen land, telling the story of a sunnier clime, but to possess such fruit in its beauty and abundance, one must rise and journey to the place of its growth and there abide.

Paul speaks of the fruit of the flesh and the fruit of the spirit, well knowing that they are the differing fruits of two distinct “countries.” And he says, “This I say then. Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.” The Christian Science text-book clearly sets forth the fact that spiritual understanding and material sense are two distinct and opposing states of consciousness which do not know each other. The adoption of the one, means the loss of the other. That the dweller in material sense comprehends not the existence of spiritual consciousness, argues no more for the unreality of the latter than does the ignorance of the valley dweller and the Laplander, for the non-existence of sunny peaks and tropical climes. In Science and Health, page 91, we find, “Absorbed in material selfhood we discern and reflect but faintly the substance of Life or Mind.” And in “No and Yes,” page 29, Mrs. Eddy also says, “Ever-present Love must seem ever absent to ever-present selfishness or material sense.”

May it not be recognized that the fruits of Love, as well, “must seem ever absent to ever-present selfishness”? and is there not in the human heart a strong desire to transplant the fruits of Love into the realm of ever-present selfishness, and a complaint because this cannot be done? Yet so long as the Fatherland remains unknown or unsought its fruits must remain unappropriated. To enjoy the fruits of divine Love we must journey to Love’s country and dwell therein. And to do this means to abide persistently in loving and lovable thinking. To enjoy the fruits of Truth, one must live truthfully. To possess the fruits of holiness and purity, thought must be holy and pure. To possess health, one must cherish the enlightened righteous thoughts which build for health. One must live with such thoughts, walk with them, talk with them, make them one’s own, and all this to the exclusion of the opposing thoughts which would build for discord and disease. This may not reform, immediately, every other evil-doer, but it does lift one’s own individual experience beyond the reach of evil doing. A Christian Scientist’s line of travel is always in direct resistance to all the claims of the flesh, and it lifts him daily into higher and purer thought-associations.

This change of consciousness cannot be measured by the old sense of haste or delay, for the transformation is in thought, and is in many ways instantaneous. But whether slow or fast, the divine law of supply is such that one comes into possession of the fruit of this better country whensoever he may lodge there in sincerity and in truth. It is God’s country,—this daily and hourly companionship with the best one knows of God,—and well should man heed the Scriptural admonition, “Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace: thereby good shall come unto thee.”

Divine Companionship

From the January 1904 issue of the Christian Science Journal by

NO man can sever his individual interests from the common lot of humanity, nor dwell so apart from humankind as to remain wholly unaffected by the universal experience. For this reason, no life can be entirely isolated. That which Henry Drummond calls the “Alchemy of Influence” enters so largely into human affairs that its silent action tends to determine both individual and general development. Man’s relationship to his fellow-man affords such unmeasured opportunity to mould and modify thought, that it has ever been the means of promoting alike the wellbeing and misfortune, the joy and sorrow, of mankind. Noble purposes are fostered by an uplifting comradeship, while debasing and ignoble influences are suggested through an unworthy association.

Manhood owes its moral uprightness largely to the influences of youth, and can often trace its present integrity to the loving care and counsel which guided its early experiences into the way of righteousness. Unlimited opportunities for pure and wholesome association are likewise found in the companionship of good books. The perception of the ideal, as the world has received it through its great writers, fosters the pursuit of that ideal. The influences for good which spring from pure aspirations and actual living, have been sent far and wide by those men and women who possess the power to clothe uplifting thought with fitting expression. Such writings have ever been ennobling companions, and hours spent with them have borne fruit in exalted purposes and great deeds. Recognizing the value of companionship with all that is wholesome and true in human life, the conclusion follows that close association with the divine Mind must bestow to the degree it is sought and cherished, the supreme blessing. Because God has been conceived as dwelling in a distant heaven, He has seemed removed, as does a friend in a remote street or in a far city. This sense of distance prevents the possibility of a close companionship, and man, in his hour of need, often feels friendless and alone, because he knows not where to locate, nor how to find the “great Friend to all the sons of men.”

Christian Science has brought to the world the universal panacea for this sense of estrangement, in its revelation that every experience is a condition of thought. The association with a friend rests not in outward contact with the person, but rather in the mental recognition of the individual life and character. Daily contact with the personal Jesus gave to the prejudiced Pharisee no hint of the Christly nature so near at hand, yet to the discerning Christian in later centuries, that Christ has been an abiding Presence.

The real companionship with books extends beyond the study hour to the permanent mental association with the ideas set forth. One who has pursued such acquaintanceship, possesses its living reality in great and good thoughts, though he be separated from the volumes. In like manner, constant association with church and creed, ritual and ceremony, if it be only formal, yields no living companionship with the divine Presence, while the heart which quietly tries to obey the highest good it knows, is fed—perhaps unconsciously to itself—with “the bread of heaven.”

The Old and New Testaments ring with encouragement and glad promise, urging mental fidelity to God. In the book of Job it is said, “Acquaint now thyself with Him, and be at peace: thereby good shall come unto thee.” The book of Isaiah promises, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee.” Paul commands, “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind,” and, “Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things,” and the Master crowns these admonitions with the benediction, “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.”

A student of Christian Science has recently said, in speaking of the 91st Psalm, that dwelling in the secret place of the Most High means much more than visiting it in an occasional hour of need. The Psalm reads, “He that dwelleth… shall abide.” This demands a constant effort, rather than spasmodic attempts, toward companionship with God. Those who are learning the first lessons in Christian Science sometimes wonder why they are asked to keep continually in thought Bible texts and the statements of Science and Health. The value of persistent study is often questioned. “How,” they ask, “can reading a book, or repeating to one’s self its statements, destroy pain, or fear, or discouragement?” Because they do not understand they sometimes do not try, and so are left to wonder, for a time, why they have not been more quickly helped by Christian Science.

When the student perceives with sufficient clearness his own mental processes, he discovers that he is associating mentally, at each moment of the day, with something. Thought chooses, at each instant, the mental picture with which it shall associate, and in no waking hour is the action of thought discontinued. The tendency of the human mind to drift with every suggestion arising from condition or environment, can be checked only by the determined and active purpose to choose the companionship of good thoughts. Sir Philip Sidney has said, “They are never alone that are accompanied by noble thoughts.” Can nobler thoughts be found, than those which ring through the statements of the Bible and the Christian Science text-book, —thoughts which attest the absolute power and presence of God? If a loved friend can speak a word which will soothe and comfort, cannot the Word of God declare itself to the utter destruction of all things discordant? Spiritual thoughts, if chosen as living companions, must crown righteous effort with victory, and assert their beneficent influence in peace and healing.

No assurance of protecting companionship is more beautiful than that found in the 34th Psalm: “The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.” Science and Health defines “Angels” as, “God’s thoughts passing to man; spiritual intuitions, pure and perfect; the inspiration of goodness, purity, and immortality, counteracting all evil, sensuality, and mortality” (p. 581). Unquestionably, such thoughts, encamping “round about them that fear him,” must loosen the bonds of fear, erase the stain of sin, unclasp the fetters of pain and discouragement, and “wipe away all tears.”

When he who calls himself a Christian Scientist stands faithfully at the gateway of consciousness; refusing to associate mentally with the myriad suggestions of evil entertaining no thoughts save those which are guests from God; cherishing only such memories and purposes as are laden with blessing; choosing no other companion than the Christ-Mind which he finds reflected in his fellow-man and in himself, then, and only then, is he worthy the name he bears. Then is he “entertaining angels.” Then can he know the joy of that divine companionship defined by Jesus. “If a man love me, he will keep my words and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.”

The Word Declared

From the November 1905 issue of the Christian Science Journal by

IN the second book of Esdras, one of the Apocryphal writings of the Old Testament, there is found this beautiful prophecy: “For evil shall be put out, and deceit shall be quenched. As for faith, it shall flourish, corruption shall be overcome, and the truth, which hath been so long without fruit, shall be declared.”

Glancing backward over the centuries, weighing cause and effect in the history of Christianity, the thinker to-day may discern with this isolated Esdras that the truth “hath been so long without fruit;” but that whensoever and wheresoever it has been declared, fruit has been borne. The first great national declaration of the truth was given to the children of Israel in that formulated statement known as the Decalogue. Moses perceived enough of the Truth of being to know that obedience to the law of God is man’s only way of salvation, but his people, perhaps, could bear no more than the “Thou shalt not” which, through its law of exclusion, leads thought gradually to love the better way. From the clearness of Moses’ vision sprang these formulated commandments which are indeed truth declared, for that time and all time, in that they set forth the mode of conduct which alone leads to a knowledge of Christ, Truth.

Following Moses, there came the long line of leaders and prophets, emphasizing, in their degree of understanding, the truth about man, and crying out against the teachings, the customs, and the sins of their times; recognizing, one and all, that a fact must be declared, to be established, and working to that end through denunciation, encouragement, exhortation, rebuke, exalted example, praise, and prophecy. Isaiah describes this divine announcement as “The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness” and says furthermore, “Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, . . . O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God.” David in his Psalms implores, “Keep not thou silence, O God.” This king of Israel stood sublimely in the assurance that “He will speak peace unto his people,” and declares, “He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.” In the book of Isaiah we read, “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.”

After the advent of the Master, whose whole life was a continuous unfolding of the “Word of God,” Luke, his disciple, declares that “his word was with power;” and the beloved John makes the crowning statement,—”The Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Paul leads thought to the effect of the declared Word, in writing to the Hebrews, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” In fact, the Scriptures from beginning to end unfold the value of the applied Word of God; from the “God said,” of Genesis, to the picture in Revelation of him that is “called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war, and his name is called The Word of God.”

A fact of great import to mankind is met with just here, to wit, the adaptability of this Word of God to the affairs of men to-day. With the exception of the most devout Christian lives, mankind in general has relegated the Word of God to remote ages. Whatever God may have done in the past, matters of to-day are supposed to be left to so-called natural law, and to the supervision of the men and women involved in them, and the Word of God is considered not available, or is not remembered until every human agency has failed.

Upon this nineteenth-century scene a woman has entered, —one who discerned the whole truth of being, as demonstrated by the Master, Jesus of Nazareth,—the woman who perceived the value of divine utterance, and who has had the heaven-born courage to utter the truth as she has seen it. Mrs. Eddy’s book, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” presumes not to add to the Word of God, but testifies to its presence, its power, its availability to meet the sore needs of men; sets in motion, if such expression may be used, the activity of this “Word” by urging the children of men to think it, to speak it, to understand it, to love it, to live it. The book sets forth such a clear explanation of this age-abiding Word, that a “Key to the Scriptures” is indeed afforded. The first effect of Mrs. Eddy’s book, in many households, is to bring an unused Bible from its resting-place, and send a family searching through its pages, eager to find its Word of Life a living reality for to-day.

Every heart wherein good is ascendant, longs for the time when evil shall “be put out, and deceit quenched;” that faith “shall flourish” and that “corruption shall be overcome,” and every such heart rejoices that the time foreseen by this prophetic Esdras is at hand; that time when “the truth, which hath been so long without fruit, shall be declared.” The advent of Christian Science declares again that the truth which bore its fruit in the life of the Founder of Christianity, rouses human thought from its faith in a dormant, unused “Word” to a practical, intelligent utterance of that which heals and redeems.

One of the first things asked of the sufferer who turns his attention to Christian Science, is that he shall declare the truth and refuse to voice error. He may understand very little of this in his first effort, and perhaps may demur when the subject is presented to him. But if he is obedient, if he begins to utter the Word of God which opposes the testimony of material sense, he will find this declared Word dislodging and demolishing the accumulated thinking of materiality, with all its effects. This process may not at first be understood, but if it be undertaken, it will, one thought at a time, undo the mental methods of error and establish in individual thought the stately operations of the Christ-Mind. This is true for the reason that thought of some kind precedes every action and condition; and the quality of the thought decides the nature of the external manifestation. The thinking which has bred discomfort and disease must be abandoned, when Christly standards are adopted, and the only way to discard it is to put something better in its place. Hence, Christian Science urges that an exchange be made, thought for thought, statement for statement, and words of truth substituted for the “former conversation” of the fleshly mind. When Truth is well understood and loved, this is no toilsome task, for the knowledge of the power and presence of God springs readily into thought and speech. But in the hours when right thinking is not spontaneously present, the beginner must needs bring to bear upon himself all possible discipline by training thought into obedience to the highest and best he knows. To this end it is often valuable to enthrone in one’s mind and heart the written statements of the Word of Truth, and to utilize them by holding in memory Bible texts, and sentences found in Science and Health, which declare the omnipresence and omnipotence of Him “who keepeth Israel.” When the suppositional forces of error, by some sharp attack, so scatter individual thought that confusion and disaster seem probable, and clear understanding seems for the moment to have fled, some well-known and well-loved text becomes a rock of refuge, and affords at once that mental steadiness which redeems the situation, and turns the tides of thought toward the eventual proving of the supremacy of good. Many, many times does the student of Christian Science find himself leaning upon the 91st Psalm or the “scientific statement of being” (p. 468 of Science and Health), and being lifted thereby to a clearer sense of the power of God to redeem and rescue His own. The Word of God is not a formula, not something to be confined in a sentence or a paragraph. But in hours of assault or temptation a beloved text becomes a stepping-stone to that higher altitude of thought which reveals God as near at hand, and a ringing declaration from the text-book of Christian Science is a battle-axe with which to fell the suggestions of evil. Thus may the Word of God be declared literally, and bear its fruit.

It is a very simple situation. At the moment when a declaration of the truth has possession of an individual’s thought, the erroneous opposing suggestions can find nothing upon which to stand. A false suggestion must be mentally accepted ere it can pose as reality or power, and the consciousness which is glowing with the activity of Truth, declared and understood, offers no foothold to error.

Much time and effort are wasted in the fruitless plans of the human will, in the incessant search for material reasons and personal causes, and in the doubt, fear, uncertainty, regret, speculation, comparisons, and limitations of the common habits of thought. The weary hours spent in such friction and turmoil may be transformed into seasons of peace and gladness, if thought is disciplined to relinquish such turning and overturning, and to declare, with simplicity and persistence, the absolute truth. Such self-control brings the fruit of declared truth in a purified heart, a chastened will, a sounder judgment; and thus “evil shall be put out” and “deceit shall be quenched.” “As for faith, it shall flourish,” and “corruption shall be overcome.” This simple process of thinking and speaking the right thing instead of the wrong thing, the truth instead of the error, opens the gates of thought toward heaven; the Word of God, if declared, enters the arena of human affairs to-day and is indeed God dwelling with men, to “wipe away all tears from their eyes.” God is Love; Love held in thought, spoken, lived, means God dwelling with men. Love forgotten, neglected, ignored, means a futile, fleeting dream of existence wherein God is not to be found.

So every quality of God is established with men as it is found, loved, understood, and kept active in daily thought and deed. God is always the same God, as available to one man as to another, but that man who keeps his thoughts bright with the activity of God-likeness, finds his God at hand more readily than does the man who lends his thoughts to the “moth and rust” of ungodliness. For thought makes the man what he is each day. So each man should strive to know himself as God knows him, and to cease thinking otherwise. Only of undeclared truth can it be said that it “hath been so long without fruit,” to man. Declared truth transforms the human deserts into gardens of gladness, and the wilderness way broadens into great fields of plenty.

To the genuine Christian Scientist, no situation is so severe that the Word of God cannot be uttered therein. Pressed into the very corner of adversity, hemmed in upon every side by the threats of evil, overwhelmed by the weight of fear, or failure, or sorrow, he has always his one refuge, —he can think truth, and in that thinking he can so reject the suggestions of evil, he can so declare the power and presence of his God, that his very persistence must externalize itself in the transforming of the situation and in the ultimate triumph of good.

No Godlike thought is lost, nor is it unavailing, and the man who remains unshaken in his allegiance to Godlike thinking, walks with a Saviour whose eventual conquest over every phase of sin, sickness, and death is a divine and absolute certainty.

Christian Science commands its student to work, to cease loitering, complaining, and doubting, and to bring the saving declarations of the truth into active duty every hour of the day. If but one thought of truth has been gleaned from study, that one thought must be cherished as a dear companion, and declared again and again. Such right mental activity will put to flight armies of evil suggestions, with all their attendant weariness and pain. The knowledge of Moses’ commandments, declared from generation to generation, has uplifted the moral standard of thousands of men, and saved them from the sins of a lower mental level. The knowledge of the New Testament teachings, declared to the world through centuries of Christian effort, has quickened the spirituality which would have lain dormant without such persistent repetition. And to this century, through the life of one holy woman, there has come a declaration of the truth which so clarifies the understanding of both Old and New Testament that its utterance does indeed put out evil, quench deceit, overcome corruption, and cause faith to flourish. Mrs. Eddy has set her message before the world. To those who heed it not, it bears no present fruit. To those who re-declare it in their own lives, it opens a highway of salvation, wherein they walk to the possession of that abundant understanding which follows faithful declaration. Unquestionably these are the ways of deliverance, and sin and pain and death must yield to the “peaceable fruit of righteousness.”

Elisha’s Servant

From the January 22, 1910 Issue of the Christian Science Sentinel by

“Fear not;” answered Elisha to his servant’s cry, “Alas, my master! how shall we do?” “Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.” And the narrative continues: “And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.”

The servant of Elisha is not alone in his query “How shall we do?” Human perplexity is ever seeking, ever needing, a way out of trouble, and humanity must change its point of view as did Gehazi if it would discover the help at hand. To the material senses the “hosts of the King of Syria,” in the form of temptation and pain and disaster, may sorely beset him who is striving for right. Because Christian Science is in the world, however, to make plain and to establish the spiritual point of view, because it is here to repeat and to spread abroad Christ’s glorious “Fear not,” heavy eyes may by its means be opened and lifted to see the chariots of the Lord on the mountain-side, and to fear the hosts of evil not at all.

The material senses register only the evidence of matter. Mortals see, hear, feel, taste, and smell matter, in one form or another, continually. On the other hand, all that men know of hope, of love, of aspiration, of unselfishness and goodness, comes to them mentally, from an entirely different source and by an entirely different route than matter offers. Were there no love for righteousness in the world, no affection, no kindly fellowship, mortals could still feel and see and hear and otherwise know matter through the senses which cognize it; and when mortal man wants to know something other than the senses tell him, when he wants to experience things apart from matter,—things spiritual and mental,—he must look away from sense evidence to that which comes to him by the way of spiritual understanding.

What is it that promises deliverance from trouble, that stimulates hope, that fosters courage and patience and loving-kindness? Surely nothing that we see or hear about matter, for matter by its own so-called laws falls sooner or later into a despairing organic decay which gives every evidence of the destruction of individuality. If our knowledge of existence stopped with what we see happening to matter, we should know nothing of God nor of spiritual life, nor even of human feeling of the better sort. All that mankind knows, in fact, beyond matter, is gained from spiritual view-points and mental processes beyond and outside of matter. All discovery and all invention which defeat the limitations of material belief come by way of revelation and reason and from a direction mentally opposite to that of the testimony concerning matter. And surely all spiritual knowledge must originate in a source entirely unknown to the material senses.

This much granted, as it can be by every thinker, it follows logically that to open one’s eyes to the spiritual point of view brings spiritual experiences within the individual’s mental range. With no evidence before his physical senses but a host of Syrians bearing down upon him and his helpless servant, Elisha could exclaim, “They that be with us are more than they that be with them.” The basis for his confidence lay in something unseen to the physical eye, something at the moment unseen by his servant; and Elisha’s trust in God lifted the thoughts of his servant with his own, until both could know the presence of their deliverer and rely upon spiritual power. In like manner the Christian of today must rest his faith beyond his sight.

Whatever may have been the detail of Elisha’s experience, the lesson learned by his servant is the thing which comes home to the Christian Scientist. Christian Science demands a continuous outlook upon the mountain-side whereon God’s chariots assemble; an unshaken faith that help will be always at hand in the hour of need. Until the servant knew the nearness of divine resources, his terror prevailed; when he saw as did Elisha, new courage upheld him. So, too, the one who would be saved from believing in evil must spiritualize his point of view, until the heavenly hosts become real and abiding to him; then, in every encounter with his own temptations, the myriad wheels of evil roll back into the darkness from whence they came, and are no more.

On page 298 of her book “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” Mrs. Eddy writes concerning angels, that they are “pure thoughts from God;” and on page 581 she writes again that they are “God’s thoughts passing to man; spiritual intuitions, pure and perfect.” She makes it clear, furthermore, that such righteous thinking offsets the evil thinking of the human mind; and it may be said in passing that this one statement alone proves Mrs. Eddy’s right to call her book a “Key to the Scriptures,” for such interpretation of the experiences of prophets and disciples shows to the modern disciple his angels, his horsemen and chariots, waiting upon the mountain-side, and teaches him what the vision meant to the Christian of old. If “pure and perfect” “spiritual intuitions” are angels to the awakened thought, then every individual who cherishes spiritual thoughts is assembling a host of helpers, and the multitude of them increases with every effort better to understand and love God. The lesson is logical. Every one, whether or not a Christian Scientist, will admit that the more his mind is filled with good thoughts the more good he has with him and about him. And every one, surely, sees the value of seeking and cherishing such a glorious company of gracious assistants.

Christian Science calls upon every one to see in this connection, however, that human goodness, even though it be a good belief, is not “the angel of his presence;” and that good beliefs must give place to the spiritual understanding of God’s presence and power, as revealed by Christian Science, to bring about that quality of right thinking which really saves and heals. One readily grants that an amiable disposition, a generous nature, or a self-sacrificing life-habit, although they are traits which promote happiness, are not equal to healing the sick or destroying the vices of the sinner; and that fear and discouragement assail at times the innocent as well as the wilful human being, showing that human goodness alone and unaided cannot wholly resist evil. This being true, a kind of thinking which is higher than the human is needed, in order to subdue ills of human making. This spiritual thinking, or understanding, which rescued Elisha, which animated Christ Jesus at all times, and which St. Paul urged upon the early Christians, has been recognized by Mrs. Eddy as the reflection by spiritual man of divine Mind, omnipresent Love.

To think rightly means to think righteously; it means to think like Christ. Mankind may seem far away from such thinking, and indeed they are. They can begin, however, with just one Christlike thought to counteract one evil suggestion; and from this beginning their “angels” will multiply and eventually turn back the whole evil army. Elisha’s servant saw more than the divine chariots; he saw that Elisha’s point of view had been spiritual during the time his had been material; that the help is always at hand, only awaiting discovery by a spiritualized consciousness; and that in the same situation where he had seen disaster and would have had it, Elisha saw and had deliverance. Surely this experience is explained by Mrs. Eddy’s statement on page 265 of Science and Health: “The truth of being is perennial, and the error is seen only when we look from wrong points of observation;” also to remember and to understand the rescue of Elisha and his servant quickens the heart of the twentieth-century Christian to a better understanding of the lines in Faber’s hymn:—

Oh, blest is he to whom is giv’n
The instinct that can tell
That God is on the field, when He
Is most invisible.

The Eternal Mercy

From the May 5, 1906 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel by

IN the Lamentations of Jeremiah God’s mercies are recalled, and it is written of them, “They are new every morning.” Tender and clear, like the early shining of the morning dew, the lovingkindness of the Lord springs anew with each awakening, in that heart which turns to Him for all that the day may bring forth. A new day has such wondrous possibilities; it holds such untried opportunities for knowing and being and doing all that is good; it unfolds so many unstained hours in which to correct yesterday’s mistakes and to profit by yesterday’s lessons, that psalmist and prophet and poet have found in it a beautiful type of the renewal of all that is beautiful and true. As the new morning follows each night, so renewed consecration and endeavor may follow every season of sorrow, oppression, or failure, and no experience is so severe but that its night passes and its morning breaks, whensoever thought turns without reservation to God for deliverance and enlightenment.

Christian Science teaches that God is not changeable, sending His mercies because besought therefor, or withholding them at will from those who fail to please Him, but rather that God is loving and good to all, sending His rain, the Master tells us, “on the just and on the unjust,” and making “his sun to rise on the evil and on the good.” Though His manifestation is veiled to material sense, God’s mercies, God’s tenderness, yea, the actual presence and power of God, is everywhere present, showering blessings in abundance upon all. Whence, then, the night of sorrow, the season of sin, the continual besetments of discord which seem to entangle the footsteps and sadden the heart of mortal man? The ages have sought in vain for an explanation of the evil, and to that sense which sees and believes evil, evil clamors that it must have had a beginning, and that any philosophy which accords it not origin and presence is faulty. Conversely, to that consciousness which sees not and knows not evil, no sense of its original inception or present existence can be suggested.

God’s eternal mercy, made manifest in evil’s provable unreality, is the rich inheritance which Christian Science unfolds to the world through its text-book, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” by Mrs. Eddy. No one who walks upon the earth to-day can say that, in effect, evil does not exist to him, so far as his material experience is concerned; but he can perceive, through the invincible logic of Mrs. Eddy’s statements, that evil does not exist to God, for God is revealed as a purely good consciousness, by which and in which evil cannot be conceived nor discerned. Even the human situation illustrates this impossibility of thought’s comprehension (embrace) of opposite qualities. The innocent heart sees purity everywhere, knowing not the nature of impurity; the truthful man is prone to believe his fellow-men are equally truthful, and is persuaded otherwise only by sharp experience; the kind expect kindness, the loving and gentle are incapable of brutality; while, on the other hand, low standards and unworthy motives see no higher than their own level, and deny the possibility of anything beyond their own measurement. To the pure “all things are indeed pure,” and to sullied thinking all things seem soiled. To God, the all-wise and all-good, evil exists not at all; but to mortal man, in his present environment, evil seems present and insists that it must be accounted for.

The only way whereby man may find the “sure mercies” of God, presents itself in the possibility of exchanging the material belief which claims an originated and developed evil, for the understanding of the Mind which was in Christ Jesus. The phenomena of the Christ-mind are purely good; the phenomena of the so-called carnal mind are entirely evil; and this, because Mind, as causation, puts forth its own kind or quality as effect. Therefore, the individual who abandons carnal thinking and cultivates Christlike thinking, refusing to entertain any evil picture about mankind, must thereby enter a new mental area, wherein new phenomena become apparent to him. This loss of evil and gain of good, through the exchange of wrong thinking for right thinking, is Christian Science demonstration. A mortal may be humanly good, in his own conduct, and yet fill his thought with many un-Christlike concepts concerning what his fellow-men are doing. Such thoughts, even in their passing, are evil in nature, and unfit for one who would be Christlike. If the evil which is shut out from God’s reflection can sometime, in the climax of salvation, be put entirely away from human thinking, we will then “be satisfied” in knowing it not, either in so-called origin or development.

Certain it is that every man should be wide awake, and know that right-mindedness actuates him in every thought and act, thus determining his views, judgments, convictions, and hence his conduct. Step by step, one thought at a time, in patience, repentance, and renewed trying, every man may reject the tyranny of mortal sense and yield to the glorious unfolding of the divine will. The whole situation is expressed in Jesus’ statement, “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.” Human reason may be unable to grasp at once the question of the unreality of evil in its full scope, but he who does the will of God is keeping with the rules given in Christian Science, will step by step prove evil’s nothingness, by conquering it from the standpoint which declares its unreality, and thereby growing into a satisfying and abiding knowledge of the “doctrine” of its unreality.

If we were governed wholly by the Mind of Christ to-day, with no sense of any other, evil would not exist to us. Could all people in this age come at once into this Christly consciousness, evil would not even seem to exist to any one. It is undeniable that evil never did exist to this Christ-consciousness, else its Christliness would be impaired, and the “Mind of Christ” could offer no refuge from evil’s storm and destruction. As Mrs. Eddy has fully explained in “Unity of Good,” page 80, the one logical way of salvation provides that a growing knowledge of good shall deliver men from evil; and to make this possible, evil must be foreign to good, unsupported by it, unknown to it, and entirely outside its activities.

One difficulty in understanding this arises from believing that man can think both good and evil thoughts. This wrong view will be corrected as we come to understand that good thoughts cannot embrace evil, and evil thoughts cannot comprehend good. Good thoughts think about good things, in a good way, while evil thoughts picture evil phenomena, for “like produces like.” A good quality of thought understands its own kind, and remains its own kind, for its quality is unchanging. Christian Science has revealed this, and has declared that right consciousness is the real man, the only manhood there is; while evil thinking is but impersonal evil suggestion, which attempts to engraft itself upon right thinking and call itself part of man. No one can think a good and an evil thought simultaneously. They may seem to occupy the ground almost at the same instant, but close analysis always reveals them to be separate. This makes it possible for thought to cling steadfastly to good, and to build such a perfect structure of right thinking that evil finds less opportunity each day to attempt to build at all.

It is related in the book of Ezra, that “when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of the captivity builded the temple unto the Lord God of Israel; then they came to Zerubbabel, and to the chief of the fathers, and said unto them, Let us build with you: for we seek your God, as ye do; and we do sacrifice unto him since the days of Esar-haddon king of Assur, which brought us up hither. But Zerubbabel, and Jeshua, and the rest of the chief of the fathers of Israel, said unto them, Ye have nothing to do with us to build an house unto our God: but we ourselves together will build unto the Lord God of Israel.” Thus may every one answer evil’s offer to build with him, for right thinking is the right thinker, and by its very activity it must silence the clamor of every temptation, every weakness, every assault. Every Christian Scientist can thus protect his thought-processes from evil’s subtle suggestion, “We seek your God, as ye do,” and guard his analyses, his conclusions, and his habits from any attempted intermixture of erroneous belief. Eternal vigilance, however, is the price of this liberty. Not yet has the Christian Scientist so disentangled himself from material methods, nor so emerged from the realm of a seeming mortal self, that he can afford to relax for an instant his watchful efforts. Nevertheless, through earnest watching he begins to put on the “garments of salvation,” and thus becomes so strengthened and encouraged, because of the disappearance of evil from his thought and life, that he will be able to think more and more from the basis of the divine Mind, and rest satisfied in the knowledge that evil never had an origin, inasmuch as it has no existence to the Mind that knows only good.

To God himself, unchanging goodness is not new. His mercies are eternal, springing spontaneously from the wonder of His infinity; but to the weary traveler, toiling along this journey wherein just one good thought at a time may be appropriated, God’s mercies are indeed “new every morning.” After each night of sin, or sorrow, or struggle, there breaks a new discovery of the eternal, ever-present good. Each lofty moral summit gained and held, reveals new vistas, hitherto unseen views, of infinite Love. A very heaven of mercies, showering its blessings in unmeasured abundance everywhere, is this realm of pure spiritual thinking, this Christ-mind; and in the measure that each man lays hold upon it, and abides with it, does he find himself within its borders of peace. What counts the night of pain or sorrow, if it be a night of discovery? “Joy cometh in the morning,” and the mornings lengthen into an eternal noonday, as the unreality of evil is made more and more apparent in the expanding knowledge of the supremacy of God, until there shall be, as St. John has prophesied, “no night there.” “And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” God’s eternal mercy, made forever manifest in evil’s unreality, shall reign supreme.

Entertaining Angels

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Centuries ago a good and devout Israelitish king declared, “The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivered them.” So long as we think of angels as personal celestial beings, distinct from God and separate from man, we gain little from this statement save its poetic value and the religious feeling it may nourish. When, however, we learn through Christian Science that angels are “God’s thoughts passing to man” (Science and Health, p. 581), we become conscious of the spiritual law concerning salvation. As we read the Bible we find both in the Old Testament and the New that the holy men of olden time were saved from direst danger by angels, but Christian people have too long been accustomed to think that these were personal visitations which belonged to a bygone period, and that they are not available for us today. There is therefore great need that we lay hold anew upon the Scripture promises, which are so wonderfully illumed in Christian Science, and find that “God’s thoughts” do deliver all those who trust Him.

In Christian Science we are taught that God is divine Mind. This Mind is infinite, everywhere present. It is wholly and only good, knowing no evil. It is the only power. Man, the spiritual, eternal, real man, the original which mortal mind claims to counterfeit in a fleshly man, exists as an idea in the divine Mind, and as such has no relation to the material counterfeit falsely called man; knows, in truth, only spiritual things. Divine Mind supplies to its ideas its own qualities-wholly good, spiritual thoughts, spiritual understanding. The real man, the true consciousness, is the spiritual understanding of God, man, and the universe, while mortality, with its belief in matter, in sin, sickness, and death, is the false sense of God, man, and the universe. Whenever, therefore, any one of us individually lays aside a wrong belief about existence and receives spiritual understanding into his thinking, an angel straight from God has come to him; a spiritual idea lights his mentality and puts out mental and moral darkness, and brings healing and strength now and always.

A personified concept of “angel” has usually seemed vague and uncertain, a being we might or might not believe in, but one with whom we could not affiliate. The angel of spiritually right thinking, however, is something which can come inside our own mental borders and abide with us. We can keep thought receptive to the divine idea through the sincere desire for good and by abandoning evil as soon as we see it to be evil. Standing mentally at this point of receptivity, we truly pray; and this is the open doorway through which angels crowd. Then, as these luminous thoughts, God-given, multiply righteousness within the secret place where motive and purpose are born, protection, too, is vouchsafed to growing pureness of heart, and the encamping angels do deliver us from trouble.

God gives; man receives. Divine Mind sustains; man and the universe are thereby sustained. This great activity is wholly mental, purely spiritual. Mrs. Eddy defines it as divine Mind reflected by man. It is an infinite thought-process in which God, Truth, Life, Love, infinite, divine, all-knowing, all-seeing Mind, nourishes and cherishes His own ideas, contains and maintains them, protects and preserves them. This activity of Mind is surely the infinite mode by which man exists. Mortal mind declares that man has a material personal existence apart from God, and all the discord of human experience bases itself upon this belief; and this mortal mind may ask how spiritual reality is going to help material trouble when they are such direct opposites. Christian Science answers that God-given thoughts enter individual consciousness to correct wrong thinking. The angels that inspire right thinking have an office, a work to perform in saving mankind. This Mrs. Eddy defines on page 581 of the text-book, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” in declaring angels to be “the inspiration of goodness, purity, and immortality, counteracting all evil, sensuality, and mortality.” Such angels change our thinking. Encamping with us, they expel wrong thought. They enrich, bless, uplift, and purify, in fact transform individual thinking; they are the saving power in human consciousness, that “mind of Christ” which the apostle tells us is available for all mankind. Surely for every wrong thought there is a saving “angel.” Truth always saves from error, and Christian Science has come that we may find the truth as Christ Jesus lived and taught it, and receive its angel hosts of pure, true thoughts.

In her 1901 Message to The Mother Church (p. 8) Mrs. Eddy says: “We have the authority of Jesus for saying Christ is not God, but an impartation of Him.” Again upon page 10 she writes, “Christ being the Son of God, a spiritual, divine emanation, Christ must be spiritual, not material.” Her use of the words impartation and emanation applied to Christ as the Son of God is akin to the statement, “Christ is the true idea voicing good, the divine message from God to men speaking to the human consciousness” (Science and Health, p. 332). Here we can understand God as having sent Christ, who was exemplified in Jesus, to save the world; divine Mind itself through its highest idea, uttering itself to men, and entering human thought-processes as a divine “emanation” to pierce and scatter the darkness of wrong belief. God thus imparts His angels to him who stands cleansed and receptive to them; and the clustering company of them bring holiness for sin, health for sickness, joy and light for distress and darkness.

Christian Science as theory does little for us; practised it does much. These angels of God must be entertained. Unwelcomed at the threshold of our mental courtyards, they cannot reach our need. Given entrance, they save and heal. Meek desire to know God, and patient obedience to His law, open wide the doors of thought to God; and we must be instant and constant at this doorway, seeking Him. “Round about them that fear him,” reads the psalm, “the angel of the Lord encampeth.” So when fear hath torment, when sin tempts, when sickness and grief and loss and worry threaten us, we turn straight to the angels of God’s presence and let them in. Always we bid them enter, and always we cherish them if we are obeying Truth. Nothing keeps us so busy as this business of watching our thoughts and seeing that only the angels encamp with us. Evil would strike its tents at our doors, perchance would rush its pretentious hosts upon our domain of thoughts; but knowing that Truth steadfastly sets a watch of angels, we may reasonably expect them to deliver us if we trust and serve God through right thinking, not half-heartedly, but wholly and entirely.

Not “unawares” are angels entertained in Christian Science, but with alertness, with fixed purpose, with keen, quick responsiveness to the divine demands.

His Angel

By , from the May 1909 Christian Science Sentinel

In the 23rd chapter of Exodus it is written, “Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.” In the text-book of Christian Science, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” Mrs. Eddy writes, “Human conjecture confers upon angels its own forms of thought, marked with superstitious outlines, making them human creatures with suggestive feathers; but this is only fancy” (p. 298). Her own interpretation of angels, as “God’s thoughts passing to man; spiritual intuitions, pure and perfect; the inspiration of goodness, purity, and immortality, counteracting all evil, sensuality, and mortality” (Ibid., p. 581), establishes them on the spiritual rather than the physical plane.

The students of Christian Science make no attempt to set forth a dogmatic interpretation of the Scriptures, but from the basis furnished them by Christian Science, which resolves things into thoughts and lifts their analysis from the material to the spiritual view-point, they draw from Scriptural narrative, parable, or promise, the lessons which are of the greatest value in their own mental and moral growth. In this manner, much that is recorded in this chapter of Exodus becomes, in the light of Mrs. Eddy’s uplifted and spiritualized perception concerning angels, a positive inspiration toward the renovating of individual thought and life. When the promise reads to the student that God will send a pure and perfect spiritual intuition to keep him in the way, and to bring him into the place which God has prepared, the mental process of spiritual guidance can be comprehended. When it is seen that an angel is not an etherealized person, but a right idea, and that such right idea can become a dominating influence in the mind of the individual who cherishes it, mortals need no longer grope in doubt concerning divine help, for they learn that the angel of one’s highest sense of good lies within, not without, the borderland of one’s own thinking, and consequently is an ever-available help in every problem of life. This angel, admitted, understood, and obeyed, fosters the right living which naturally follows right thinking; and so salvation can begin today, and the place which God has prepared can be, in a degree, a present possession.

In the chapter under discussion, the offices of the angel, the things required of him who would follow it, and the happy results of obedience to it, are clearly stated. God sends His angel to each receptive heart. His highest idea of good then goes before the mortal, keeping him, bringing him into the prepared place. The mortal is admonished to “beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions.” Truly, every would-be Christian has long since learned that his highest ideal has no pardon for the unworthy and the base, but holds him unwaveringly to his highest and best performance! “For my name is in him,” continues the record,—the seal of divinity marking every right idea as its own, declaring every pure and perfect thought God’s offspring! Then the promise follows, the reward of obedience: “But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries.” By simple obedience to the highest monitor of heart and conscience, right purpose and endeavor are strengthened, and every Christian warrior may find himself equipped for the battle with the hosts of self, wherein God’s angel is indeed an adversary unto all the foes of righteous manhood.

It is further written: “For mine Angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites: and I will cut them off.” To these tribes about Israel, the Israelites’ deadliest enemies, the angel of God was to “bring in” the children of Israel. Their enemies must be faced, if vanquished, and according to the text, Israel was to be led by the angel to a direct encounter with that which was to be overthrown. Herein is illustrated one of the greatest lessons of Christian Science; that the office of a newly discovered good is to uncover and destroy hitherto unrecognized evils, and that the angel of right thinking leads directly to the detection of the evil nature of evil thinking.

The carnal mind has for ages sought to cover much of its own carnality and call it good. It has sought a future heaven for the carnal under its guise of good, and has failed to see that the carnal must disappear, because only absolute Christlikeness is fit for heaven. Despite Jesus’ uncompromising statements that “that which is born of the flesh is flesh,” and that “there is none good but one, that is, God,” mortal mind has persistently wrapped its cloak of self-righteousness about it and has gone on striving to occupy the land, the prepared place in consciousness wherein right thinking alone is entitled to dwell. Christian Science, revealing the real man to be only that which is faithfully and perfectly the likeness and image of God, uncovers all mental deformities as the enemies which must be “cut off” from the land,—banished from individual thinking. God’s angel does indeed bring the earnest Christian to a recognition of the unlovely and the undesirable in his own consciousness, and this highest idea of good, which has led to this discovery, serves him further as it sustains him in obeying the accompanying command: “Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works: but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images.”

Mrs. Eddy writes on page 366 of Science and Health, “The physician must also watch, lest he be overwhelmed by a sense of the odiousness of sin and by the unveiling of sin in his own thoughts.” Only the illumination of a higher knowledge of good can expose to the honest heart the winding subtleties of its own selfishness, that selfishness which has been for so long half-hidden under the guise of “disposition” and “temperament” that analysis of it has been well-nigh impossible. Only the revelation, in Christian Science, of perfect spiritual manhood, the absolute Christian ideal, is able to bring to the light the imperfection of the so-called man of the material senses. And only the courage born of this revelation can sustain the individual in his warfare against the selfishness, the wilfulness and the vagaries, the habits and the sins, he has formerly called himself. It requires both insight and bravery to call one’s own unhappy emotions and moods self-love, envy, resentment, self-pity, cowardice, self-justification, criticism, vanity, greed, appetite, indolence, anger, or malice, yet spiritual intuition often leads one to just such discovery, and to the righteous conquest of just such enemies, before any abiding peace can be obtained. For this purpose Christian Science has come into the world, and its task is not accomplished till Christian practice and profession are so quickened as to “utterly overthrow” these evil habits and “quite break down their images.”

In the Exodus lesson, tender promises follow these stern commands. “And ye shall serve the Lord your God,” reads the text, “and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee.” Well do the students of Christian Science know that this rich inheritance is theirs, and that sickness shall be taken away from the midst of them, for they rest in the promises of God. They are learning as well, however, that they must follow the “angel” unfalteringly, and through its guidance face and overthrow the self-distorted images of their own wrong thinking, if they would escape the pain and disease attendant upon such thinking. When healing is delayed, the humble prayer which leads either patient or practitioner to the discovery of his own “stone of stumbling,” leads him past it to that place in consciousness wherein he knows he is not separate from any God-given good. Then has he earned the promised healing, for he has followed his angel wherever it has led him, and comes by God’s ways to the place which God has prepared.

The command of this Exodus chapter continues, forbidding covenant with Israel’s enemies, prohibiting any serving of their gods, and the promise reads: “I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee. By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land.” Not with one great demonstration, not with spectacular rush or climax, but by patient, faithful endeavor toward the highest and the best, is this promised land to be inherited. Many weary battles with the tribes of unlawful thoughts may mark the way, but as the angel guide is followed to and past such encounters, Love itself will bless the neverending supply of bread and water, and sickness will not be found within the borders of the inheritance. The wayfarer needs but to follow and obey. Divine Love cares for the fulfilling of the promise. Henry Van Dyke has written:—

Self is the only prison that can ever bind the soul; Love is the only angel who can bid the gates unroll. And when he comes to call thee, arise and follow fast; Its way may lead through darkness, but it leads to light at last.

The Church Manual

Take Notice

From the September 17, 1910 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel by

The article on the Church Manual by Blanche Hersey Hogue, in the Sentinel of Sept. 10, is practical and scientific, and I recommend its careful study to all Christian Scientists.

Mary Baker Eddy.


The Church Manual

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Christian Scientists have for their instruction the Scriptures, the writings of Mrs. Eddy, which open to them the Scriptures, and the Church Manual, the rules of which help them to apply what they have been taught. The Bible, understood through Christian Science, is aiding its students individually to live in Christian discipleship; the Manual of The Church of Christ, Scientist, in providing that Christian Scientists shall work together, is helping them collectively to live in Christian fellowship. The teaching of the Scriptures and the Christian Science text-book bring about the individual correction of thought, while the rules of the Church Manual make possible right action through groups of individuals and through the whole body of Scientists. So, the Bible, Science and Health, and the Manual are equally important in their places. The Manual bears definite relation to the other two books in that it shows us how to take the steps that will bring their teaching into our lives in all necessary relations with our fellow-men. It safeguards and regenerates Christian fellowship by promoting the best possible form of church organization. For these reasons, therefore, it can no more be dispensed with than can the Scriptures or the Christian Science text-book.

Of the Bible Mrs. Eddy has written: “Christian Scientists are fishers of men. The Bible is our sea-beaten Rock. It guides the fishermen. It stands the storm. It engages the attention and enriches the being of all men” (Sentinel, March 31, 1906). Christian Scientists themselves know what place the Christian Science text-book holds in their regeneration; how it makes plain the words of prophet, apostle, and of the Master himself; how it brings Christian healing into human experience today. And concerning the Manual Mrs. Eddy has said: “Of this I am sure, that each rule and by-law in the Manual will increase the spirituality of him who obeys it, invigorate his capacity to heal the sick, to comfort such as mourn, and to awaken the sinner” (Sentinel, Sept. 12, 1903). In keeping with the law and order set forth in the Manual, we have the Sunday Lesson-Sermons, the mid-week testimony meetings, the provision of monthly, weekly, and daily reading-matter, the board of lecturers, the Christian Science reading-rooms, the publication committee work, the rotation of church officers, etc., while, in keeping with its instructions, students are being taught and patients are being healed in all the world. Great reforms, indeed, are going on through the united action for good which operates through the Christian Science movement, and the outward and visible activities bear witness to the inward and spiritual understanding, which is itself being quickened by the law and order and discipline of right organization.

It is best for the Christian Scientist at present that he is not allowed to live to himself. His place in organization teaches him many things that he cannot learn otherwise, for it lifts him from the selfish consideration of his personal problems to the unselfish support of an impersonal cause. Within the ample boundaries of the Christian Science organization he finds multiplied opportunities for surrendering his own will, his own opinion, and his own comfort to the good of the whole,—opportunities unafforded even by the home or by any outside life in the world; and he is cheered by good example and by happy fellowship to higher faith in good as the ends of organization are worked out together.

If, then, the Church Manual, with the organization for which it provides, has so large a place in the establishment and growth of Christian Science, it is essential that Christian Scientists be keenly alive to its provisions and its demands. Continual fidelity, for instance, to the instruction found in Article VIII., Section 1, that “neither animosity nor mere personal attachment” shall govern motives and actions; to the warning in the same paragraph against “prophesying, judging, condemning, counseling, influencing or being influenced erroneously;” to the demand for a charitable attitude toward all religious, medical, and legal points of view; to the adoption, so insistently urged, of the spirit of the golden rule,—this fidelity, we know, will help in the making over of human nature, until in some fair day by-laws to provide for such consistent Christian behavior shall be no longer necessary. And it is unquestionably true that he who really does heed the requirement set forth in the Manual concerning Jesus’ teaching that each shall go to his brother alone and tell him of his fault before publishing it to others, accepts a discipline which makes him in deed as well as in profession a genuine Christian Scientist.

Because the question of church organization is so vital a matter, it becomes naturally an important point to protect. A Christian Scientist who cannot at the moment be made suddenly disloyal to the Bible, to the Christian Science text-book or to its writer, can perhaps, through innumerable arguments, be persuaded into a lukewarm attitude toward church organization. Indifference, restlessness, criticism that is mere fault-finding and is not constructively helpful, are the symptoms of coming under such persuasion. To prevent this each member needs to keep his thoughts warm and loving toward all church activities; to be cheerfully in his place at meetings whenever possible; to be helpfully interested in every detail of cooperative work, though this does not mean necessarily that he shall take part, personally, in every church undertaking; for the quietest and least conspicuous church-member is sometimes best serving the church. It does mean, however, that we must guard zealously our love for organization, even in its present incomplete form, that we may not hinder its growth into greater beauty and utility.

Indifference to organization indicates that we believe we value the Scriptures and the Christian Science text-book, but refuse the discipline their teaching asks of us through the rules and by-laws of the Manual. Finding and keeping a place within organization means sometimes the surrender of ease and self-will, but it means, too, shelter and safety and the right to peace. So long, then, as the Leader of the Christian Science movement sees there is need for organization to establish Christian Science, no student may fancy that he has rightly “outgrown” organization. The Christian Scientist is a standard-bearer within The Church of Christ, Scientist, and he who remains loyally and lovingly at his post best serves God, all humanity, and himself.

It may be said, truly, that the inspiration for the Church Manual is found in the life of Mrs. Eddy. Everything asked of Christian Scientists in maintaining the cause beyond and above all personal interests, Mrs. Eddy herself has done before them. Had she consulted only her own comfort she might have been tempted to apply what she knows of God just to the working out of her own salvation. Instead, she has labored forty years and more to give of her store to the world; she has been impelled to found the church with all its educational branches, and to protect its growing activities; she has foregone ease, and has bound herself to this task, that we, too, may find the Christ-healing for our sin and pain. Consistent and blessed is the Christian Scientist who can bind himself with her until many more shall find their healing and until The Church of Christ, Scientist, shall stand in good will to all men, radiant and triumphant in the earth.

Christian Science and Christian Character

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When Jesus said, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect,” he didn’t add, “insofar as your human temperament allows.”

If someone is convinced that they have inherited certain traits or have certain tendencies, it may be difficult to attain the heights of Christ-like character at a single bound. But they can focus on one objectionable line of thought and conduct, and determine to stop indulging in it!

One wrong thought arrested, or one wrong deed restrained, begins the process of reformation; and when one form of evil is resisted, we find increased strength to resist every form of evil. To walk in the path to Christliness, we must watch carefully, detect honestly, and reject faithfully the inclinations of human impulse and human will, with the determination to be satisfied with nothing less than perfection.

The human mind resists Jesus’ command to be perfect, claiming that it is not possible for poor human nature to attain perfection. But human nature is not asked to become perfect; instead, it is to be outgrown and discarded. As darkness never grows into light, but vanishes with the dawn; as chaos never becomes order, but disappears as soon as order begins to appear; so that which is imperfect does not develop into perfection, but must fade from thought and action proportionably as perfection appears.

That which is called human temperament is not as permanent an inheritance as it appears to be. At best, it’s a bundle of characteristics made up of the reflex action of habit, impulse, will, and emotion, and so is capable of being eliminated. True character, however, is that strength of character which resists all evil.

Christian Science declares that God’s blessing is not withheld until some future time, but will be experienced as soon as man rejects that which holds him from the blessing. The true Christian life is the way of sacrifice, but God only requires the sacrifice of false, limited, ungodlike thinking and actions. Then after this sacrifice, we find greater freedom and blessings. This joy is known only to the heart which obeys, and brings a peace which the world cannot give or take away. What the world gives, it does take away; but because this joy is not given by the world, the world cannot take it away.

It has been said that “Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity.” Mrs. Eddy writes, “We glean spiritual harvests from our own material losses.” (Ret.) One glimpse of divine radiance banishes the memory of many sacrifices, and the tangled path of selfish inclination, so hard at first to abandon, is finally recognized to be a path leading only to disappointment and pain.

Joy in sacrifice is no new theme. The world’s great prophets, poets, and religious teachers have always emphasized its presence in the affairs of men. The book Science and Health shatters the so-called attractiveness of evil, thus removing, to a great extent, the force of temptation and the tenacity of its grasp. It is not possible for one who studies the textbook of Christian Science, and who grows to love the spirit of purity and truth which pervades its teaching, to find continued satisfaction in the many things which the world excuses. When the sense of pleasure in wrongdoing disappears, it’s then much easier to seek a higher and better way.

True character comes, not by the cultivation of the personal disposition, nor through the up-building of human temperament, but rather because the Christ-mind is melting away the obstructing human mentality, and revealing God’s sinless, selfless image and likeness, — the perfect man.

In the life work of Mrs. Eddy, through her patient, unwavering toil for the good of humanity, we see this scientific unfolding of Christian character in example and precept, and we see, as well, the mighty effect upon such unfolding which the message of Christian Science sets before the world. The very heavens open through its promises, for this way of transformation will bring not only deliverance from sin, but eventual escape from every form of disease and sorrow as well. In this work of transformation, we learn to be thankful, not only for daily blessings, but for the trials of faith and tests of moral strength which, when rightly handled, lead to the discovery of unlimited blessings!

Argument for Truth

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In a world where materialism is aggressive, where the suggestions of evil are abundant, where the evidences of want and sin seem to be everywhere, we can find our shield against these trials, and our shelter from these temptations, through the study of Christian Science. We learn to keep ourselves ready at each instant to reject the false claims of materiality and to keep thought so fortified in the knowledge of God’s presence and power that the mist of temptation can never prevail.

We must be consistently thinking and living according to the ways of Truth and Love. These ways must be actually lived, warming our lives and affections, turning them from self to service, from indifference to tender consideration for the welfare of everybody and everything. We need to maintain this spiritually right position and to persevere in these good ways of Truth and Love, through the arguments of Truth.

Argument for Truth is simply the continuing restatement of the truth. Thought is refreshed and renewed by reassurances concerning Truth. Argument is the constant reminder of what is true and of what is not true about God, man, and the universe. Argument is not a mental quarrel, in which there is some evil to talk to and to hear from in return. Rather, it is the ladder of thought by which we lift our own thought to higher places. Mrs. Eddy makes it plain in her writings that sometimes one will attain spiritual understanding so completely that he needs no fortifying argument to hold his thought in that sure place. She also makes it clear that, until such final exaltation is reached, the arguments of Truth are needed to keep the balance on the right side.

He who mentally stands in the attitude of Christian Science treatment, affirms and strives to realize the truth about God, man, and the universe, and is alert to the claims of evil. The truth about God is His allness — His allpower as Spirit, as divine Mind, as divine Principle, as the tender, loving Father-Mother, caring for the welfare of all of His creation.

Mrs. Eddy says, “If you wish to be happy, argue with yourself on the side of happiness; take the side you wish to carry, and be careful not to talk on both sides, or to argue stronger for sorrow than for joy.” (Hea.) And she points to the human mind to be rejected when she writes, “The action and effects of the so-called human mind in its silent arguments, are yet to be uncovered and summarily dealt with by divine justice.” (Mis.)

An argument on God’s side cannot fail to be protective, saving, and effective to the uttermost. Argument continually pleads God’s allness, and reinforces the kingdom of heaven in our consciousness.

The happiness of the new year will mainly consist of our endeavor to make a happy new year to all with whom we have to do; and so far as our influence goes, a better year for all the world. The loving heart sees the beauty and promise of human nature. It sees the best in life and character. The poet and the artist see the beauty of nature, the loving heart beholds the glory that is in men.

Christian Work and Evangelist

Love is the liberator.