Independent Christian Science articles

Wisdom’s Single Source

From the October 8, 1910 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel by

When Christ Jesus defined evil, the devil, as a lie and liar, he made it clear that escape from evil, from every type of disharmony, is an escape from the rule of falsity, the subjection to some phase of belief in that which is not true. Salvation is thus seen to involve the acquisition of a right understanding, and faithful adherence to its counsel.

This gives new significance to the oft-reiterated counsel of the Old Testament prophets and Preachers, that with all our getting we get wisdom. It gives new meaning to the peripatetic teaching of the Master, and his constant resort to the use of the parable, the schoolmaster of the east. It also throws light upon Paul’s identification of Christ as “the wisdom of God,” his prayer for the Colossians that they might be filled with all wisdom, and his frequent explanation that this saving knowledge is not that learning of culture which is “foolishness with God.”

This thought of the philosophy of salvation as an educational enterprise seems to simplify things, and may prove very helpful; nevertheless, in so far as men are forgetful of the kind of wisdom needed, it may become a distinct hindrance to the spiritual life. It is apparent that truly redemptive faith does not consort with ignorance, which invariably leads to torpid indifference or to gross superstition and fear; that there is no negative good, even, instupidity. On the other hand, it is equally apparent that historic rationalism, with all its learned refinements, has failed utterly to save men. The educational work of Christian missions has sometimes contributed to the religious advance, as well as the political betterment of the people, and it has sometimes resulted, sad to say, in the loss of the soul of evangelism, the power of the gospel.

With the individual, as with organized Christian bodies, the greatest problem is reflected in the ancient cry, “But where shall wisdom be found?” What is the specific knowing that will save from the tendencies and reactions of mortal sense? and the answer which was of old is worth our remembering: “God understandeth the way thereof, and he knoweth the place thereof”—He is “our refuge and strength.” In the presence of human doubts and questionings, Christ Jesus constantly directed thought to the fact that it is God who accomplisheth all good in us, and Christian Science is again fixing the world’s attention upon this truth, that it is the right thought of God which makes possible the solution of every human problem. Said James, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God;” and it is entirely in keeping with this teaching that Mrs. Eddy has given such prominence to Deity, His nature, His causal and governing relation as divine Principle, His guiding and protecting nearness as omnipresent good, in selecting the subjects of our Lesson-Sermons. Of the twenty-six themes assigned for study, eight have to do directly with the divine nature, four with God’s relation to man, to being, while all the other find their logical elucidation in the recognition that God is All-in-all. No one can question, therefore, that the dominant thought of Christian Science teaching is this—To know God is eternal Life. Light for every problem is to be found in a closer touch with God, a clearer realization of Truth. Christian education might therefore be defined as the knowing of all that to which divine Principle is causally related, and the unknowing of everything else.

The application of this test to the things which would absorb our time and interest will prove a very illuminating and profitable exercise. In the hour of confusion and uncertainty, when we seem to stand at the parting of the roads and cannot determine what is the wise course, to remember just then that “God … knoweth the way,” that quite apart from the exercise of human judgment we may commit our goings to the All-wise, and find our path determined for us, and “so fortunately,” as it is seen after many days, perchance,—this is to find rest and quietness, a new sense of Paul’s saying that God, Truth, worketh in us to will and to do.

Our High Calling

From the November 2, 1907 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel by

One of the greatest stimulants to human aspiration is recognition at the hands of our peers. To be called out and up, named as capable of a splendid part and set to the doing of it, this helps men. and as nothing else perhaps, to find themselves and to measure up to their highest possibilities. This fact will account in part for the quickening which Christ Jesus imparted to his followers, and for the astonishing efficiency to which they so quickly attained. Through his own accessibility to Truth he reached that transcendent consciousness which is disclosed in the 17th chapter of St. John, and which enabled him to say. “I and my Father are one.” He then addressed the simple countrymen who had become his disciples, not only as friends, but as associates and successors in the sublimest undertaking and greatest rule of which men could dream. He recognized their true selfhood and service; that their dignity and power was commensurate with his own.

Speaking to them of their high calling, he did not say, ye may become, but ye are the salt of the earth. In the present tense of spiritual realization he expressed what to their faith could hardly have been even a vision of possibilities, but what he saw in them their love for and responsiveness to him enabled them to see in themselves; and John is soon heard declaring, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God.” This is the wonder and worth of Christ Jesus call to men, and this Christian Science repeats, in that it lifts the sense of man’s greatness and capacity until the heart is encouraged and strengthened for an order of endeavor that seems strangely new to modern Christianity. namely, to do the Master’s works.

The relation of a true sense of self to a true sense of sufficiency is discovered in due time by every earnest and thoughtful worker for the Master. “Like the great Exemplar, the healer should speak to disease as one having authority over it” (Science and Health, p. 395). The vastness of “the earth” of false belief, and the seeming mightiness of the momentum toward evil which humanity has acquired through the ages of false sense,—all this would stagger if not overwhelm one who has not learned that the true man is privileged to stand as did Christ Jesus when, with a self-assertion which was no less humble than divine, he faced the black abyss of error with the mighty declaration. “I am the light of the world.” He who stands for and with the Christ-idea may say with the psalmist of old, “Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob.” Thus to realize that our human sense of weakness and unworthiness is not the determinative fact, but that God, eternal Truth, is at work in and through us, to will and to do of His own good pleasure,—this gives a sense of sufficiency which counts. A gentle, loving sense it is, but it can face the world, the flesh, and the devil, if so be, without hesitation and without a tremor.

“The salt of the earth”! What a world-wide range this gives to our redemptive influence and activity! The Christlike man is to be a corrective and uplifting thought on every plane of life, in every worthy vocation, and amid all his associations. He is to sweeten the atmosphere of every place, to appreciate and conserve all that is good, to add the wine of inspiration to the water of every moral undertaking and reform, and to be a blessing and a joy to all “the earth.” This is our calling of God. It is the expectation of our Leader. It is the hope of humanity. And how are we responding to it?

Love is the liberator.