Independent Christian Science articles

A Sure Foundation

From the December 8, 1917 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel by

How frequently the spirit of restful confidence finds expression in the psalmist’s references to God as a “rock,” as the immovable basis of faith, assurance, and joy! In all the exigencies of temptation and distress this fact is ever recognized as the one sure thing, the eternal refuge. Thus we find him saying: “My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation.” This also recalls the Master’s words to Peter respecting that apostle’s recognition of the Christ,—”Upon this rock I will build my church.”

This Scripture concept of the basis of faith was recalled recently by one while standing in the presence of the famous Woolworth Building in New York. The vastness of its towering sweep at once prompted wonderment how any foundation could have been devised which would prove equal to the support of such an enormous structure. Then he was told how a great gulf had been excavated in the earth, until the mighty ledge upon whose shoulders even the Himalayas would prove but a feather’s weight, was uncovered, and that upon this there was built a great steel and concrete substructure, which is unburdened even by so enormous a load, because the planet itself is supporting it.

That the architect was wise in thus looking to the beginnings of such an undertaking, goes without saying, and this common sense procedure is particularly wise with respect to the building of Christian faith. By way of its emphasis Jesus told the familiar story of the man who, digging deep, laid the foundation for his house upon a rock, and no teaching of Christian Science is more sane and significant than its insistence upon this course. Mrs. Eddy’s supreme appeal to mankind might be said to be of the nature of a searching inquiry respecting the fundamental truths of being, respecting the nature of God and His universe, and man. The faith which Christian Science erects in human consciousness proves stable and permanent, because it removes the ignorance and unverified tradition which material belief has left upon practically every stretch of “good solid sense;” and having thus reached the rock of demonstrable truth, it proceeds to raise thereon a reflex of that building of God which is “eternal in the heavens.”

When one is brought face to face with the sense of a great world tragedy like that of to-day, when hope is well-nigh overwhelmed by the surging tides of conflicting religious belief, or when called to conquer an assertedly incurable disease,—then it is that men feel the imperative need of an immovable foundation for thought. They then with the psalmist exclaim, “My heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God;” and in such an hour happy indeed is the Christian Scientist who has proven for himself the presence and availability of that eternal truth the understanding of which crowned Christ Jesus “with the glory of a sublime success, an everlasting victory” (Science and Health, p. 45), even in the very midst of mortal conflict.

Before the paths of scientific thought have become so familiar to the Christian Scientist that his feet can follow them even in the dark, and in the situations which are occasionally precipitated when one meets with those to whom the teachings of the Bible make no appeal, we sometimes come upon yet other foundations for thought. For instance, the initial affirmation of Descartes’ philosophy, “I think; therefore I am,” will not be questioned by the average man or woman.

Now the greatness of human thought, the premises and logical processes by which men are able to determine the orbit of a hundred year period comet, or map out with startling exactness the location of the shadow of an eclipse which is to take place a half century hence; the wondrous constructive and prophetic flight of the imagination, which suggests the order of a truly creative activity and power,—all this marvelous mental achievement must be reckoned as an effect, and, by the universally honored law of sufficient reason, it demands an adequate explanation. There is no escape from this requirement; but when one posits an adequate explanation for these thought manifestations, he has come upon that which is unsearchable in wisdom and power. He has come upon the Christian’s God, though he may call it the unknowable. When the confessedly atheistic physical scientist acknowledges the discovery of the absolutely inscrutable and the infinitely intelligent at every point in the universe,—and this despite his unbelief,—he certainly is not far removed, did he but know it, from the acceptance of the teachings of Christ Jesus, and the teaching of Christian Science that “all is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation” (Science and Health, p. 468).

Thus for all those who are sane and willing to think, who do not assume a trifling, make-believe attitude toward serious things, and who are amenable to a logically progressive search for a satisfying interpretation of mental experiences,—for all such an ascending way may be found out of the deepest bogs of unbelief, the darkest confusions of mental mesmerism. However he may think of “the ultimate,” it is practically impossible for any man to make up his mind that the supreme nature-ruling intelligence is malevolent, and in so far as he refuses to do this he can be hospitable to the teaching of the Master that God, the foundation and explanation of all real being, is Love; and in his efforts to account for that hateful thing called evil he must look elsewhere than to the source of good. Though not thought of by the many, it is easily seen that there is and can be no darkness in light, no error in truth, and no evil in good, however much they seem to be blended in human experience, that is, according to material evidence.

The clear diagnosis of mental conditions, the right perception of the status in which one may find himself or another in a given moment of experience, and the tactful wisdom with which one so addresses and satisfies floundering human sense as to be able to get it out of the mud in which it has mired itself,—this determines the happy outcome of many a struggle, and establishes the victim of mental vagrancy or illogic upon that firm foundation from which his feet may not again be moved. It is thus that the demonstrated truth, in the consciousness of the good and wise, may become a rock of refuge in a storm-swept land; and thus to minister to the mentally distressed is one of the very great privileges of every true Christian Scientist.

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.