Martin Broones, C.S.B., of Beverly Hills, California
Member
of the Board of Lectureship of The Mother Church,
The
First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts
The lecturer spoke substantially as follows:
It was very early in the 1930's, and we were halfway across the Atlantic Ocean en route to Europe, when the ship's newspaper announced in bold black headlines: "England Has Gone Off the Gold Standard."
My wife asked me: "What is the gold standard they have gone off of? What does it mean?"
I explained that the gold standard is a monetary standard, a standard of values for a money system, and that Great Britain had decided not to use it for the moment.
My wife replied, "Oh, so it's just like the other standards that they've decided not to use nowadays. With gold going out of fashion along with all the other standards that we used to live by, I'm glad I have the standard of Christian Science to hold onto!"
I said: "And so am I."
And today we both reiterate our thankfulness for the standard of Christian Science which is upholding all that is worth living for in this or any age.
In this lecture, I am going to discuss the standard of Christian Science, together with its application to some of the aspects of everyday life, and to a few of the questions which are currently before the public thought.
In early Bible times, the Ten Commandments presented a standard of righteousness adapted to mankind's primitive stage of spiritual development. Looking out upon the world today, we find that the need of these commandments is still with us. In fact, the need has grown in direct ratio to the development of mankind's control over material forces.
Although modern jurisprudence has been built upon the Ten Commandments and has developed legal means to enforce some of them, we see these commandments disobeyed on every side. Primitive lawlessness persists as a threat to the very structure of society.
An article in Life magazine (Volume 51, No. 21 ‒ November 24, 1961), based on Robert Ardrey's book, "African Genesis," discusses the effect of recent excavations on our knowledge of the nature of prehistoric man, from whom mankind, today, is supposed to have descended. I am going to read from the end of the article. It asks the question, "Are we committed by our heritage to self-destruction?"
"Are we committed by our heritage to self-destruction? The answer," concludes Ardrey, "is no. Because the human mind is capable of understanding instincts, it is capable of modulating them. However terrible our impulses may seem, the human mind remains free to act against them."
This is one of the most important observations that could be made about modern man, standing as he does on the threshold of outer space, with the weapons of nuclear warfare in his hands: "However terrible our impulses may seem, the human mind remains free to act against them."
For nearly a century, Christian Scientists have been proving the ability of the human mind, when imbued with the understanding of the supremacy of God, "to act against" the evil tendencies which are ascribed in the Bible by St. Paul to what he calls the carnal mind. He writes in his Epistle to the Romans (8:7): "the carnal mind is enmity against God."
Christ Jesus proved the supremacy of God over the beliefs of the carnal mind when he commanded Satan to come out of the maniac child he had been asked to cure. Here he showed that evil tendencies can be separated from the individual and rejected as having no place in God's perfect creation. When his disciples inquired why they had been unable to heal the child, Jesus said, "This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting'" (Matt. 17:21), that is, by claiming and demonstrating God's allness and the consequent unreality of evil.
The allness of God and the unreality of evil are the basis for the practice of Christian Science healing. The Discoverer and Founder of this Science, Mary Baker Eddy, has taught her followers how to pray the prayer that casts out evil as unreal, and heals the sick through the liberation of the human consciousness. This prayer is patterned after the teaching of the Master who showed that man's true heritage comes from God, whom he called "Our Father which art in heaven" (Matt. 6:9).
Christian Science teaches that there is a divine influence ever present in human consciousness which has power to counteract evil. As we respond to this divine influence through prayer we are able to maintain the standard of Christian Science, which includes a perfect creator and a perfect creation made, as we are told in the Bible, in the image and likeness of God.
Jesus set this standard in his Sermon on the Mount when he said (Matt. 5:48): "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." Mrs. Eddy tells us in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 259): "The Christlike understanding of scientific being and divine healing includes a perfect Principle and idea, — perfect God and perfect man, — as the basis of thought and demonstration."
As defined by Jesus and set forth in Christian Science, there is only one supreme and infinite cause, the good that men call God. Christian Science teaches that God is absolutely certain and infallible because He is infinite Mind.
God is absolutely pure because He is unadulterated, faultless Spirit.
God is free from imperfection, because He is spotless, immaculate Soul.
Because God is determined only by Himself and not by anything outside Himself, He is eternal Life.
God is invariable and this truth cannot be reversed because He is absolute Truth!
God is ultimate, the final and total fact of existence, because He is unchanging Love.
God is the supreme, all-embracing, absolute power and presence, because He is immortal, immutable, divine Principle.
Isn't it comforting and reassuring to realize that we are allied to this deific power, which maintains the invariable, supreme standard of absolute good?
Man has an unbreakable relationship to this power and presence, which is manifested humanly as one understands the truth of man as created by God in His own likeness. This spiritual, incorporeal man reflects all of the God-bestowed qualities of perfection, purity, intelligence, health, and harmony, by virtue of his heritage as God's offspring.
This is the basis of thinking in Christian Science; one perfect God, good, and God's perfect image and likeness, man. When adhered to and intelligently applied to human life, this standard of Christian Science will meet every human need, including the evolution of a human society freed from the destructive tendencies of the carnal mind.
The power of God was utilized in varying degrees by the patriarchs and prophets of Israel. It was utilized to its fullest extent by Jesus in his ministry as the Way-shower for mankind. In the ministry of the Master, this God-power was called the Christ, the ideal of God, which Jesus represented and presented to mankind in terms that they could understand. Jesus was fully aware of his inseparability from Christ, his true selfhood. He taught mankind that man's true selfhood is inseparable from Christ, the idea of divine son-ship.
Jesus' virgin birth brought him into human experience as the supreme example of this Christly standard. Through his selfless love, he exemplified the standard of Christ throughout his human life. In the presence of his reflection of divine Love the distortions of sin, disease, and death always disappeared.
In this age, the standard of Christ has been revealed to the world as a Science — Christian Science. It is the Science of Love expressed in Jesus' healing and teaching that Mrs. Eddy discovered and established for posterity. As the final unfoldment of the law given to Moses on the Mount and fulfilled in the life of Jesus, Mrs. Eddy established the standard of Christ on the bedrock of divine Principle, Love.
She writes in Science and Health (p. 275); "The starting-point of divine Science is that God, Spirit, is All-in-all, and that there is no other might nor Mind, — that God is Love, and therefore He is divine Principle."
The power of love to condition human life and character was taught by the Master two thousand years ago and reaffirmed in the last century by Mrs. Eddy.
An article in a leading magazine discusses love in relation to its effect upon young children (Reader's Digest for February, 1963, from the book by Ashley Montagu, entitled "The Humanization of Man"). I should like to read an excerpt from this article.
Speaking of observations made of children in foundling homes, the article states: "We now know from the independent observations of a number of physicians and investigators that love is an essential part of the nourishment of every baby and that unless he is loved he will not grow and develop, psychologically, spiritually, or physically." Farther on the article reads: "Gradually it began to be recognized that it was the lacklove experience, the emotional deprivation, the absence of mothering, that was causing the tragic ill effects in foundling institutions."
To illustrate how this "lacklove" experience can be corrected through the child's own spiritual resources, I should like to tell you an incident which shows how the teaching of Christian Science operates in the lives of the children who attend the Christian Science Sunday School. It concerns a boy who had been sent to boarding school at age ten, along with his slightly older brother. Though the boys' father was an active student of Christian Science, he let his emotions get the best of him and wrote the younger child a letter that indicated his feeling of the boy's possible — or, rather, probable — unhappiness.
The boy wrote back, "Why, Dad, how could I be homesick! Jesus said last Sunday in Sunday School, 'Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world'" (Matt. 28:20).
"Jesus said . . . in Sunday School!" Yes! That is just how close the Master's love is made to the little ones who are taught its Principle — the infinite, impersonal, divine Love which is taught in the Bible and is the Christian Scientist's concept of Deity.
This same boy at college age was permitted to enroll in his sophomore year in a course in philosophy that was open only to juniors and seniors, because his papers on the subject had shown such comprehension. The boy said it was fun to test the various philosophical theories against Mrs. Eddy's metaphysics, because you could always detect their fallacies from the comparison.
A young woman who was taking a college course in the study of the Bible wrote home that a professor who couldn't understand her interest in Christian Science assigned as a subject for a paper, "The Philosophies on Which Mrs. Eddy Based Her Religion." The young woman said that it didn't bother her a bit because she knew Christian Science was given to Mrs. Eddy by God through divine revelation!
She could write about the philosophies supposed to have contributed to Mrs. Eddy's discovery and show how they approached or differed from the concepts of Christian Science. Both of these young people had a clear comprehension of the essential difference between Christian Science and other systems of metaphysics — namely, its teaching of God's allness, and the consequent unreality of evil and matter. Aren't they wonderful — these young people who are learning to live by the standard of Christian Science right in the midst of today's atheistic materialism!
And, now, let us consider the Discoverer and Founder of Christian
Science, Mary Baker Eddy, and her revelation of this Science. In reviewing
history, it is interesting to note that in every situation where some type of
danger of approaching disaster was met without fear, the result has invariably
been increased progress for mankind and strength for the one who stood! There
were Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, the prophets, and Christ Jesus. Right down
through Biblical history, those servants of God who were severely tested
emerged as great benefactors of the human race.
This was also true of Mrs. Eddy, who, after many years of
semi-invalidism, was suddenly struck down by what seemed to be a fatal injury.
Did she give up? Did she bemoan her fate? No! She persisted, as she had done
all her life, in searching the Bible for the truth which she knew was there —
the truth which had guided, guarded, and brought fulfillment of their ministry
to all the great missionaries of history.
Because this last experience was, to mortal sense, the most severe of
any she had undergone, Mrs. Eddy must have reached higher than ever before for
the truth that would make her free. She found it when pondering the ninth
chapter of Matthew, which relates Jesus' healing of the palsied man. Right
then, she must have glimpsed that the truth applied by Jesus was the power that
could save her and the human race.
No one could have been more fully aware of the tragedies of human life than Mary Baker Eddy. From her own experience she knew what humanity has endured — its sorrows and afflictions; its limitations and its sufferings; its disappointments and its frustrated hopes. She saw all these things, and they touched the deepest chords of her nature, helping to bring forth her discovery of Christian Science.
Mrs. Eddy must have realized the world-changing effect her discovery would have, and that it could not be stated without proof. When she announced to the world that good alone is real and evil is unreal, she was fully prepared to prove this to be scientifically true. And this she did through healings that paralleled those recorded in the Bible.
She saw that since the word "God" signifies that which is without beginning of years or end of days; since it means nothing could harm or destroy; since it implies that which could never know anything that would interfere with the infinity of its own perfection; in other words, since "God" signifies good, and good only, then this truth of the all-inclusiveness of good is what was needed to regenerate and save the world. The allness of God, good, is the standard of Christian Science, from which Mrs. Eddy never deviated!
There can be no retirement from life lived according to the standard of Christian Science. This was proved by Mrs. Eddy as her capacity for work, usefulness, and effectiveness increased with each succeeding year. It was supremely manifested in her founding of The Christian Science Monitor when at the age of eighty-seven. The launching of an international daily newspaper, which was destined for distribution in many parts of the globe, showed that added years meant only a widening of her influence as she unfolded more fully her reflection of God.
We learn in Christian Science not to think of "retirement" in the usual sense of inactivity and declining powers. If we accept these terms we agree that our usefulness has been used up. But this is seen to be untrue in Christian Science, for when we have worked out our life experiences as opportunities to prove our capabilities as the reflection of omni-active Mind, we have unfolded enduring qualities of courage, strength, stability, and wisdom. This is completion, not depletion.
Completion is not a sense of finality. In its true, scientific sense it means continuing wholeness. Considered from this standpoint, life is the unfoldment of the spiritual inheritance that we possess through oneness with God as His reflection.
In the book of Luke the father in the parable of the prodigal son says (15:31); "Son, . . . all that I have is thine." God is no respecter of persons in His giving to His son. God's gift is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow! As we embrace God's gift of spiritual life, we experience replenishment and refreshment. This brings added impetus to work in new paths, new fields, and new ways. It leads us to reject the false concept of life as dependent upon time and age.
In the Bible we are told that ". . . one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" (II Pet. 3.8). With God, unlimited, immeasurable, inexhaustible good is continuous and endless. And this is equally true of God's reflection.
The Bible tells us to "put off the old man with his deeds" and to "put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him" (Col. 3:9,10). This is the method employed in Christian Science. The student of Christian Science divests himself of the false heritage of materiality supposed to have been handed down from his prehistoric ancestors, and claims the divine inheritance which has actually been his throughout eternity.
The process by which this
spiritual inheritance is achieved humanly is described by Jesus in his
instruction to Nicodemus, who asked him what he should do to enter into the
kingdom of heaven. Let us look at the account of this in the Gospel of John
(3:1-7):
"There was a man of the
Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: the same came to Jesus by
night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God:
for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus
answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be
born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can
a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's
womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a
man be born of water and of the Spirit, he can not enter into the kingdom of
God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the
Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born
again."
It was the sign of healing that brought Nicodemus to inquire of Jesus and caused him to accept Jesus' authority as a teacher come from God. It is the sign of healing that has won for Mrs. Eddy the recognition that her interpretation of the life and teaching of the Master is in accord with his spirit and intent.
Healing in Christian Science is a rebirth. Mrs. Eddy writes in "Miscellaneous Writings" (17:27-32): "With the spiritual birth, man's primitive, sinless, spiritual existence dawns on human thought, — through the travail of mortal mind, hope deferred, the perishing pleasure and accumulating pains of sense, — by which one loses himself as matter, and gains a truer sense of Spirit and spiritual man."
In Christian Science healing, "one loses himself as matter." Treatment in Christian Science is the replacing of one's false heritage as a matter man with his true inheritance as the child of God. This is a purely mental process, somewhat like the replacing of the mistaken belief that the sun moves around the earth with the astronomical fact that it is the earth that moves around the sun.
I should like to tell you the experience of a man who proved the practicality of this method of Christian Science treatment when he awoke one night with what seemed to be a critical heart condition. It caught him off guard for a moment, and he began to accept it on its own terms, a material heart that could be impaired by material conditions. And while he considered his heart to be a material organ, he was unable to get relief from the pain and fear.
Then he realized what he was doing and turned completely away from the material senses and faced the condition as only a mental suggestion. He knew that we live in a mental world, and that Christian Science teaches us that in reality we live in a divinely mental world. He now placed the physical pain where it belonged, as a materially mental belief in pain, a suggestion that there was a power opposed to God, called evil or disease.
Then he saw the impotence, the lack of substance, law, or power of that belief. He realized that God was not the creator of pain or of an organ that could feel pain. He knew that as the image and likeness of God, man can reflect only what God knows; and that God knows His own creation, His beloved son, as incorporeal, inorganic, spiritual man. He saw that man is not and never has been material. He is always the expression of God's being, reflecting the spiritual ideas which emanate from the one divine Mind.
The conforming statement which Mrs. Eddy makes in Science and Health came to his thought (p. 425): "Consciousness constructs a better body when faith in matter has been conquered. Correct material belief by spiritual understanding, and Spirit will form you anew. You will never fear again except to offend God, and you will never believe that heart or any portion of the body can destroy you."
He began to perceive with great clarity that God, and not heart, keeps one alive. The Bible says of a man (Prov. 23:7), "As he thinketh in his heart, so is he." Fear of death was being replaced by confidence in the power of ever-present Love to heal, protect, and save. He began to whisper the words of a favorite hymn in the Christian Science Hymnal (No. 93):
Happy the man whose heart can rest,
Assured God's goodness ne'er will cease;
Each day, complete, with joy is blessed,
God keepeth him in perfect peace.
As he reached the last line, he
spoke it aloud, for all pain had ceased and he was free. A false concept of man
as having an impaired heart had been replaced by the truth of man as receptive
to the inspiration of divine Spirit, which destroys evil and heals the sick.
This man had lost himself as matter and gained a truer sense of Spirit and
spiritual man.
Have you ever met people who, if they go out and walk in the rain and get their feet wet, invariably catch a cold? Or are afraid that they are going to catch one? A man I used to know told me that this was his experience when he first came into Christian Science. One day a friend asked him: "Have you ever wondered why you don't catch cold when you take a bath? Is it because you haven't got your shoes on to get them wet?" Just seeing the absurdity of this belief jogged this man out of it, and he said he hadn't had a cold since that time. And this was years ago.
According to general accepted belief, there are many demands and suggestions made by and on the human body, almost continually from infancy. First, we hear the proud parents exclaim: "Hasn't the baby a perfect little body!" Friends want to know, "How much does the baby weigh?"
Then, the baby begins to talk, and demands: "Pick me up," or "Lay me down." "I'm hungry," or, "I don't feel like eating." Then, as it grows up, it learns to yawn, and says: "I feel like sleeping this morning; I don't want to go to school."
A man may say: "My business is just great, but, of course, I know how to do it." A little later, the same man says: "If business continues like this, I'll not only be bankrupt, it will kill me!"
Someone may proudly announce, "I can still play tennis, even at my age," only to be told: "You better watch out! You can't stand too much exercise." And, finally: "This body has plagued me all my life." "I just guess this old body and I, — we have to go sooner or later."
Well! Isn't that what it's like until one learns in Christian Science to lose "himself as matter," and gain "a truer sense of Spirit, and spiritual man"?
Then one drops the beliefs that are attached to what are called the "seven ages of man," and thinks of himself and others only in terms of God's man. He claims his divine inheritance of incorruptible, unfailing spiritual life and consciousness.
Now let us look at the Christian Science standard of business. In an era of conflict and competition, the only thing that can stand against the aggressiveness of these conditions is character that is based on the allness of God, good.
University degrees, past records, accumulated money, worldly experience, or physical prowess do not necessarily indicate the character of men. All of these things are ephemeral. But the qualities or attributes of God, consciously reflected, establish character which increases in stature with spiritual unfoldment. Character is the basis of any true success in business.
Christian Science teaches how character can adjust business life and bring it into conformity with God's business. In God's sight, man has been about his Father's business ever since "the morning stars sang together" (Job 38:7). In the Father's business supply is never bankrupt, good is never lost. In the Father's business unity and love are expressed. Control is never usurped. The reins of superintendence are in the Father's hands. These truths act as a law of adjustment in the human realm, when realized by those who conform to God's standard of business. Thus the person of character can prove that when his business is governed by God, there is no interruption by financial setbacks, by competition, depletion, inflation, deflation, age, retirement, or death.
The true concept of a businessman or a businesswoman is simply man beheld as reflection. God is the doer, and man is the radiant reflection of God, of the creative, causative Mind. In fact, true business is the industry of creation, the eternal enterprise of Life, Truth, and Love.
The diversities of Spirit may appear in human experience in varied talents and occupations. But intelligent Mind is the substance of any constructive idea. If we make the reflecting of Mind our business, we shall not fear unforseen factors. Into our experience there will appear no clamp on individual initiative, no striving for personal place, position, prestige, or popularity, for we shall be proving that, in God's business there is only the one Mind. Therefore, there is no competition between minds many.
Principle has created universal laws, and these laws are the backbone of the economy, the "gold standard" of life! Under God's government there are no "bad times," and man has no liabilities, but only spiritual and eternal assets! In Christian Science we see that evil has no property, no title to anything real. It never had a monopoly, for all that is real belongs to God.
Error will never rise above its own state of total indebtedness. But the divine qualities of purity, love, and obedience, put into practice, will open the windows of heaven to every person of character. This is the business of living Life with a capital "L"! Of living in conformity to the standard of Christian Science!
[Note to reader: The experience of a businessman was apparently related at around this point of the lecture, but is missing from this transcript.]
And now let us look at the rule from the Manual of The Mother Church, which this man says he memorized, and which played such a prominent part in the solution of his business problem. I am going to read the whole of this Rule, which is contained in Section 1 of Article VIII, of the Manual:
"A Rule for Motives and Acts. Section 1. Neither animosity nor mere personal attachment should impel the motives or acts of the members of The Mother Church. In Science, divine Love alone governs man; and a Christian Scientist reflects the sweet amenities of Love, in rebuking sin, in true brotherliness, charitableness, and forgiveness. The members of this Church should daily watch and pray to be delivered from all evil, from prophesying, judging, condemning, counseling, influencing or being influenced erroneously."
We are told that the motives and acts of the members of The Mother Church are not to be governed by animosity. Not the least shred of ill-will is to be allowed to dwell in their thought. Mere personal attachment is to be ruled out of their lives.
It is probable that "mere personal attachment" has led to more sorrow and frustration than any other factor on earth. It goes hand-in-hand with animosity as one of the two great deterrents to peace of mind and success in life.
Animosity is HATE. Universal hate is counteracted by the expression of universal LOVE. Enriched affections are needed by mankind in order to neutralize the hate that is rife in the world today. We play right into the enemy's hands when we let a personal sense of love or loyalty inspire resentment or anger or even what we like to call "moral indignation."
In the Bible prophecy of the Messiah we read that although persecuted and personally vilified, "he opened not his mouth" (Isa. 53:7).
In fulfillment of this prophecy, Jesus opened not his mouth because he opened not his thought to the barbs of hate and malice which were thrust at him. Mrs. Eddy learned the secret of his power to stand under the barrage of the enemy. She has given the world the benefit of her experience in the Rules, which she formulated in the Church Manual.
As we have already quoted from these Rules, "a Christian Scientist reflects the sweet amenities of Love, in rebuking sin, in true brotherliness, charitableness, and forgiveness." Linking the sweet amenities of Love with the rebuke of sin seems like a strange combination! According to mortal sense there can be nothing "sweet" in such rebuke. But not according to the teaching of the Master and of Christian Science!
According to them, rebuke is based on the allness of God and the total unreality of evil. This removes the sting from the rebuke. Those who have experienced release from sin through the blessed ministrations of Christian Science, know that its rebuke is the touch of the most tender love!
Of course, the rebuke of sin must begin with oneself. The sinful belief in a self apart from God and governed by personal likes and dislikes is to be rebuked daily and hourly. Until we have reached the point where we have demonstrated some measure of freedom from "mere personal attachment" with its resultant states of thought, we had better not undertake to rebuke sin in others.
When we have attained the state of mind in which we can say, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34), we may, if called upon to do so, undertake to help those under the influence of personal sense to free themselves from this influence. We may try to lead them away from personal attachment to true brotherliness, which is expressed in charitableness and forgiveness, the opposites of the vengefulness of hurt personal sense.
We are further told in the Manual, not only to "pray," but to "watch and pray" daily — not a few days a week, or on Sundays only — to be delivered from "all evil." We are told to watch and pray to be delivered from "prophesying, judging, condemning, counseling, influencing or being influenced erroneously."
Isn't all "prophesying" based on sense testimony "erroneous" prophecy? The radio, television, and press are filled with false prophecy daily — prophecy of disease, of business recession, of international strains, of labor management inharmonies. Do we accept this prophecy, and pass it on to others? Or do we pray to be delivered from believing in the necessity of these conditions, and refuse to lend our thought to this erroneous prophecy?
We are told to watch and pray to be delivered not only from "prophesying" but also from "counseling, influencing or being influenced erroneously." Now, Jesus counseled his disciples, and those who came to him for help, and he has influenced mightily not only those of his own day, but of all succeeding generations. Mrs. Eddy's writings are full of wise and loving counsel, and her influence upon this age cannot be measured! Surely, this was not erroneous counsel or influence!
If we would avoid counseling or influencing erroneously, we may find guidance in the Bible and Mrs. Eddy's writings before we give counsel to those who seek it from us — and it is best to let them come for counsel before we give it out. Promiscuous, unsought counsel is always "erroneous." The loving counsel that says, in the words of the Bible, "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord" (Isa. 1:18), is blessed of the Father. It leads thought to find the way of divine Love in any given situation and is in accord with the commandments of Jesus and the "Rule for Motives and Acts."
Finally, we are instructed to watch and pray daily to be delivered from "being influenced erroneously." In Christian Science we learn that our protection from erroneous influence lies in the sensitiveness of the faculty called conscience. Our conscience is our burglar alarm, setting up a warning against the thoughts that would rob us of our true self-government. Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health (p. 106); "Man is properly self governed only when he is guided rightly and governed by his Maker, divine Truth and Love." Conscience and duty go hand-in-hand and both must be obeyed if we are to find ourselves governed by divine Principle, Truth, and Love.
One whose life and thinking are governed by the "Rule for Motives and Acts," will not be found "prophesying . . . counseling, influencing or being influenced erroneously." Instead, he will be an influence for good in the human realm, helping to bring about God's government on earth and the establishment of peace for all mankind. Christ Jesus said, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you," and he added, "Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid" (John 14:27).
This counsel immediately follows his promise of the Comforter, which Mrs. Eddy identifies, and which we accept, as Divine Science. It reads: "But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all thing to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you" (verse 26).
We have seen in this lecture a
little of what Christian Science teaches, which brings to remembrance the
teaching of the Master and is helping to bring to light the standard which is
his legacy to mankind!
[Published in The
Evening Chronicle of Marshall, Michigan, Dec. 3, 1964.]