Anna E. Herzog, C.S.B., of Columbus, Ohio
Member of the Board of Lectureship of The
Mother Church,
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts
Anna E. Herzog of Columbus, Ohio, lectured on "Christian Science: The Teaching of True Realism," Monday evening in the Murat Theatre. The speaker was introduced by Wilbur A. Zobbe.
The lecturer spoke substantially
as follows:
Of late we have heard much about realism and idealism. In their common use and application these words are contrasted — are thought of as opposites. In art and literature their exponents produce greatly differing results. Part of Webster's definition of "idealism" is, "the practice of forming ideals and living under their influence." Thus idealism is the practice of living under the influence of a perfect example or pattern. Two of Webster's definitions of "realism" are, "fidelity to real life" and "adherence to actual fact." Realism, then, is fidelity to that which is a fact, to that which has actuality.
Thus you see that the whole question of whether idealism and realism are opposed beliefs, lies in our understanding of what reality is, of what constitutes actual fact. Recently I said to a woman with whom I was engaged in casual conversation, "You are a pessimist, aren't you?" "Oh, no," she said, "not a pessimist, a realist." I wished that I might quote to her a statement from "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" in which its author, Mary Baker Eddy, says: "Perfection underlies reality. Without perfection, nothing is wholly real" (p. 353). True realism, then, is basing one's thinking and acting on the spiritual fact that "perfection underlies reality."
On page 115 of Science and Health, God is defined as "Divine Principle, Life, Truth, Love, Soul, Spirit, Mind." The teaching of Christian Science is that reality is that which God knows, that which Mind cognizes, that which Principle manifests. Obviously God could know nothing but reality, thus perfection underlies all that God knows. God is Life — the only Life — and thus to Him corporeal, human birth and death are forever nonexistent. God is Love itself and thus utterly impartial. To Him, therefore, one expression, one idea, one child, is as perfect, as eternal, as spiritual, as any other. Differences in spirituality and deficiencies in goodness are parts of the dream of corporeality; they are nonexistent in the truth of spiritual reality.
The Scriptures teach us of man made in God's image. This perfect, real man does not need a savior. Mrs. Eddy made that clear for eternity when she said, "Soul never saw the Saviour come and go, because the divine idea is always present" (Unity of Good, p. 59). In another place she says: "Coming and going belong to mortal consciousness. God is 'the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever'" (ibid.. p. 61). What is temporary has no place in that which is eternal. Soul knows reality, not unreality. Soul knows nothing of the dream that man lacks spiritual understanding. If God knew limitation, knew of a man who believed he lacked any good, He would know evil; and that God is perfection only, constitutes a great part of Mrs. Eddy's discovery and revelation of Truth.
The practicality of that concept of God is clearly brought out in a statement from Science and Health: "The heavens and earth to one human consciousness, that consciousness which God bestows, are spiritual, while to another, the unillumined human mind, the vision is material. This shows unmistakably that what the human mind terms matter and spirit indicates states and stages of consciousness" (p. 573). Because of the truth just discussed, namely, God's utter perfection, the consciousness which Mind bestows is necessarily absolutely spiritual and complete and perfect. Thus to accept that divine consciousness as our consciousness is our only need. In that divine consciousness there is no fear, sin, loss, lack, limitation, or disease — no corporeality, separation, or death. It seems a far cry to that clear understanding, but at least we can begin today to claim as ours that holy consciousness. And we can go on through the years progressively attaining it.
That was what Jesus did. He accepted that which is of God and nothing else. He said, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing" (John 6:63). The unillumined human consciousness is rejected. He claimed and held to this ideal — true God-bestowed consciousness. Mrs. Eddy says of him, "He established the only true idealism on the basis that God is All, and He is good, and good is Spirit; hence there is no intelligent sin, evil mind or matter: and this is the only true philosophy and realism" (No and Yes, p. 38).
The life of Jesus becomes a marvelous thing to one who realizes that the idealism which he taught is the savior of the race, which all can share. Because he loved God and man absorbingly, he refused to express evil, and manifested the saving Christ immeasurably. When this realization came to me, I saw Jesus' life no longer as a lovely, impractical story, but as a grand, holy, and practical example. His life became an illustration of the way to apply the Christ, Truth, in human experience. This revealed to me the fact that the Christ was my only savior from sin, corporeality, and death. Jesus refused material beliefs and held to true idealism. He realized the spirituality and dominion of true manhood. The same Christ which Jesus demonstrated, that is to say, proved, must be known and demonstrated by us all.
On page 7 of her Message to The Mother Church for 1900, Mrs. Eddy writes: "There is but one Christ. And from everlasting to everlasting this Christ is never absent." We need to know this Christ clearly and definitely as the ever-present idea, influence, and activity of good. That joyous activity, admitted to consciousness, leads us, influences us, and guides us to the right. In proportion as the Christ is understood and exemplified, it will take away all beliefs of sin, sickness, and materiality. This activity of Truth in human thinking is its savior from all error.
Sometimes, even yet, uninformed persons accuse Christian Scientists of "worshiping Mrs. Eddy." No Christian Scientist could dream of such a thing and be loyal to the great Leader of the Christian Science movement. He is cognizant of her statement that "there was never a religion or philosophy lost to the centuries except by sinking its divine Principle in personality. May all Christian Scientists ponder this fact, and give their talents and loving hearts free scope only in the right direction!" (The First Church of Christ, Scientist and Miscellany, p. 117.) And she says: "What I am is for God to declare in His infinite mercy. As it is, I claim nothing more than what I am, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, and the blessing it has been to mankind which eternity enfolds" (Pulpit and Press, p. 74).
The Christian Scientist finds in the life of his Leader the same utter selflessness, the same absorbed search for God, the same love of humanity which Jesus so transcendently expressed. She too proved her way out of the bondage and limitation of materiality into the freedom of God-bestowed consciousness. She recognized that this idealism is indeed reality. Her discovery of the Science of Christianity has brought to her followers such a revelation of Truth, such a revolution of thought, that it would be strange indeed if they did not feel for their divinely inspired Leader gratitude, reverence, and love. All loyal Christian Scientists know that the best way to express the love and thankfulness which they feel for their incomparable Leader is to practice the truths revealed to her and taught in her published works. She preached and demonstrated the same true idealism, the same Saviour which our Master, Christ Jesus, knew and proved when he dwelt here among men.
Mrs. Eddy was born in that part of the United States where the Pilgrim Fathers landed in their search for freedom to worship God. She was reared in an atmosphere of religion, in which from her earliest years she was deeply interested. Through study of the Gospel records of Jesus' work she herself was healed. Later she wrote the textbook, Science and Health, and founded The Mother Church, its branches, and its many activities.
Just as our gratitude for the Way-shower, Christ Jesus, grows in magnitude as we realize that he "was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin" (Heb. 4:15), so does the gratitude, love, and appreciation of the Christian Scientist for his Leader grow with his own efforts to overcome the claims of materiality. His realization of her great achievements, his appreciation of her proved dominion and spirituality increase with his own growth.
Much of the practice of Christian Science is clearly indicated by this simple statement in the textbook: "Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts" (p. 261). First, however, one must learn what "the enduring, the good, and the true" are. Nothing is enduring, good, or true except that which is of God. The Christian Science textbook, Science and Health, was written to make that clear. The Church of Christ, Scientist, in its activity of circulating and supporting that textbook, based as it is upon a spiritual interpretation of the Scriptures, is pointing out the way of salvation for the world.
True Church is an ideal in consciousness, but if not brought into human living as a practical, loving healing activity it is of little value to the race. The Christian Science organization was established by its Founder to lead the world to a true concept of God, to heal the sick, the sinner, the sorrowing, and to demonstrate warm and friendly love to its own members and to the world. This church accepts the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount, and insists that the spiritually ideal is the only real.
What is the relation of man to God? John spoke of man as the son of God. Jesus also implied man's sonship with God when he said "Our Father." Mrs. Eddy used many different terms to convey the true sense of man. She called him Mind's idea, representative, reflection. She also says, "Man is not equal with his Maker; that which is formed is not cause, but effect, and has no power underived from its creator." (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 46). This she has reiterated in different words in many different places. God is Life, Love, Spirit: the real man, reflecting God, is living, loving, and spiritual individuality does not imply the existence of many minds — rather does it imply many expressions of the one Mind. Your individuality is your expression of God's qualities. That is your true being. The full realization that Spirit is the only substance and that there is, in reality, no matter, will not destroy the identity which is you, but it will destroy all that claims to obscure that identity.
The first chapter of Genesis portrays a beautiful, spiritual concept of real man made in God's, Mind's, likeness. The allegory in the second chapter is an attempt to account for the apparent existence of mortals. It is interesting to note that, in this allegory, mist and dream are given as the origins of sin and materiality. There is but one kind of man, eternal and perfect today and forever, but to mortal sense, immersed in its own material dream of all things, man seems to be temporal, sinning, and dying. Christian Science does not claim this mortal concept of man to be perfect or to be God's idea. It teaches that the mortal is the lie about the immortal. To reject and disprove that lie through daily correction of false belief is the work we all have to do.
Science and Health states on page 470, "Man is the expression of God's being." Then God, in His infinity, needs every identity to express His fullness. God's creation of a perfect universe including man assures the eternal identity of each one of us here today. It is equally true that eternal reality includes the true identity of those who have passed beyond our human sense of sight. In God's limitless, spiritual creation, man is necessarily actively expressing his true individuality. There is no greater comfort for the human sense of loss and regret. Infinity cannot cease to be infinite, and there could not be infinity if one individual idea were lacking. Spiritual individuality must be as everlasting as the God it expresses. Real good is eternal and not interrupted. Only the mortal sense of good and beauty disappears. The reality is permanent. Man is himself forever.
Always, whatever aspect of Christian Science we are discussing, we come back to God as the basis for correct thought and action. Whatever we are to work out, whatever problem we have to solve, it is to God we must look for wisdom and guidance. The only way to know more about the real man is to know more about the infinite Mind of which he is the expression. It is not always the simplest and easiest matter to see oneself or another, as in reality, God's child. The child of God, knowing only what Truth knows, manifesting only Truth, cannot express evil of any sort, such as sin, sickness, stupidity, resentment, confusion, or fear. This is what we need to understand more and more clearly. This constitutes a basis for Christian Science practice for oneself or another. Humanly, we need constantly to claim our right to dominion over error, but the real, ideal man knows no error over which to have dominion. No more than the God he reflects does the real, spiritual man know anything of darkness or evil. Thus he is conscious of what the divine Mind cognizes, which is perfection.
Unless religion is a practical method of salvation from suffering and sin it is of no value to the troubled mortal. Christian Science shows true religion, the actual truth about God and man, to be practical and provable in everyday experience. Thus it is true realism, or applied idealism. Sometimes I have been told that Christian Scientists are not broad-minded because of their stanch adherence to the Bible and Mrs. Eddy's writings as their only guides to spiritual understanding and demonstration. The same person, however, does not call the engineer narrow-minded who, when building a bridge, refuses to follow the suggestions of untrained friends and adheres strictly to the rules of engineering. What would be thought of the mathematician who, for fear of being considered narrow-minded, occasionally added ten and ten as twenty-one? That would be considered ignorance and stupidity — not broad-mindedness. Far more does the Christian Scientist realize the need of exclusive obedience to the laws of God in working out his salvation.
That which constitutes everything for you is your concept of everything. That concept, if not ideal, can be changed. Every right-thinking person wants to bring good and happiness, usefulness and peace into his experience. How can you go about doing that when apparently faced with some failure of business or happiness or health? How can you help yourself, scientifically? First, probably, you would think over the things we have said about God and man. God being perfect, man need not be — in fact, the real man cannot be — conscious of anything less than perfection. As you really are, in your true being, the man God made, you should know that you cannot see failure, frustration, confusion, or indecision. You can, however, and you must, claim for yourself the opposite and true qualities, such as wisdom, right guidance, abundance, courage, and strength.
You can know for yourself, hourly, that the real, ideal man dwells in harmony now, expresses only Love and Life today, and knows no discouragement or apprehension. You can know that he is surrounded by consideration, right companionship, true success, unfolding opportunity, honesty, and adequate provision. Failure and unhappiness cannot remain in such a consciousness. There is no lack of good. Any apparent lack is in our limited ability to receive. Increase your demands and expectations of spiritual good. God could not give more. Pray for ability to accept more. You can receive only what you have demonstrated capacity to accept.
Over and over I hear students of Christian Science and those who are not yet students, express gratitude for any inspiration which helps them to drop a burdened, false sense of responsibility. The only way that can be done is by getting a true sense of God and of man's relationship to Him. God is the creator, possessor, owner. Mind is the governor, decider, rewarder. Truth is the strength, the power, the victor. Whatever your business is, that is your place in which to express God, your avenue through which to manifest man's true qualities. Thus it is of utmost importance to you and to the world. Even so, your only responsibility is clearly to reflect God's qualities through that business.
Long ago I knew a fine Christian Scientist, a woman who had never had the slightest business experience. She was left with a big newly purchased and not yet paid for manufacturing plant, and with two small children to rear. Years later, with the business a great success, I asked her how she had made it so. Her reply was, "Why, all I ever did was just to study my daily Lesson from the Bible and Science and Health every morning, go down to my desk at the plant and attend to whatever had to be done, and then go home and study some more." That was simple, was it not? But because she knew that "what had to be done" was intelligently to express integrity, industry, justice, helpfulness, confidence, and obedience to divine Principle, persistently, she and the business and all concerned prospered uninterruptedly. That woman refused to accept a burdened sense of responsibility. Instead, she claimed possession of joyous ability to reflect Principle. She had confidence that divine Mind would sustain her in anything which Mind required of her. She knew that "Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all" (I Chron. 29:11).
Expressing God’s qualities and leaving the results with Him eliminates struggle, anxiety, and apprehension. Man's sole responsibility is to recognize his true being as a child of God. He is under the protection of the Almighty, not under burdened responsibility and pressure. Man's real capital is his supply of spiritual ideas. The source of his supply is inexhaustible and unvarying. Let us see to it that we do not accept the suggestions of material sense which would limit the measure of our receptivity. In the truth of being there are no cycles of soaring prosperity followed by depressing reaction. Rising and falling prices, rising and falling prosperity, express the individual and collective thoughts of mortals. They do not find place in that consciousness bestowed by Principle. Financial security is a myth — as much so as the mortal who believes in it. Eternal security is the real man's possession; it is his inalienable, impregnable unity with God. Let us grow to trust in that unfailing security.
Although we have been discussing the fact that there is but one real Mind, the divine, still we seem to see evidences all about us of a far different mind. Mrs. Eddy has used, purposely, an incongruous term, "mortal mind," to emphasize the unreality of this dream consciousness. Paul used the words "carnal mind" for the same purpose. One great aid in avoiding the heaviness which this mortal mind, so called, claims must come with years, is right expectancy. We all need to turn from the yesterdays, however beautiful or sad, and live in today. Expectancy is a characteristic of what we call youth. Fear, monotony, self-pity, and resignation to evil often seem to be characteristics of what we call age. These errors find no place in a consciousness filled with gratitude and expectancy. Such expectancy is an inherent quality of man as the reflection of divine Mind.
To keep thought lifted above the tragedy of the world's last few years requires very earnest mental effort on the part of us all. The mist, the heavy mental fog which so often engulfs us, results from the mortal dream that man is corporeal and temporary and that evil is real. We must deny these beliefs, refuse to accede to them and lift our thought above this mist of apparent evil.
Years ago I had a little experience which has always stayed with me as a helpful illustration of how to do that. While motoring in a country of high hills and deep valleys, we stayed one night in a hotel in one of these valleys. The next morning, when we were obliged to start early, the whole scene was blotted out by a dense fog. We climbed cautiously up the hill which led out of town, singing, as we so often did on such occasions, the hymn from the Christian Science Hymnal, "Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah" (No. 90). At a certain altitude the fog suddenly and completely disappeared and we were in brilliant sunshine. As long as we stayed up in that altitude all was light and the way ahead clear. As soon as we dropped down toward the valleys all was dark and uncertain. That experience seemed a clear illustration of our mental progress. As long as our lifted thought remains in the light of spiritual understanding, our way is clear before us. Whenever we sink our thinking into materiality, error, fear, and doubt, the mists of mental darkness close in about us. The lesson is plain. Hold thinking up in God's light. Keep the real, the ideal, in consciousness, and that light of Truth itself will exclude mortal mind and its darkness from our thought, and its results from our experience.
Sometimes we hear it said by those turning to Christian Science from the theology in which most of us were reared and by which we may have been helped, "You tell me that God knows no evil or problems, but surely God knows all there is!" The Christian Scientist agrees with that. God does know all that is. But the Christian Scientist refuses to accept sin, sickness, and evil as part of that which is. All evil is concerned with matter, with materiality, corporeality, mortality. And yet human thinking itself, as expressed through some of its most distinguished protagonists, insists that matter is not what mortals think it is at all. Thus Sir James Jeans, the eminent English physicist, says on page 296 of "The New Background of Science:" "Our last impression of nature, before we began to take our human spectacles off, was of an ocean of mechanism surrounding us on all sides. As we gradually discard our spectacles, we see mechanical concepts continuously giving place to mental. . . . Thus, subject to the reservations already mentioned, we may say that present-day science is favourable to idealism. In brief, idealism has always maintained that, as the beginning of the road by which we explore nature is mental, the chances are that the end will also be mental. To this, present-day science adds that, at the farthest point she has so far reached, much, and possibly all, that was not mental has disappeared, and nothing new has come in that is not mental." That statement is paralleled by many that other prominent physicists of today have made. Thus even to the physical scientist the material is not the ultimate reality.
Paul counseled us to "Pray without ceasing" (I Thess. 5:17). If prayer always necessitates time spent in quiet meditation, that admonition of Paul's seems difficult of accomplishment. But Science and Health says, "Consistent prayer is the desire to do right" (p. 9). It says, "Self-forgetfulness, purity, and affection are constant prayers" (p. 15). That kind of prayer can be unceasing. Whatever duty requires of us, if it is done with earnest desire to do it rightly, if it is done with loving self-forgetfulness and intelligence, then it is done in close conformity to Principle, and this is consistent prayer. Such prayer brings wonderful results.
But it is necessary also to spend periods of time in quiet meditation upon spiritual things, in the earnest effort to know God better, to feel Him closer, and to gain understanding of His law. We all need times of such prayer when the clamor of the physical senses is shut out. Jesus said, "But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly" (Matt. 6:6). Surely as never before the world needs assurance that such prayer protects, heals, and saves. And never before was there such a volume of testimony, from people of all faiths and none at all, as to the efficacy of prayer that turns to God in earnest seeking.
Christian Science practice is the constant prayer of enlightened faith. Christian Science treatment is prayer only, prayer based on the realization that God and His creations are the only facts of the universe. Mrs. Eddy says: "The First Commandment of the Hebrew Decalogue, 'Thou shalt have no other gods before me,' and the Golden Rule are the all-in-all of Christian Science. They are the spiritual idealism and realism which, when realized, constitute a Christian Scientist, heal the sick, reform the sinner, and rob the grave of its victory" (Miscellany, p. 5).
The work of the practitioner is to see the ideal, real man, in place of the sinner or the sick man who is presented by mortal belief for his recognition and acceptance. Christian Science practice is scientific, workable idealism with nothing vague or visionary about it. When dispelling the dream of disease or sin, or working for protection, we must turn to the truth about man. The Christian Science practitioner sees clearly that mortality will never change to immortality, that the material will never become the spiritual. But as the false sense of mortality and materiality is displaced by spiritual understanding, the ideally real will become more and more apparent. Eternal being is now. True man is now. Nothing real has to be destroyed to make that so.
Christian Science practice requires ability to reason scientifically. As we learn to base our thought on the spiritual and infinite facts of reality, our reasoning will become clear, logical, and correct. Christian Science has come to free men from that which seems true but is in reality false. Disease is one of the beliefs accompanying the dream that man is corporeal. It is one of the beliefs from which the teaching of Christian Science will eventually free humanity. Innumerable instances could be cited to prove that this healing work is going on today. A great volume of testimony to such healing has been poured out by grateful hearts through many years in the testimonials published in The Christian Science Journal and the Christian Science Sentinel, and in those given in the Wednesday evening testimony meetings held in all Churches of Christ, Scientist.
A Christian Science treatment is recognition of the ideal, or real, creation, the phenomena of which express their noumenon, God. This clearer mental vision of reality results frequently in healing the human belief of defective sight. An instance of that is the following experience of a friend of mine. Fifteen years ago this young woman was entirely dependent upon glasses for reading. She had worn them for that purpose for twelve years. One morning she was awakened by extreme pain in her eyes and a condition of great irritation and inflammation. She called her landlady, who, although she was not a Christian Scientist and felt greatly alarmed, looked up a practitioner's telephone number for her.
My friend was led to the telephone and asked a practitioner for help. She was told to think about the definition of "eyes" on page 586 of the Glossary in Science and Health. This reads, in part: "Eyes. Spiritual discernment, — not material but mental." It came clearly to this young student's thought that, as sight is an attribute of Spirit God, the image and likeness of God could reflect only light, clearness of vision, and peace, for John tells us, "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all" (I John 1:5) At the request of the practitioner she called again in half an hour and was able to state that complete freedom had been demonstrated in that short time. Not only was the acute condition fully corrected, but from that day to this my friend has never worn glasses. That which appeared to be a material condition of inflammation and disease had been dispelled by a clear understanding of the reality of the ideal.
Many of the boys in the service who have been reared in Christian Science Sunday Schools are utilizing what they know most successfully in working out protection and healing. A friend told of a boy who, on one of the islands of the Pacific, was taken with typhoid fever. He was put in the hospital, but was walking around in two days. The doctor was so troubled that he sent their psychiatrist to talk to him. The boy, a Christian Scientist, told this doctor what had healed him, the process of his mental work and just how he had thought about God and man. He was kept in the hospital for observation for the full three weeks that he should have been ill, according to medical belief. Then this psychiatrist said to him, "Never let anyone talk you out of your belief in Christian Science." The boy probably did not try to explain to this kindly man that his was an understanding of Christian Science and by no means a belief.
From frequently published statements it appears that medical men are seeing that wrong thinking often causes disease, and that correction of the thought can be the cure of the disease. One eminent surgeon was quoted in many newspapers as saying: "Man cannot fear, he cannot hate, he cannot worry intellectually — he fears with all his organs. I feel justified in the prophecy that before many decades the role of the physician will have changed so much that his profession will seem an entirely new one." Christian Scientists agree that that prophecy is very likely to be fulfilled!
Let any suggestion of belief in evil as power, be it fear of war, pestilence, of sin or death, be met with instant rejection on the grounds of God's allness. Whatever evil calls itself, it is a dream. You do not fear or talk about dreams. You wake up from them. You turn from them and accept reality. The Christian Scientist never ignores evil. He definitely denies it, unsees it, and replaces it with the specific truth required. The only way he knows to prove the nothingness of sin or sickness is by refusing to manifest them. Think rightly about your fellow men. Realize fully and firmly that the only man is the one of God's creating, not capable of thinking evil of you, not interested in directing evil toward you. If your neighbor seems manifesting stubborn hate or smallpox, you may be obliged to leave him alone, but in your thinking you cannot leave him alone with the error.
Pray earnestly; see man's ideal being so truly that, in your thought, you can dissociate him from evil and leave him alone with God. Your business is to know the radiant, joyous reality of the real man, in whom sin and disease have no part. There is no emotionalism in Truth, no sentimentality in Love, no mysticism in divine Mind.
In the face of war, loss, death, and destruction there is no refuge but in God and His reality. The Psalmist sang: "The Lord also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble. And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee: for thou, Lord, hast not forsaken them that seek thee" (Ps. 9:9,10). We must know that the world of God's creating — the only world there is — is the expression of the one infinite good and cannot be destroyed. We must know that the spiritual supervision of the world is in Mind, that the only government that eternally is, is Mind's government, Spirit's government. The only administration is God's administration of the wise and eternal laws of Love. Man is not bewildered, fooled by mortal personality, led by subversive influences, or confused by ignorance and propaganda. The real man, as the expression of divine Mind, manifests intelligence, right judgment, genuine acumen, and the recognition of this truth will help to bring an approximation of such qualities into human activities. Real impartial love, instead of worship of personality; true universal brotherhood, instead of mortal mind's politics — these are some of the world's needs.
Peace for the whole war-torn world will come permanently only as it comes permanently in the thinking of the individuals who comprise the world. As tolerance, unselfishness, spiritual understanding, and intelligent love fill individual consciousness, so these qualities will eventually fill the consciousness of the nations. Then, truly, will come world peace.
Surely the hope of all men must be that the ideal is the real! Christian Science brings this glorious assurance. Its Discoverer and Founder tells us that "The real man was, is, and ever shall be the divine ideal, that is, God's image and likeness; and Christian Science reveals the divine Principle, the example, the rule, and the demonstration of this idealism" (Miscellany, p. 272). When we know that perfection alone is real there is nothing left to fear. When we realize that spiritual man only is true there remains nothing to be sinful or sick. When we grasp the eternal fact that life is ageless, deathless, indestructible, unfolding expectancy and joyous confidence come into consciousness. In that glad day only the understanding of divine realism and idealism shall remain. Life — full, eternal, joy-filled, and timeless — shall fill all consciousness.
[Delivered Nov. 26, 1945, at the Murat Theatre in Indianapolis, Indiana, and published in The Marion County Mail of Indianapolis, Nov. 30, 1945.]