George Nay, C.S., of Chicago, Illinois
Member of the Board of Lectureship of The
Mother Church,
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts
George Nay, C.S., Chicago, Illinois, a member of the Christian Science Board of Lectureship of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, delivered a lecture entitled, "Christian Science: Its Effect on Health, Character and Human Progress," Sunday afternoon at 3 P.M., January 31, 1954, under the auspices of First Church of Christ, Scientist, 142 S. Rexford Drive, Beverly Hills. Mrs. Katherine Paulson, the Second Reader, introduced the lecturer.
The lecturer spoke substantially as follows:
Today, nearly ninety years since the discovery of Christian Science, it is no longer startling to declare that there is a connection between our character and our health, and it is also generally agreed that these have a certain influence upon our advancement in life. The endeavor to improve human health through various material means is as old as history, and religion has been attempting to remedy human character either through a threat of evil or by promises of a future heaven. But the power actually to perfect our health and our character, simultaneously and permanently, and to do this on the logical, scientific basis of the Word, or law of God as set down in the Scriptures, has remained for Christian Science to bring to humanity.
The Bible teaches that one's true accomplishments and one's enjoyment of their rewards have always gone hand in hand with his understanding of God, with his recognition of God's law and his obedience to it. God's nature is his model and the Godlike man his highest possibility. This Scriptural teaching Christian Science completely accepts and proves to be a present-day practical fact.
We have a remarkable illustration of this power of Christian Science to beautify, enrich, and lengthen human experience and extend its range of usefulness in the life of Mary Baker Eddy. She is known throughout the world as the one who discovered this long-lost art of spiritual healing practiced and taught to others by Christ Jesus. Mrs. Eddy is the author of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," which contains the complete statement of Christian Science and its application to the healing of every form of human problem. She stands today as one of the great religious leaders of recorded history. Through her writings she continues to teach, inspire, and lead her followers, who with love, gratitude, and understanding acknowledge her as their Leader.
Up to about the halfway point of her earthly experience, to the time when most people begin to think about slowing down or retiring, this great spiritual Leader of a world-wide following had been a rather fragile person of delicate health. She was also an independent thinker, a reverent student of the Bible, and of a beautiful, affectionate character. Then in the middle point of her life, at a time of extreme physical need, came her great discovery which revealed to her the spiritual law Christ Jesus applied in his healing work: the Science of divine metaphysical healing. She had touched the hem of the garment of Christ. As the effect of this revelation, her health was restored, and during the exacting, ceaseless labors of the succeeding years her strength and endurance never failed her. Her character, refined and spiritual as it always was, took on the deeper, firmer tone of a great spiritual pioneer.
It was the understanding of God she was gaining in Christian Science and the deep spiritual conviction of the meaning of her discovery that led Mrs. Eddy in the unprecedented and unanticipated task which gradually devolved upon her of founding a religion of her own so completely true to God's nature and His law that in it there was no longer any dividing line between religion and Science, between theology and absolute truth: of organizing a church capable of world-wide expansion without dilution of spirit because without personal control. As part of her work as Founder she established The Christian Science Publishing Society with all its publications, originated the weekly Bible Lessons and the system of class teaching in Christian Science, and gave her Church its constitution and By-Laws, the Manual of The Mother Church, for its protection and for the guidance of its individual members. All this she accomplished and more, and it was her understanding of Christian Science, her own discovery, that enabled her to do it. She herself is the best example of the wonderful power Christian Science has to establish a true sense of health, enlarge and spiritualize character, and bring success to human endeavor when it is in the service of God and man.
But what about Christ Jesus? How do Christian Scientists regard him? Like other Christians, they regard him as the Master — the master Christian — and the Way-shower for all time to come. They regard him also as — to use Mrs. Eddy's words — "the most scientific man that ever trod the globe" (Science and Health, p. 313). The Christ was his character, his divine nature, his true selfhood, the sum and substance of his teachings. Jesus expressed the unebbing strength of complete goodness, the faultless wisdom and calm courage of perfect love. His is the life of the most perfect accomplishment corporeal man can ever achieve. He is the Founder of pure Christianity. We love and revere him as did our God-inspired Leader, who could become our Leader because she was his true follower. It is to her eternal credit that she was chosen of God as pure enough, spiritually capable and prepared to bring the message of the Christ, the true idea of God and man, to the human family in this age. It is to her eternal credit that once she had glimpsed the truth which she knew from her own healing could bless mankind, she persisted in her prayer and work until she had the full understanding, the complete revelation of Truth, which we today find in her principal work "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures."
Because this truth about God includes the truth about man as the reflection of God, this revelation to the student of his own true nature will both inspire him to bring out this perfect nature in his own life and supply him with the understanding with which to succeed in this endeavor. Mortal man lives and moves within the framework of his own sense of good. A limited sense of good originates in a limited sense of God, a sense which sees the unlimited as limited, the immortal as mortal, and the spiritual as material. It naturally tends to limit our sense of God's goodness, His presence and power, as well as His willingness and ability to do for us. It tries to measure the immortal with the observations of mortal existence. Mrs. Eddy writes, "This limited sense of God as good limits human thought and action in their goodness, and assigns them mortal fetters in the outset" (The People's Idea of God, p. 3). Christian Science has come to remove these fetters.
It is one's concept of God that forms his character, his beliefs in matter that give him his fears, and his fears that limit his health, his joy, his capabilities, and his progress. And fear can be dispelled only through the understanding of God. To understand God is to understand our real selfhood as God's reflection; it is to drop off the limitations of false material thinking, which includes the false concepts of our health, our character, our capabilities, and our success. Our basic need is to understand and enter upon our own full possibilities for good as God's reflection, and it is this need that inspires our search for God. In response to the human search for God's nature He reveals Himself to the searcher.
The one proof an individual has that he has found God is the effect this understanding has on him. The first of these effects may well be a sense of assurance, stability, and calm, a lessening of doubt and fear, and the dawning of an inner joy. For he begins to see that his search is ending, that he has taken hold.
God being infinite in presence and power, He cannot be corporeal; He must be Spirit. God revealing Himself as Spirit assures us of the actual existence of an infinite, ever-present spiritual Being, transcending in authority and power all the seeming threats of evil or matter — which are the source of our fears. The permanency and immutability of Spirit show Spirit to be Truth, absolutely real, unchanging, constant in its operation, which is through law, the law of good. His infinite goodness uplifts us until we naturally see Spirit as divine Love, all-knowing, never-withholding, all-bestowing intelligence in action; therefore He is Mind, the creating, directing power of the real or spiritual universe.
Since Mind is not only omnipresent but omniactive, it cannot be conceived of as a mere potentiality, that is, as capable of creating but not doing so, as capable of sustaining but not doing so. Mind is forever actively creating and upholding its creation. Because the ideas of Truth are ever present, Mind is never without its expression; it cannot be separate from them or conceived of as something apart from them. This eternal coexistence of idea and Mind, creation and creator, effect and eternal cause, points to God as the divine origin or Principle of all that really exists. God is the animating power of all things living; He is the law of all true knowledge and action; He is Life itself, the Life which is Soul, incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite. He is divine Love, embracing, governing, and maintaining His infinite spiritual universe of spiritual beings — the only real universe — with omnipotent power. And omnipotent power is that which is unresisted, instant, forever continuous, and wholly good. The power of God is wholly good because it is the self-perpetuating power of Truth, of Life, it is the power that sustains the universe and man. It is the power of divine Love holding us in His own goodness. It is the one creating power there is or can be, and what it creates is God's own absolutely good and perfect manifestation. And He loves what He has created, and preserves it as his own likeness forever.
Christian Science teaches and proves the omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience of God. Mrs. Eddy calls these "the three great verities of Spirit" (Science and Health, p. 109). These verities we must understand and keep before us in order to have full faith in God and in Christian Science.
Divine Mind includes, that is, is conscious of or knows all truth; it is therefore omniscient. To know all is to be capable of all. To do or to act with the power of omniscience is to be omnipotent. To act with the motivation which belongs to Truth and Love is constantly to maintain the manifestation of unlimited good. This is the nature of Life. The power to do all this is the power that sustains the universe. The wisdom needed to use this absolute power is in absolute knowledge of the omniscience which is divine Mind's. There is, there can be, only one purpose which is commensurate with this power, worthy of this wisdom, a purpose as universal as is the presence of that wisdom and power; it is to sustain spiritual good, to give perfect success to spiritual action, to manifest the design of divine Principle, to uphold God's own plan for man eternally. This plan is the self-perpetuation of Life, of good, and the infinite continuity of Life's reflection, man. Therefore Life and its reflection by individual man cannot be cut off or its vitality and power of action interfered with.
To express in human language the fullness of this maximum of good, we have to use the word that, according to Science and Health (p. 517), "imparts the clearest idea of Deity," and then spiritualize our concept of that word. This word is Love, and its true concept is that it is divine Principle, or the infinite source and intelligent giver of good, the Mind which is Life or Being, Truth or reality, and Soul, incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Spirit — and therefore present and active everywhere. And this is omnipresence. It is inseparable from omniaction.
Since the creation of Spirit, God, inevitably expresses the nature of its Maker, it is spiritual, completely good and faultless, therefore eternal; the man of God's creating is the reflection, spiritual image, or exact likeness of God. Therefore God is the substance or essence, the All-in-all of the real or spiritual universe, and therefore the substance or essence, the divine Principle of man. Man is as real as God is, as perfect as God, as ageless, as active, as loving, as truthful, as healthy, as successful, and as happy, because he is God's reflection. Man expresses the nature or qualities of God, and it is God who equips him with all he needs for this God-given purpose. Man's destiny is the destiny divine Mind, Love, has set for him. He lives in heaven and can never be cast out of it.
Why does the human mind seem at times slow to understand these truths? Because what we see and feel much of the time has the effect on us of a constantly repeated suggestion that life and intelligence are in and of matter, and that we are that living matter. There is comfort and assurance for us in Mrs. Eddy's words: "Christian Science, properly understood, would disabuse the human mind of material beliefs which war against spiritual facts; and these material beliefs must be denied and cast out to make place for truth" (Science and Health, p. 130).
What then are these material beliefs, and what is matter? To believe in matter is to believe in evil, for it is to believe in a perishable creation and in a creator that has no power to save.
Our Leader has given us many definitions of matter, each of which throws light on all the others. For instance, in Science and Health we find that "matter is an error of statement" (p. 277). In "Miscellaneous Writings" we read that "matter is a misstatement of Mind" — with a capital M, meaning God (p. 174); and in the Glossary of Science and Health it is explained that matter is "mind (with a small m) originating in matter" (p. 591). Now "mind originating in matter" is a misstatement or "an error of statement" concerning the nature of the only Mind there is, God. Therefore matter is simply the false claim that consciousness or intelligence, and with it of course sensation and life, exists apart from infinite God, Spirit, within the enclosure called matter. But since material things cannot possess spiritual qualities, like intelligence for instance, this human concept of matter is self-contradictory and therefore untrue; it is but the false claim of an opposite of God, the opposite of Spirit. Matter appears to possess a mind, whose every thought, however, is completely false; it is named in Christian Science mortal mind, and it is this so-called mind that presents matter — its own supposititious enclosure — to us as reality. Therefore, in the words of Science and Health, matter is but "another name for mortal mind" (p. 591).
Christian Science teaches us how to settle with the claim that matter or physical stuff is true substance. Because matter is the belief of mortal mind and because mortal mind sees what it believes, that is, it sees and feels but its own thoughts, it sees its belief of matter substance as forms or objects outside of itself. It is for this reason that Science and Health speaks of matter as "the objective state of mortal mind" (p. 374). Material things are but objectified beliefs. Mrs. Eddy Writes: "Matter and mortal mind are but different strata of human belief. The grosser substratum is named matter or body; the more ethereal is called mind" (ibid., p. 293).
Matter is therefore a mental thing, qualities rather than stuff, but not the qualities of divine or real Mind, but of its supposed opposite. And this is exactly what Mrs. Eddy writes in "Miscellaneous, Writings," where, speaking of Christ Jesus, she declares that "the power of his transcendent goodness is manifest in the control it gave him over the qualities opposed to Spirit which mortals name matter" (p. 199).
This was indeed a startling statement to make in an age when physical science was still believing in matter as stuff or physical substance possessing intrinsic qualities, laws, and power, thereby accepting material causation and material effect as basic realities. A recognized science writer of our day, Lincoln Barnett, writes as follows on this subject in his book "The Universe and Dr. Einstein" — and in listening to it let us remember the teaching of Christian Science that matter is merely a name for the qualities opposed to Spirit. Barnett writes: "Gradually philosophers and scientists arrived at the startling conclusion that since every object is simply the sum of its qualities, and since qualities exist only in the mind, the whole objective universe of matter and energy, atoms and stars, does not exist except as a construction of consciousness, an edifice of conventional symbols shaped by the senses of man." Here we have the physical science of today conforming in a measure with our Leader's revelation of generations ago regarding the nature of matter as an error of statement, as not stuff but qualities, qualities opposed to Spirit, good. Mrs. Eddy did not arrive at that definition of matter through mathematics, but through spiritual revelation. In view of these developments in the physical sciences, is it too much to say that Mrs. Eddy's revelation has affected their conclusions.
Still another example of the long-range leavening effect Christian Science has already had on human thought is the reply the English physicist Sir James Jeans gave when asked what he thought of the reality of matter. In his reply he refers to the old physical concept that matter is real because it occupies physical space, and he implies that in the light of the discovery of the electron, a tiny unit of electrical energy which with other more or less similar units are now believed to constitute matter, that old theory can no longer stand. Using a sphere as a symbol for matter he said in part: "The sphere has always a definite position in space; the electron apparently has not. A sphere takes up a very definite amount of room; an electron? — well, it is probably as meaningless to discuss how much room a fear, an anxiety, or an uncertainty takes up." What he apparently meant by that was that apart from mistaken sense testimony, matter, which according to the latest physical theory is congealed energy, does not occupy physical space at all. What is it then? Just what Christian Science revealed it to be many years ago: qualities opposed to Spirit; fear, hate, confusion, disease, human will, limitation, greed, envy, and so on, mortal mind without substance, presence, or power because without reality.
To go back once more to the statement in "Miscellaneous Writings" about the control Jesus had "over the qualities opposed to Spirit which mortals name matter," can we not say then that control over the claims of matter is control over those qualities, and that control over the qualities of mortal mind is control over every claim of matter to act as cause or to respond as effect, and that the effect of this control is the overcoming of sickness, lack, malfunctioning, weaknesses of character, evil of every sort, and the removal of the chief obstacle to our growth, the false material sense of self? It is through this control that we work out our whole salvation.
Let us always remember who or what names those qualities by that misleading term, matter. God has not named them, because He does not know them. Only mortal mind names them thus, for it conceives of its intrinsic errors as extrinsic realities, as realities outside of itself. Physicality and the carnal nature are but the dream and plaything of error or mortal mind which, Mrs. Eddy teaches, creates its own physical conditions. She makes this inspiring statement in Science and Health: "Thus matter will finally be proved nothing more than a mortal belief, wholly inadequate to affect a man through its supposed organic action or supposed existence" (pp. 125, 126).
Just how, then, are we to work out our salvation here and now, our liberation from the qualities opposed to Spirit? Through the scientific understanding of our pure, spiritual nature as children of God and through the daily demonstration of this spirituality. And it is this that Christian Science teaches us to do.
It is evident, then, that the practice of Christian Science is really the living of Christian Science, for the conviction in the power of God to heal and to redeem can come only from personal experiences with that power. The Bible urges each one of us, "O taste and see that the Lord is good," and promises, "Blessed is the man that trusteth in him." Our chief aids are the King James Version of the Bible and Science and Health. These books are side by side on the desk of every student of Christian Science. We love them and value them deeply as our textbooks from which we gain instruction, counsel, and inspiration as we study them daily and allow them to spiritualize our consciousness. We understand the relationship between these two books from the fact that the author of Science and Health had the Bible alone as her textbook. The healing, redeeming truths of the Bible which Mrs. Eddy has opened for us in Science and Health must be applied in our daily living; for it is not the teachings but the carrying out of them in our daily actions as well as in our innermost thoughts that sustains our health, beautifies our character, and opens for us and for our right activities the windows of heavenly help.
A woman I know had been in ill-health for some time. She had several operations, but felt no better and had nothing but still another trip to the hospital to look forward to. One day when she was about to enter the hospital again and seemed quite without hope, a Christian Scientist gave her a copy of Science and Health and told her that she could be healed through its study. But the woman decided to go on to the hospital and submit to the operation. After an examination, however, she was told that surgery could do no more for her. When she returned home she was in a condition of utter despair, and the thought of committing suicide came to her to keep from becoming a burden to her family. Then her eyes fell upon Science and Health, which lay on the table, and she cried out, "O God, is there really something in that book that can help me?" She opened the book, and the first words she read were: "Death is not a stepping-stone to Life, immortality, and bliss. The so-called sinner is a suicide" (p. 203).
Was ever prayer answered more quickly? She read on and on and was completely healed in a few days. She has lived a useful life these many years since and has been a devoted Christian Scientist. This was indeed practical salvation.
Let me tell you of another case which recently came under my observation. In a penitentiary where women are serving for major crimes, one girl who had become somewhat interested in Christian Science in the prison through the work of a Christian Science chaplain, was given thirty days solitary confinement for serious and repeated infraction of prison rules. Solitary confinement means no one to talk to, padded walls so no sound can penetrate, utter silence for thirty days! — and nothing to sit on but a bed. It is the one punishment every inmate really dreads. The Christian Science chaplain was allowed to put Science and Health into the girl's hands before she was confined. At the end of the thirty days the girl came out, not broken nor sullen, hating nor hateful: she had spent her entire time studying this book alone with God, and she came out a completely changed girl, inspired with the spirit of meekness and kindness. Never underestimate the power of Science and Health.
Speaking from the broadest standpoint, all healing work in Christian Science is based on the understanding of reality as the manifestation of God, therefore good, and on the recognition of the absolute unreality, the completely illusory nature of everything that the physical senses observe and call an evil reality. The scientific understanding of this fundamental truth is the basis of Christian Science healing; its spiritual affirmation is prayer, and prayer, when directed toward a specific end, is Christian Science treatment. Treatment, unless it is prayer, in spirit and motive, is not Christian Science treatment. The declaration of the sole reality of God and the absolute unreality of whatever seems in opposition to Him may be made from a merely intellectual standpoint, but to heal with it one must realize the truth of it, feel the touch of the redeeming power of the Christ; and the spiritual sense, common to us all, enables everyone to do this. Christian Science treatment is the outpouring of the spirit of the pure monotheism of Christian Science which destroys, through the holy sense of God's allness, the idolatrous beliefs of material sense.
Sickness is the externalization on the body of the erroneous belief of life in matter; it is but the dream experience of mortal mind. Sin is the acceptance of the ancient delusion of an evil mind that claims the power to bring good out of evil. If through watchfulness, we discover either of these errors tempting our thought, before, through our acceptance of it, it appears on the body or ripens into a sinful act, we can prevent sickness and forestall sin. This spiritual safeguarding of health and the maintaining of a sound character is the preventive art of Christian Science and is emphatically a part of its practice in one's own life.
But is a sound character merely one which refuses to gain advantage by doing evil? Far from it. Necessary as that is, it is not enough, for abstaining from evil is but a part and not the whole of that which constitutes the reflection of God's nature. Character must be outgoing, it must be doing for others, it must seek and find its own in another's good. It must be loving, for true love for God demands expression in love for one's fellowman. We bear witness to God's nature by making it our own in daily living. It is this true sense of our selfhood — which includes a spiritual, scientific sense of health, goodness, and capacity — that can and does result in gratifying, joyful, and ample human progress. The practice of Christian Science in daily life brings this great good within reach of everyone.
Christian Science treatment is the realization, the understanding affirmation that God is the All-in-all of man, the giver of his health, the source of his character, and the guarantee of his progress and success. Christian Science treatment demands clear, peaceful, firm, and alert thinking. It is not self-willed or humanly forceful, but divinely assured. It is not a demanding "thus say I," but the humble recognition and conviction of "thus saith the Lord." The one who gives it to another partakes of its healing himself, for only as the healer realizes the truth will he heal his patient.
It is natural, then, that Christian Science treatment does not come from a restless, confused, materialistic, or fearful thought. It cannot come from a consciousness tainted with hatred, for instance, for it is impossible to love God and hate man, or to hate one man and feel spiritual love for another, for personal hatred and spiritual love — or spiritual understanding and fear — cannot and do not dwell together. The Christ, forever speaking to the human consciousness, destroys the capacity and the inclination to hate, and lifts the cloud and depression of fear. The spiritual understanding of the Christ brings to view the perfection, goodness, loveableness and infinite continuity of God's idea and gives us the capacity to demonstrate it. "Christ presents the indestructible man, whom Spirit creates, constitutes, and governs. Christ illustrates that blending with God, his divine Principle, which gives man dominion over all the earth" (Science and Health, p. 316). It is this blending of one's thoughts of existence with the spiritual that makes a truly effective Christian Science treatment.
A woman of my acquaintance suffered what appeared to be a complete physical breakdown accompanied by violent hemorrhages. She was not a Christian Scientist. Her physician stated that the end was near and that because of her advanced age — he thought her to be past eighty — all that could be done for her was to keep her comfortable through the use of opiates. As soon as the doctor left, the daughter, a Christian Scientist, called a Christian Science practitioner for help. The practitioner began to work, but in a little while he sat bolt upright and said to himself, "It is making a difference to me that the patient is past eighty and that the doctor said that nothing could be done for her."
With this uncovering to awaken him, he asked himself a series of searching questions: "Do I really believe that God is infinite good? That He is the Father-Mother of man? That man is His expression, ageless, harmonious, unchanging in strength, vitality, and in resistance to the suggestions of evil, disease, debility?" He realized that Christian Science does not accept any law of incurability, and that the human sense of age cannot place an individual beyond the reach of omnipresent Principle, divine Love, for God does not recognize age — old age or young age — because He does not know time. He realized that no claim of deterioration or decay can affect the reflection, the eternal manifestation of
Mind; that friction, wear and tear are but beliefs of mortal mind and not the truth of man's being. He then felt entirely free of the depressing, heavy, hopeless sense and worked with assurance, joy, and a sense of victory. There was a sudden change in the condition of the patient. The hemorrhages ceased, and she fell into a peaceful sleep from which she awakened much refreshed. She was completely healed in a few weeks, and continued to take an active part in the life of the family. It was not until then that the practitioner learned that she was not eighty-odd but ninety-odd years of age. His first thought was, "It makes no difference to God."
The healing took place when the practitioner purified his thought of the suggestion of age, debility, and hopelessness; when he was able to see nothing but the perfect, immortal man as God's reflection.
Christian Science heals sin as well as sickness, but the modus operandi is somewhat different. Mrs. Eddy writes: "To prove scientifically the error or unreality of sin, you must first see the claim of sin, and then destroy it. Whereas, to prove scientifically, the error or unreality of disease, you must mentally unsee the disease; then you will not feel it, and it is destroyed" (Science and Health, p. 461).
A good many years ago a stranger came to see a Christian Science practitioner. The caller seemed in a highly nervous condition and said that because of this he was unable to work. He asked for Christian Science treatment. When he came next day he said he was no better. Obviously disturbed, he suddenly blurted out that the name he had given the day before was not his real name, that he had taken a large sum of money while occupying a position of trust, and was now in hiding.
The practitioner realized that he must pray for guidance. It would have been easy to tell the man that he was dishonest and must return the money, but he knew that Christian Science must do more than that: it must heal and regenerate the man through spiritual purification. And so he prayed that God would open the man's eyes that he might see not only the error in his character that should be destroyed but the right way out of the situation, and that honor, moral courage, and love of good were in reality his as God's image and likeness. The next time the man came he reported that he had been healed of wearing glasses. The practitioner did not know that he had used glasses, but by that he knew that the healing was on its way. Then the man said that his great fear was that if he confessed, it would bring disaster upon him. The practitioner realized that when a man acts under God's law, he does it with full protection.
A few days later the man came again, his manner calm and at ease, his face shining with spiritual light. He told the practitioner that the night before, while reading Science and Health, it suddenly came to him with great clarity that he was the child of God and so he had the power directly from God to solve the whole situation by honorable, straightforward means, and that God would help him in this. He had lost all fear of talking with his employers. He went to see them, told them the facts, and promised to make full restitution. It was met with understanding and Christian love on their part, and the matter never became public. The healing of nervous prostration took place at the same time. He became a happy, prosperous man, respected by all who knew him. Thus does Christian Science awaken mortals to their spiritual capacities, restore their health and spiritualize and purify their character with the same divine Principle and with the same treatment.
Mrs. Eddy writes, "Both sin and sickness are error, and Truth is their remedy" (Science and Health, p. 461), and she also counsels, "We should strive to reach the Horeb height where God is revealed; and the corner-stone of all spiritual building is purity" (Science and Health, p. 241).
"Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God." We know why the pure in heart sees God. Because his face is turned toward Him. That is what makes him pure, that is what makes his face shine, that is what causes the shadows to fall behind him. Christ Jesus saw God; he saw the glory, the light of Life, which enabled him to unsee the shadows called disease, immorality, poverty, unhappiness, and wherever he turned, these shadows disappeared in the light he reflected. The debased, the greedy, the self-willed, cannot see God, for their faces are turned away from Him; but when they turn toward God they begin to love the light and lose interest in the shadows. The sick, the hopeless, the struggling, the confused, begin to lose their fears when they turn toward the light of Truth with their whole heart. The purification of sense and self begins at that moment. And everyone can turn, the sick and the sinner; the light is all around them. The mist of false sense is no part of anyone. "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God." In the pure light of divine Love the waking dream-shadows of sickness, sin, and unhappiness are replaced by the natural manifestations of God's presence understood: pure character, fine health, and true success. "These are the effects of one universal God, the invisible good dwelling in eternal Science" (Science and Health, p. 78).
[Delivered Jan. 31, 1954, under the auspices of First Church of Christ, Scientist, 142 S. Rexford Drive, Beverly Hills, California, and published in The Beverly Hills Press of Beverly Hills, June 3, 1954.]