Herschel P. Nunn, C.S.B. of Portland, Oregon
Member of the Board of Lectureship of The
Mother Church,
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts
Herschel P. Nunn, C.S.B. of Portland, Oregon, lectured on Christian Science; "The Science of Unfolding Being," Tuesday evening in the Murat Theatre, under the auspices of the Second Church Christ, Scientist.
The lecturer spoke substantially
as follows:
A Christian Science practitioner in one of our large cities found a man waiting for him in his reception room. He at once recognized his visitor as a prominent and unusually well-informed citizen. The man said, "I don't know why I am here, but I have been driven to desperation. The doctors can't do anything for me, so here I am. But I want you to understand that I don't believe in God, and I don't believe in miracles."
"All right," said the practitioner, "I don't believe in miracles as miraculous events either. Come into my office and let's talk it over. Tell me how you would define a miracle."
Without hesitation the man replied, "Why, a miracle is a setting aside of law, and I don't believe that law can be set aside."
"Fine," said the practitioner. "That's my definition of a miracle, too. Now will you answer another question for me? Do you think this universe is governed by a basic, fundamental law of harmony, or by one of inharmony and discord?"
After some thought, in which his knowledge of astronomy played an important part, the man replied, "Why, it must be fundamentally a law of harmony or else our universe would be in chaos."
"That is just what I expected you to say," said the practitioner, "and you have healed yourself. You can see that if the law of the universe is a law of harmony you set aside this law when you believe you are expressing anything except harmony. According to your definition of a miracle it would be miraculous for you to be sick, and natural for you to be well."
Gradually a smile broke over the man's face, and he walked out of the office a well man.
Healing in Christian Science is based upon the realization that the universe is fundamentally a good universe because it is the creation or expression of a good God, of the one infinite, divine Mind, of the one spiritual, perfect Principle.
In her work, "Rudimental Divine Science," Mary Baker Eddy, the revered Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, asks the question (p. 1), "What is the Principle of Christian Science?" She answers, "It is God, the Supreme Being, infinite and immortal Mind, the Soul of man and the universe. It is our Father which is in heaven. It is substance, Spirit, Life, Truth, and Love, — these are the deific Principle."
The deific Principle, God, is the basis of all being. Since this Principle is substance, its creation must be an expression of eternal, divine, unvarying, undecaying substance, which Christian Science declares is the only reality of being. Since this Principle is Spirit, its creation must be, and is, spiritual, perfect, harmonious. Since this Principle is Life, its creation must be ever-living, ever-active, forever expressive of infinite being, infinite good. Since this Principle is Truth, its creation must be and is devoid of evil, of falsehood, of error's every claim to pleasure or pain in matter. Since this Principle is divine Love, its creation is the evidence or expression of abundance, of that which blesses, inspires, establishes as permanent good.
In John's account of the true or real creation as given in the first chapter of his Gospel, he says, "All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made." When sin and disease are seen as having no basis in the deific Principle, Life, Truth, Love, they are seen as wholly devoid of reality. Thus they begin to fade from human consciousness and we experience healing.
Our friend in the practitioner's office glimpsed this fundamental fact when he saw he had been defining miracle from the wrong premise. Now he saw something of the truth expressed in these words by Mrs. Eddy in her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 134), "A miracle fulfils God's law, but does not violate that law. This fact at present seems more mysterious than the miracle itself." She further adds, "The miracle introduces no disorder, but unfolds the primal order, establishing the Science of God's unchangeable law."
When we constantly insist upon recognizing man and the universe from this standpoint of the fundamental goodness of all things, as Christian Science teaches us to do, we inevitably find good more natural than evil, we accept it as the normal state to be enjoyed in our daily experience, in accord with God's law of perpetual harmony.
When creation is viewed from the spiritual standpoint our entire conception of the universe and of being is made new. In all our reasoning in Christian Science we begin with the one divine Mind. We acknowledge God as All-in-all, as the deific Principle, the one infinite cause or creator, the center of our being, the circumference of it, the Soul of it, the substance of it, the basis of it, the Principle of it. "The Lord he is God; there is none else beside him" — beside eternal good. This creation of Spirit appears in steps of unfoldment, of spiritual awakening. The first chapter of Genesis in the King James Version of the Holy Bible is an account of this unfoldment, a revelation of what creation really is.
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" is the first verse of the Bible, and John's first verse of his Gospel reads, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." These two statements of creation place the beginning in God, but since God, the one infinite Mind, always was, always will be, and therefore never began to be, what is it that begins? Our Leader says in her exegesis of Genesis in the textbook (p. 502), "The infinite has no beginning. This word beginning is employed to signify the only, — that is, the eternal verity and unity of God and man including the universe."
What is humanity's beginning, its first glimpse of the reality of being? Is not the beginning for us found in our first awakening to the longing to know God? Job's awakening to his true selfhood began with, "Oh that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to his seat!" Down through the ages, the eternal demand of God, "Let there be light," has penetrated the dream of mortal sense and this coming of the Christ has awakened the dreamer from his dream. This awakening to the true sense of being, the Science of being, is the beginning of spiritual understanding. It was the beginning of freedom for you and me. When we have glimpsed the truth that all there is of us is included "in the beginning" with God, that we never began in matter — that moment the dream of life in matter has begun to break. This is creation, the appearing of Spirit, the first day of creation in Genesis, the mists of mortal thought dissolving in the light of spiritual understanding. Christian Science is the Science of Christ, Truth. The first chapter of Genesis is the first record of this Christ, Truth, speaking to human consciousness.
In her textbook, Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy has devoted a chapter to this opening chapter in the Bible, Genesis. The fifth verse in the Bible account reads. "And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day."
In discussing this appearing of the light, this first day, Mrs. Eddy says (Science and Health, p. 504), "This light is not from the sun nor from volcanic flames, but it is the revelation of Truth and of spiritual ideas." Further she says, "The successive appearing of God's ideas is represented as taking place on so many evenings and mornings, — words which indicate, in the absence of solar time, spiritually clearer views of Him, views which are not implied by material darkness and dawn." She asks, "Was not this a revelation instead of a creation?"
Certainly it is revelation, the appearing of that which is and was and always will be. This dawning consciousness of Truth, "spiritually clearer views of Him," this appearing of Spirit, awakening us from the dream of life in matter to the spiritual actuality of life in God, is Christ's coming to dispel the illusion of life and intelligence as existent in matter.
This first day of creation, or revelation, must come to every one of us, for the darkness of error cannot forever veil the fact of the spiritual perfection of all real being. The "vail is done away in Christ." When this revelation appeared to Mrs. Eddy, it not only raised her from what was believed to be her deathbed, but brought with it such a flood of the light of divine Mind that the rest of her life was devoted to bringing to mankind a knowledge of the truth of being as she has presented it in Christian Science. What a glorious day for humanity that was — the beginning of its spiritual awakening and release from the bondage of age-old beliefs in sin and its supposed power, sickness and its supposed reality, death and its supposed inevitability! It was through her illumined understanding of the Bible that she found this message and through revelation that she gave to humanity her great discovery, Christian Science.
In the study of this Science we come to know that "day" is not a period of time but that it is "the irradiance of Life" (Science and Health, p. 584) as our textbook defines it. This ever shining forth of the light of Truth is the endless day of God's appearing, not measured by time but, to continue with the definition, by "the good that is unfolded."
To know the truth about "day" is a step of great import in human progress, a step in grasping the Science of Being. Let our first waking thought in the morning be one of realization that this day is not a period of time, but of unfoldment of good. It is governed by divine Mind — every event in it. Let us know that this is God's day, not mortal mind's; a day of revelation, of spiritual awakening, of glorious accomplishment. Nothing can enter into it that "defileth, . . . or maketh a lie." It is established "in the secret place of the most High" and there abides — protected, fruitful, blessed, hallowed.
According to the account of Genesis, creation appeared in seven days. Each of these days presents new views of being. They reveal the unfolding steps in the understanding and recognition of all true being, and in the comprehension of prayer. As we proceed today, you will note that each day in its unfoldment presents another phase of prayer — of this ascending consciousness of being.
On the second day, or second step in spiritual progress, appears the firmament or spiritual understanding. "And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters." Our Leader says of this spiritual understanding (Science and Health, p. 505), "Understanding is the line of demarcation between the real and unreal. Spiritual understanding unfolds Mind, — Life, Truth, and Love, — and demonstrates the divine sense, giving the spiritual proof of the universe in Christian Science." This statement of Mrs. Eddy's shows the mission of Christian Science, the second coming of Christ, in its clear presentation that Mind's unfoldment of its own being, Life, Truth, Love, is what draws the line between the real and the unreal.
Creation appears, reveals itself, only as the Christ appears — only as the divine Mind manifests its own being. As we have said, our Leader points out that the Genesis presentation is a revelation instead of a creation. It, therefore, shows that creation is in reality, the expression or revelation of God. In other words, God — Life, Truth, Love — appearing, revealing Himself, is the creation.
At this point I am going to take you into the third day, for a moment, then back into the second day again. "And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so." Mrs. Eddy says of this (Science and Health, p. 507), "In metaphor, the dry land illustrates the absolute formations instituted by Mind, while water symbolizes the elements of Mind." Thus what God is, is expressed in relation to what God does. God, divine Mind, manifests itself, expresses itself, as man, the divine image and likeness. Thus is clearly presented the fact that man is not God, and God is not man. This presentation of the perfect man is one of the offices of the Christ.
"Let the dry land appear." Let what God does reveal what God is. This revelation is the coming of the Christ; it is Christianity appearing, first through Christ Jesus and his words and works, then through Mary Baker Eddy and her discovery, Christian Science. Since "the Christ is without beginning of years or end of days" (Science and Health, p. 333) it appeared to the patriarchs, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and to many of the prophets, anointing them with the divine nature to such a degree that they prophetically saw the appearing of the fuller revelation in the coming of Jesus the Christ, as the Messiah or anointed one.
A beautiful explanation of this is found in Mrs. Eddy's Christmas Sermon in her work "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 161), the first paragraph of which reads, "To the senses, Jesus was the son of man: in Science, man is the son of God. The material senses could not cognize the Christ, or Son of God: it was Jesus' approximation to this state of being that made him the Christ-Jesus, the Godlike, the anointed." And further in this sermon she says, "To carry out his holy purpose, he must be oblivious of human self." Jesus was not the only one who could become so "oblivious of human self" as to "cognize the Christ" in a sufficient degree to become an anointed one. Did he not pray, "And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one"? Christ Jesus knew the inevitableness of the fuller appearing of the Christ, Truth, that final revelation of the divine Principle of being which would bring to mankind a scientific method of Christian healing. This revelation appeared to one so willing to be oblivious of human self that she was able to "cognize the Christ, or Son of God," to a sufficient degree to be another anointed one, and bring to humanity the Science of Christianity, or Christian Science — our revered and beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy.
Jesus appeared as the result of Mary's spiritual recognition of the fatherhood of God. Christian Science appeared with the revelation to Mrs. Eddy of God's motherhood.
Now back to our second day again, the day of the firmament or understanding. With the firmament, his spiritual understanding, the Christian Scientist is able to separate belief from spiritual fact. He sees how he too may become oblivious of human self to such a degree that he may "cognize the Christ, or Son of God," as embracing the reality of his own being. Thus he will be able to rise above sin and disease, prove their nothingness in his own experience, and help others do the same. Thus he will experience the resurrection and ultimately the ascension. Thus we shall all be made "kings and priests unto God." This brings us to the third day.
After the firmament of spiritual understanding or the light of revelation has come to us, consciousness is free to unfold, to rise and ascend. Our individual spiritual consciousness advances, increases, abounds. This state "is an important one to the human thought, letting in the light of spiritual understanding," says Mrs. Eddy (Science and Health pp. 508, 509). And she adds, "This period corresponds to the resurrection, when Spirit is discerned to be the Life of all, . . . dependent upon no material organization." This is the third day, the third step in spiritual progress — rising above the false to the resurrection that takes hold of eternal Truth. This is the coming to each one of us of the Christ.
On the third day "God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth." The seed within itself — this is the mandate of immortality, of a forever growing, unfolding, ascending creation. This is the law of resurrection to whatever seems to die — the law that says there is no death. Every little sprig that lifts itself from the dust and grows confirms this law. Every thought that lifts itself above the belief of life in matter to the apprehension that Life is God, is resurrection, or spiritual fruitage.
Jesus' life among men was evidence of continuing resurrection, the true idea of freedom. He accepted no other but spiritual consciousness. He proved that God was his Mind; Soul his only sense of being; Spirit his substance. Through his daily, hourly resurrection from the tomb of mortal beliefs, he gave evidence of his own at-one-ment with divine Principle, and out of the fullness of his demonstration he taught others how to prove theirs.
A difficult experience that seems afflictive and crushing to one will inspire another to lift his thought above the belief of life in matter and achieve victory. Why is this? Is it not because to one the experience is accepted as a crucifixion, while to the other it is a resurrection? We learn in Christian Science that resurrection is awakening to a more spiritual sense of life, a yielding of the material sense to the spiritual, of fear to Love. This occurs in every demonstration of Christian Science, and resurrection becomes the inevitable law of existence. Thus every human sense of crucifixion becomes merely a challenge to reach higher goals of spiritual achievement, because no matter what the testimony of the senses may suggest to the contrary, only the spiritual is real — only the spiritual, the real, is actually going on.
Christian Scientists unite in their church organizations to give evidence of the great resurrection that is taking place in human consciousness. At their Wednesday evening meetings speaker after speaker rises from his seat to give grateful testimony to a resurrection that has taken place in his human experience. Very often after you have heard an account of remarkable healing of some physical difficulty you will hear the speaker say something to this effect: "Though I am unspeakably grateful for this physical healing I am more grateful still for the spiritual awakening, the new love and appreciation for the Bible that has come into my life." You also hear an expression of heartfelt gratitude for the life and work of our noble Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, her great work for the salvation of mankind, and for her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures."
The fourth step in progress is the day of spiritual enlightenment, when God says, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven . . . to give light upon the earth." This is the day of unfolding understanding in prayer, when spiritual consciousness expands and marvelous revealings come to us. This is the day when divine Science, typified in the Revelation of St. John as "a woman clothed with the sun," illumines the consciousness of each worker in Science with spiritual light and power. The spiritual sense of Christian Scientists shines like stars in the firmament of heaven. Then spiritual healing becomes spontaneous, the unlabored action of Love "reflected in love," as our textbook puts it (p. 17).
In this day of spiritual enlightenment, men are taught of Soul and spiritual sense. It is the Pentecostal day when, moved by the same Spirit, men meet "with one accord in one place," in spiritual consciousness; the "day" when nations will have one Mind, one purpose, and shall dwell in peace together.
"And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also." In the darkness or twilight of uncertainty the lesser light of the questioning prayer of petition rules the darkness or twilight of our uncertainty until in the warmth and glow of understanding our daytime of illumined consciousness is lighted by the greater light of the prayer which confidently affirms the allness of God and the great facts of being revealed in Christian Science.
Let the prayer of ascending consciousness of God be to you a new vision of the first chapter of Genesis. Let a new sense of creation appear, the revelation of reality, the kingdom of heaven, here.
True prayer is such an intimate consciousness of man's at-one-ment or oneness with the Father that the experience which we describe as turning to God in prayer quickly becomes a consciousness of God's available presence and power, an illumination of thought so complete, so precious, so assuring, that notions of any other power, any other law, any other being, vanish before it.
Undesirable qualities of character are uncovered, rooted out and healed through such prayer. I heard a teacher in one of our well-known schools tell of such a healing accompanied by a convincing physical healing of a growth on the bottom of her foot. Her mental work uncovered the fact that the growth had appeared at a time when she had been deeply hurt by circumstances which, as she put it "had gotten under my skin." She realized that her hurt was due to her super-sensitiveness. She said that in her mental work she realized that as a child of God she could be sensitive only to the good which He gave, and that in reality there was only this spiritual good to which to be sensitive. She was healed of the super-sensitiveness and the growth loosened at the root and came out of the foot, never to return.
What is the next step in prayer in our individual, spiritual progress, in recognition of true selfhood, the fifth day in the first chapter of Genesis? Ascending thought, leaving earth for heaven, illumined with lights, forsaking matter for Spirit, rises into spiritual altitudes, and reaches the day of aspiration, the fifth step in the progressive appearing of creation.
Aspirations are typified in Genesis 1:20 as the fowls, which fly above "the earth in the open firmament [spiritual understanding] of heaven." These aspirations soar above and beyond all corporeality; they reveal the fact that our true and only selfhood is separated from mortal mind perversions. They not only partake of the nature of, but appear as, God's thoughts. Every hungering desire, aspiring to Truth, is supported and protected by God's thoughts, the lights in the firmament. Heavenly aspirations open the door of consciousness and let in the beautiful and good. True aspiration reflects divine power.
The life of an active Christian Scientist is not one of ease in matter, but of spiritualizing thought and exercising God-given dominion. Our Christian Science churches are made up, for the most part, of men and women joyously working together in unity for our services, our Sunday schools, our testimony meetings. Their problems of organization are being worked out from the standpoint of demonstration of the activity of the one divine Mind, instead of through personal political manipulation. This experience makes them better citizens through the actual practice of democracy.
Mary Baker Eddy's definition of church in the Glossary of her textbook is well known to Christian Scientists. It is the basis of their prayer and their work for their church. The first part of this definition presents the spiritual idea of Church, the divine fact, of which the second part of the definition is the human concept, its expression in human experience. The first part reads (Science and Health, p. 583) "church. The structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle." This great statement expresses the infinite reality of what church really is, a spiritually mental activity of the one divine Principle, God. Nothing human or mortal can assail it nor interfere with the expression of its holy purpose. It is as inviolate as the Christ, for it is the evidence of the Christ.
The second part of this definition is: "The Church is that institution, which affords proof of its utility and is found elevating the race, rousing the dormant understanding from material beliefs to the apprehension of spiritual ideas and the demonstration of divine Science, thereby casting out devils, or error, and healing the sick." There are seven steps in this presentation even as there are seven "days" in the Genesis unfoldment of creation. You will note the first step requires that the institution afford "proof of its utility," second it is found "elevating the race," third, it is seen "rousing the dormant understanding from material beliefs," fourth, this roused understanding unfolds "to the apprehension of spiritual ideas," which leads to the fifth step, "the demonstration of divine Science," evidenced in the sixth and seventh steps of "casting out devils, or error, and healing the sick."
Only as healing appears in a community does the Christian Science church appear. The Church of Christ, Scientist, is unique in this respect: only after there has been healing and reformation of many individuals in a community is a branch church of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, The Mother Church, organized.
The aspiration of the Christian Scientist's thought soaring in the firmament of understanding, to take these steps in his own experience, to express them in his thought of and expression of Church, is measured by the clearness of his realization of Church, the true Church, the spiritual idea, "the structure of Truth and Love."
"And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply." The prosperity of our churches depends upon the spiritual animus of our thought of them, and our work for them.
When hearts are chastened and pride rebuked, there comes a genuine aspiration for more of Christ's appearing. When we turn away from material things, we cast our net on the side of Spirit. In true aspiration the human is surrendered for the divine. True aspiration leads to the demonstration of the Science of Christianity in church and in individual life.
In our church work, in our homes do we love enough to cherish and encourage the birth of spiritual aspiration in our neighbor, in our loved ones, in those whom we may be helping in Christian Science? Let us refuse to yield to their materialism, to satisfy their material and mortal self-aggrandizement, their worldly ambition for place, power, popularity. Then let us, like Paul and like our beloved Leader, eagerly tend and nourish spiritual aspiration in them, foster their new birth in Spirit, bring to them the lessons of the first chapter of Genesis. Then their ideas, spiritual sense, fly on spiritual wings in heaven the kingdom of the real.
The sixth day represents the climax or fullness of creation. Aspiration united with demonstration lifts consciousness into the spiritual sense of being where Love is enthroned. The sixth day of unfoldment presents man in God's image the full representation of Mind, the conscious identity of Being, and man reflecting God's intelligence. This is the fully matured, complete, spiritualized consciousness, which is man's true or real selfhood.
Today not only the peace of nations, but the protection of our own nation, of our homes, of our church depends to some degree upon the individual right knowing of every Christian Scientist. How shall the Christ, Truth, be demonstrated unless by those who have a demonstrable understanding of Truth which heals the ills and sins of mankind?
Our men and women in the armed services have proved to a wonderful degree that this healing prayer of Christian Science brings deliverance. A Christian Science Wartime Minister remarked to me recently, "When these boys call upon me for treatment in Christian Science they do not say, 'Will you please help me?' They say, 'Will you please heal me?'" And he added, "I would say that nine times out of ten they are healed in one treatment."
The basis for all demonstration of Christian Science in our human experience is prayer or treatment — the actual, workable understanding of God and of man's oneness with Him. Now, a Christian Science treatment should be as spontaneous as light. Spontaneity is characteristic of spiritual things. Treatment is not something you do to a person or to a church; it is something perfect you know about that which is already done, about that which already is. Prayer in Christian Science is based upon the fact of spiritual perfection. It is based on the premise that everything is already created. Everything is, and because it is, and is perfect, the practitioner acknowledges this liberating truth. Mrs. Eddy has said that (Unity of Good, p. 7) "an acknowledgment of the perfection of the infinite Unseen confers a power nothing else can." This acknowledgment excludes from thought everything but the simple fact of perfect being. Let spiritual consciousness be. Our work becomes more and more unlabored as we argue less and acknowledge more.
How shall we find our true selfhood as God's idea unless we claim it, appropriate it? Can we aspire to Godlikeness and at the same time hold to fictitious beliefs that are unlike God? Now is the only accepted time in Christian Science. Now is the time to claim the right to be responsive and receptive to God's thoughts, God's ideas, because actually we are the expression, the evidence, the manifestation of these ideas. Let us claim divine Mind's ability, its power, its purity, its joy, its spiritual expansiveness, as our own and our only true consciousness. Then the mystery of so-called mortal life will yield to revelation; confusion will yield to scientific understanding; and the abominations of mortal belief will give way to the spiritual, perfect idea of universal Love.
"And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made." As the material concept of earth and heaven disappear, all things become new. In this spiritualized consciousness, we find salvation. Science interprets salvation as "Life, Truth, and Love understood and demonstrated as supreme over all; sin, sickness, and death destroyed" (Science and Health, p. 593).
Bound by earth weights, one cannot experience salvation, cannot rise into spiritual consciousness. What constitutes our earth weights? Remembering the things that are behind. Paul tells us to forget them. The desire for Truth already within us aspires to all Truth, and might rise into its native atmosphere naturally but for the accumulated beliefs called a mortal past. These beliefs seem to bind us to earth much as a captive balloon is held by ropes. But when we realize that we lose nothing by forgetting a mortal past — an unreality — its sorrows, its mistakes, its grievances, its sins, its resentments, we have cut the ropes and are free. "All of good the past hath had remains to make our own time glad," one of our hymns reads. All that ever really happened was that which was known of God. Then let us cut loose from earth weights and obey the call of Science! As our textbook says (p. 575), "Arise from your false consciousness into the true sense of Love, and behold the Lamb's wife, — Love wedded to its own spiritual idea." In other words, let us behold our oneness with the Father, our true identity as the son of God. Let us see ourselves as the new man. Let the spiritual sense of life and being encompass thought. Rest in action. Be actively loving. Love is life. Christian Science teaches that the Sabbath day of rest is ceaseless unfoldment of good.
The seven days of creation are seven periods of spiritual unfoldment, in ascending consciousness. Through this unfoldment the reality of creation appears. We cognize the universe of God's creating, "the new heaven and the new earth" in which wars and rumors of war have no place. Just as the spiritual recognition in Christian Science of perfect man heals beliefs of sickness which mortal mind attaches to mortal man, so the realization, the revelation, of the spiritual universe heals the beliefs of war and carnage which this mortal mind attaches to the material world. In the divine universe matter is unknown. In this one universe man is found as spiritual idea. When we place our loved ones there, and see them as divine idea, we no longer think of them as subject to war or the effects of war, but as spiritual, perfect, harmonious, complete expression of the one divine Mind, forever reflecting the qualities of this Mind in health, purity, peace, spiritual perception, happiness.
Through "spiritually clearer
views of Him," of God, our prayer, our demonstration, our daily lives are
lifted above material sense into the apprehension of spiritual, divine ideas,
that Christ-consciousness which heals and blesses all mankind.
[Delivered Jan. 23, 1945, in the Murat Theatre in Indianapolis, Indiana, under the auspices of Second Church Christ, Scientist, Indianapolis, and published in The Marion County Mail of Indianapolis, Jan. 26, 1945. Breaks were added to a couple of very long paragraphs for this transcript.]
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