Clifford R. Nysewander, C.S.B. of Indianapolis,
Indiana
Member
of the Board of Lectureship of The Mother Church,
The
First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts
The lecturer spoke substantially as follows:
Mary Baker Eddy sets forth a fundamental fact in the first line of the Preface of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," where she writes, "To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is big with blessings." We are the recipients of God's blessings as we are obedient to Him. Our sincere reverence to God is enlarged by our understanding of what He is. To know God as ever-available Love, to be conscious that He is eternal Life, and to recognize that He is the divine Mind which emanates true intelligence gives assurance that all human needs will be met and mastered. To do this is to know the Christ and demonstrate God's presence with us. Christian Science reveals the Christ-message of God's power, presence, and intelligence as a practical and demonstrable answer to humanity's problems. The Christ, God's idea, daily applied and demonstrated, establishes man's identity as the idea of God, infinite Spirit. The dregs of human beliefs are carried away as the Christ, Truth, enables man to recognize that the kingdom of God is within us, that it is a present possibility.
Christianity is generally understood and regarded as the religion of those who follow the teachings of Christ Jesus. In the unabridged Webster's New International Dictionary it is stated that it is "the religion of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man," or the "practical conformity of one's inward and outward life to the spirit of the Christian religion."
Christians willingly accept the truth of the master Christian's teaching regarding the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. A divergence of view need not arise from individual effort to make this teaching practical. It is this "practical conformity of one's inward and outward life to the spirit of the Christian religion" that we are here to discuss. It is the doing of this that has our whole attention. How can one practically conform human action with man's real identity as God's spiritual idea?
We have "confusion worse confounded" if we give power to something besides God and His Christ. Christ Jesus came and showed that a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. He was sent of God and came proving for all men dominion over evil. He gave witness to the eternal, which supersedes the temporal. He faced the challenges of the carnal mind, proving that there is no mind in matter. God, the supreme intelligence, is a God of goodness and power. Jesus well knew this would shake the foundations of the belief in a material creation based on the Adamic allegory of creation. To Christ Jesus creation was the manifestation of God's spiritual power and grace and of nothing else. Spirit has never put power into matter to be lost or decayed. Spiritual creation is unchangeably perfect, and its harmony is maintained by divine law. Jesus exhorted his disciples that through faith in this divine law they could have dominion over mortality. He said, "Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you" (Luke 10:19). Christian healing unfolds from the Master's conclusive proof of the power of God, Spirit, over all beliefs of mortality.
In the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy writes of this true Christian spirit (p. 518), "The rich in spirit help the poor in one grand brotherhood, all having the same Principle, or Father; and blessed is that man who seeth his brother's need and supplieth it, seeking his own in another's good." He who accepts the great truth of the fatherhood of God and conforms to the spiritual and divinely impelled law of love toward his fellow man is expressing his life in practical Christian service. Love for God and man, coupled with an awareness that all causation stems from the divine Mind, supreme intelligence, making every effect a spiritual phenomenon, is fundamental and practical in the demonstration of Christian Science Mind-healing.
Over ninety years ago this practical truth was revealed to Mary Baker Eddy when she recovered from an injury, resulting from an accident, which neither medicine nor surgery could reach. On the third day after the accident, relying wholly upon God, she asked to be left alone in her room. Her religious background had been bulwarked by the tender guidance and example of a spiritually-minded mother. She had early learned to love her Bible. In her hour of tribulation she turned to the Holy Scriptures, and her eyes fell upon the healing of the palsied man by Jesus as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew. She writes: "It was to me a revelation of Truth. The lost chord of Truth (healing, as of old) I caught consciously from the Divine Harmony" (The Life of Mary Baker Eddy by Sibyl Wilbur, p. 125). "The miracles recorded in the Bible, which had before seemed to me supernatural, grew divinely natural and apprehensible" (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 26). Thus the understanding of the Christ-example brought healing to this pure Christian woman, and inspired her to unselfishly search the Scriptures that later led her to publish the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures."
Christian Scientists revere, respect, and love Mrs. Eddy as the revelator of Christian Science. We do not worship her. We are eternally grateful for her unselfish example expressed as the Discoverer, Founder, and Leader of Christian Science. Countless numbers who have needed healing have found it through their study of the Bible and Science and Health. It is love and appreciation that impels the Christian Scientist to appraise Mrs. Eddy's place in her Church, and its many activities, as our beloved Leader.
Mrs. Eddy noted early in her religious discovery that the truth of God and man placed all things in their correct category. She recognized the truth of there being one God, one Mind, and that matter seems to be, but is not. She wrote (Science and Health, p. 123), "Divine Science, rising above physical theories, excludes matter, resolves things into thoughts, and replaces the objects of material sense with spiritual ideas." She beheld the temporary nature of materiality.
She knew, as did the Apostle Paul, that this carnal mentality is not mind, but mortal belief; that it creates its own physical conditions; that it sees what it believes; and that it implies untruths about God and man; therefore it is unreal. It is found that to control this false concept of mind one needs only to replace the false with the true God-inspired ideas of Life, Truth, and Love. This immortal truth of God's spiritual power, real presence, and active, divine intelligence is the practical corrective and alterative of today's ills, individual and collective. The certainty of this scientific spiritual truth results in the potent practicality of Christianly scientific healing.
Healing comes as the effect of an understanding of God as divine Principle and a workable knowledge of the Christ which governed the corporeal Jesus. Christian healing is proof of God's presence with us. This is Immanuel, the demonstration of the Christ, Truth.
For some three hundred years the early Christian church practiced primitive Christian healing according to historical records. An account is given of this in Edward Gibbon's "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" (Vol. I, Chapter XV, page 459), "the miraculous cure of diseases of the most inveterate or even preternatural kind can no longer occasion any surprise, when we recollect that in the days of Irenaeus, about the end of the second century, the resurrection of the dead was very far from being esteemed an uncommon event." This practice apparently was lost as idolatry overshadowed a sincere desire to adhere to the simplicity of the humble Christ-example. This observation clearly indicates that a true sense of one's church comes not from a mere adherence to organization, but rather to one's spiritual understanding of church. Mrs. Eddy states that "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" (Science and Health, p. 583). The church that fulfills such a mission of rousing dormant understanding and healing the sick reinstates and reveals primitive Christian healing today. A sectarian fellowship in the name of Christianity can never be a substitute for practical Christian healing. God's purpose of unfolding Himself to man is never gained by a return to positions outgrown.
Christ Jesus, the best man that ever walked this earth, gave us as a heritage by his life's work the true meaning of salvation. He overcame sin, sickness, and death in himself and others by reliance on spiritual power. Jesus was the highest human corporeal concept of the Christ-idea. Jesus was the anointed messenger to this age who demonstrated Christ. The Christ was the God-inspired message of power, love, intelligence, and eternal life to hungering humanity. The Wayshower gave the gift to all men to have dominion over the flesh and the thoughts of this world by knowing man's God-given dominion over them. His example showed mankind how they could be witnesses to this fact.
A friend of mine and sincere student of Christian Science found himself suffering from a serious complaint of kidney stones. Fear, distress, and incapacity were loud arguments of mortal thought. The individual even wondered if he could hold on to the truth that was needed in order to realize this healing. He was reassured that a loving Father-Mother God would not let go of his hand. With this assurance he and the Christian Science practitioner proceeded to reverse and deny reality in the claims of fear, sensitiveness to error, the fear of human hatred, the fear of personal resistance to natural progress in truth and life. They would not accept the lie that the belief was hard to dissolve with a conscious knowledge of God's love for man and the universe, in which all men reflect love one to another.
Self-love, self-will, and a fear of self-righteousness were melted away with gratitude for God's love already proved to this individual. How often do you realize how much of God's love you already have shared? Remember, to be right-minded we need often to be reminded of such fundamental facts. He realized that he had been believing that someone had misunderstood his sincere service to his church, and he corrected this view about himself and the other fellow. He had also unconsciously been accepting that he had come out of a family background that opposed and resisted his understanding of Christian Science. He was thinking the truth was hard to know. This belief was canceled out with the realization that God was his real Father-Mother, since man is the spiritual image and likeness of God. As this likeness, man is the complete representation of God's ideas of perfection, strength, dominion, love, courage, stamina, and understanding. These ideas are not in matter to be lost. Man's original spiritual capacities, God-created, can never be separated from God's idea, man. Intelligence and its idea are always at one. Deleterious effects spring not from God; hence their unreality.
This grateful individual awakened in the morning by dissolving this belief of error. The healing was evident to all in the home, and the man returned to his business in which he has been active for many years. He also took his new position in the church and served faithfully. In this instance Christian Science presented practical Christian healing. Those who would find the grand highway named salvation must also travel the roads of progress and probation leading to this highway. Progress is the fruit of intelligence expressed.
Practical proof of God's love for His idea, man, comes as man knows God to be the source of spiritual power, spiritual presence, and spiritual understanding.
Perhaps there are those here this evening who need Christian Science healing. Healing results from spiritual understanding of God linked with spiritual worship that realizes the power of spiritual law. This spiritual worship is the adoring of God, Spirit, who is made manifest in His spiritual ideas. Hence, God could never be worshiped through material means. Spiritual laws are God's laws, above and beyond mortal creed, or belief.
If you and I were to stand outdoors on a cloudy day we would not see the beauty of sunlight, but we would never doubt that the sun is shining above the clouds. It has been proved to us and we have been taught that the sun always shines, whether to the physical senses we see it or not. Why, even on the overcast, rainy day we could go aboard an airplane and soar above the clouds into the bright sunshine, beholding untold beauty.
By rejecting the evidence of material sense testimony and embracing as true the fact that Life and intelligence are not in matter, we are breaking a superstition of the ages. The word "superstition" is a language derivative from the words meaning to stand over. What thoughts are we holding over our heads, so to speak? What line of reasoning are we following? Is it the divinely inspired or the mortal mode? If we hold foremost in our thought anything other than a reasonable understanding of man and his spiritual relationship to God, we may be relying on superstition.
Jesus constantly encouraged his disciples to refrain from accepting the superstitions of material sense as valid or real. He encouraged them not to believe that any problem was too serious or beyond God's control. In other words, never believe in an incurable problem. The Master demonstrated the unreality of sin, disease, and death. They are error and nothing because God is not found in them. Nothing has no identity. A zero is a zero. It does not have the ability of resisting a demonstrable understanding of truth. When the disciples failed to heal the lunatic child, they brought him to the Master for healing. After the child was healed of the devil, Jesus gave them their reason for failure. "Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: . . . Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting" (Matt. 17:19-21). To heal this case, the disciples were required to give absolute supremacy to the divine laws of God to govern the human mind and its phenomena. This was the prayer of fasting and radical reliance on infinite Mind's control that was required for this healing.
On the first page of the Christian Science textbook in the chapter entitled "Prayer" we read, "The prayer that reforms the sinner and heals the sick is an absolute faith that all things are possible to God, — a spiritual understanding of Him, an unselfed love." This prayer, this desire for healing, needs an absolute faith that all things are possible to God. Whence cometh this absolute faith? It is not the product of self-will, rather it is the natural fragrance of an un-selfed will that is seeking to know God. This turning away from a material sense of self requires one to give up his finite, limited views in exchange for the infinite truth concerning God's government of the universe, including man.
That which sins, suffers, and dies is mortal mind. It is really no mind at all. It is only a dream and nightmare of sense. Those who awake from such dreams know that they are not true. Now I ask you, can no mind at all tell us how to think and live? Intelligence receives no communications from nonintelligence. The reality of God's being never is touched by unreality, nor does God ever place intelligence in unreal matter. His wisdom never put power or substance in the physical senses to be worn out or used up. These unreal senses are not really you, are no part of you, and have no power over you. God being All-in-all, man is included in this allness. God's allness is His absoluteness. Man, as the reflection of the allness of infinite Mind, reflects only spiritual consciousness. The consciousness of infinite good has no thoughts of doubt, fear, or evil. Likewise man, as God's reflection, has no thoughts of a deleterious nature. One who is obedient to the First Commandment of the Mosaic Decalogue (Ex. 20:3), "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," is the one who is putting God first in his thinking. Christian Science teaches that God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind. He is Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, and Love. These terms are synonymous and refer to God's absoluteness. Man is the image and likeness of a supreme, loving Father-Mother God; he is not the product of the carnal mind, which is the opposite of God.
True prayer is a sincere desire, silently or audibly expressed, that changes not one iota of God's being, but rather brings us into accord with it. This is illustrated by the mathematician and the principle of mathematics. Asking or merely praising the principle of mathematics would not give you a solution to a problem. My friends, we all need to be mathematicians of some degree today.
As the first part of each year approaches, you sit down at your desk with your tax forms. A great sincere request, silent or audible, to the principle of mathematics to work out your problem will never enable you to complete those forms. You may have absolute faith in mathematics, but this alone will not accomplish your task. Joined with positive faith, and a desire honestly to apply the rules, must be an understanding of them and a willingness to apply and demonstrate them. The successful mathematician is not one who alone reveres these rules, but one who applies and proves them. It is his business to demonstrate and not to suppose.
Christian Science recognizes the incorporeality of God, infinite Spirit. God is accepted as being divine and above the material senses. He is acknowledged as one supreme infinite Being. His is the Mind of all-knowing intelligence. He is divine Principle, the one origin of creation, including man. He is Life, Truth, and Love.
The sincerest prayer to God rests not on faith alone. This prayer is demonstration, God with us. It is a prayer that denies error and affirms truth. It is positive in character. Let your prayer acknowledge God's presence with you, for He is ever present. True consciousness is filled with His goodness. Your acceptance of this brings answered prayer, for you are seeing God face to face.
We are told in the one hundred and third Psalm that healing and forgiveness are synonymous, for the Psalmist sang, "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases" (Ps. 103:2,3). True forgiveness as known in Christian Science is not the mere condoning of an individual by canceling out the punishment for his wrongdoing. True forgiveness requires that we put the real man in place of the counterfeit, the mortal prototype. In this way sin is destroyed, and man is separated from its influence. The individual accomplishes this healing and release from sinful bondage in the degree that he separates himself from evil and its influence. Even as one finds healing from sinful bondage, likewise can man gain freedom from fear of disease by acknowledging that the only real individuality is spiritual and perfect.
Always make a clear distinction between the identity of real, spiritual man and a counterfeit belief of mortality. One who makes the separation in thought rejects as unreal the possibility of there being a weak mortal unable to control himself. He accepts as real only the man who is the God-inspired embodiment of strength, wisdom, and love.
Reliance upon the evidence obtained from the five physical senses never gives the real picture.
Tourists vacationing in Scotland had been advised on one of their side trips to hire a native guide who would take them up to a vantage point in the Highlands where one would have an unusually scenic view. They had been told to expect a possible rising of the mist which might present a mirage before them as they climbed. This mirage would appear at one point as if other steep mountains were right in the way of their ascending path. This occurred. The mist arose, and the mirage realistically appeared as steeper mountains which still needed climbing. Even though the guide told them it was a mirage, they could hardly deny what they believed they saw. They even remarked aloud that the mountains which they saw must not be a mirage. The experienced Highlander, in his own inimitable way, answered their remark, "I dinna care if ye see it; it's still not there."
Few could be found who would not desire to remove the objects of material sense manifest as suffering, disease, and a belief in the evil forces of hatred, jealousy, envy, and revenge, from his or her experience. To do this one must improve his mind models. The well-being and character of each individual express more of perfection as his mental models become more spiritual. God being infinite Spirit, we must discern more clearly that our true identity is the expression of spiritual ideas. We do not accept as final or real the pictures of material sense. One must refuse to believe the mirage of mortality at which he has been looking. Remember the Highlander's remarks about the mirage, "I dinna care if ye see it; it's still not there."
Christ Jesus, ever conscious of God's power and presence, beheld and demonstrated the beauties of His creation. In this light of understanding he did not accept as real the suggestions of a carnal mind and its limitation, danger, and darkness. His humble example was a rebuke to pride of intellect, often dependent on the testimony of the five physical senses. To all believers who follow the Master's example the way is open for them to become kings and priests unto God.
If we would rise above the infirmities and calamities of the flesh and wish to walk with God, then we need to be attentive to His inspired commands and commune with Him. This attentive resolve and willingness to take counsel with God always opens the way to take steps needed.
In Proverbs, the third chapter, the fifth verse, man is exhorted thus: "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding." This recommendation requires that we trust in God with all our motives, affections, and desires, and that we rest not on our own intellectual knowledge, attainments, or feelings. We are told what we can do in the very next verse: "In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths."
Mrs. Eddy founded The Mother Church and established its activities, including branch church organization, on a foundation of Christ-healing. Christian Science church activities help one to develop and progress spiritually. These activities are governed by the By-Laws given in the Manual of The Mother Church by Mrs. Eddy, which were divinely revealed to her. The regular Sunday church services and Wednesday testimonial meetings provide opportunities for gaining a clearer understanding of God. The Christian Science Sunday School makes it possible for pupils to gain a practical understanding of the Scriptures. The Lesson-Sermon in the Christian Science Quarterly provides an orderly means for the daily study of the Bible and Science and Health. The student finds such study often brings the solution to daily problems. Fresh messages of inspiration and healing come to those who read the authorized Christian Science periodicals. When one is ready to become a member of the Christian Science church, he finds that this membership opens wide channels of fruitful service. These avenues and activities supply abundant occasions for acknowledging God.
A Christian Scientist, serving in the armed forces in the jungles of New Guinea, awakened one morning at two o'clock in extreme distress that wracked both body and head almost to a point of semi-consciousness. He knew he could not stay in his cot, under a mosquito net, and seek help by reading the textbook, for there was no light available. No Christian Science practitioner could be contacted, except by Army radio, and one would have to drive a number of miles to do this even if it had been possible. He left his tent and with great difficulty made his way alone to a palm-thatched hut wherein was a light. This hut was used for recreation during the day. He found no comfort in sitting, no ease in walking, and he could not lie down. In his distress he would half stand and half lean on a table. He recognized the belief as botulism, meat poisoning, which had manifested itself in the camp with casualties.
For some three hours in that condition, all alone, he would turn the pages of his Christian Science textbook; permit his eye to rest upon a passage; be grateful that he could do this; thank the Father for His loving presence; constantly refusing to believe that man's harmony was ever divorced from the Father's control. Relief and complete healing came at dawn. He was ready and ate his morning meal when it was served. The doctor in the camp hospitalized two other officers that very morning with similar complaints. I was that officer who was healed through Christian Science.
It is one thing to climb a ladder, and another thing to keep your footing after you have climbed it. Theorizing of truth and realization are two individual processes.
One will find few who will not readily admit that there is a God, or that they hope to know Him as omnipotent good; this ready acceptance they give to fundamentals, yet, in order to realize these great truths, they neglect to expend effort to prove this for themselves. They need to make a persistent effort to understand the Christ, even as the woman in the throng who reached out and touched his garment. Her faith and effort brought healing with Christly recognition. It is by striving that we enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Students of Christian Science learn to love their impersonal preachers, the Bible and the Christian Science textbook; and they find most revealing and satisfying the Bible Lesson-Sermons read from them at the Sunday services in The Mother Church and its branches throughout the world. The subjects of these Bible Lesson-Sermons were given to the Church by its Discoverer and Founder, Mary Baker Eddy. The inspired choice of the subjects of the Lesson-Sermons is well adapted to meet and master the need for the daily understanding of true being. "The proof of the pudding is the eating" (Cervantes — Don Quixote). The proof of the value of these Lesson-Sermons is daily realized by those who with inspiration of truth understand God and man.
The open fount of truth is free to all. The demonstration of the applied truths of Christian Science need not be a hidden secret to some and an open book to others. It is available for all. Christian Science is a science which needs to be patiently studied and applied in order to be mastered. One may become acquainted with the value and use of the foot ruler with rather brief instruction. He would not without further expert instruction learn of the valuable use of the slide rule with its logarithmic scales and antilogarithms. Nearly all public libraries contain the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, for the use of those who do not own it. The textbook is not a substitute for the Bible; it is as the name implies, a key to the Scriptures. The King James Version of the Bible and this companion volume are the authorized textbooks of Christian Science.
It does not take a complicated thesis on metaphysics to awaken man's dormant understanding; it requires the childlike trust and knowledge of what God is now and ever has been.
In Luke's Gospel we read how Jesus had the same body when he arose from the grave, yet the disciples recognized him not at their first meeting. It is apparent that the disciples were in mental darkness after the loss, as they thought, of their great leader and demonstrator of Truth. Their lack of immediate recognition was due to their dullness in understanding Jesus' demonstration because of their sorrow and belief in separation from the Christ. They accepted that they were victims of unjust and barbaric circumstances resulting from the ignorance of those who crucified their Master. Their gaze was not directed to the light, with faith in divine Love to raise Jesus. It was not easy for them to see the victory of the risen Christ, because of their being mesmerized by the belief of loss and failure. They were victims, not victors. In our experience and practice of truth, when we refuse to listen to the evidence of the corporeal senses, then do we behold man forever regenerated, restored, and maintained as God's image and likeness. We may have been tempted on some occasion not to see man as a perfect image and likeness of God, yet like the disciples who, when awakened by truth, beheld the risen Christ, we, too, find that a knowledge of God as a loving, protecting, and guiding intelligence in our life brings us to a point of victory and dominion.
One young couple, newly married and faced with limited prospects of success and supply, plagued by their dislikes and discouragements and little understanding of God, both found themselves ill with tuberculosis. The wife had become ill with the disease after nursing her husband. They were isolated from society, and while they were labeled incurables, a friend presented Christian Science to them. They were thoroughly impressed with the necessity of reading the writings of Mary Baker Eddy. They first read the Christian Science textbook completely, and before doing so were reminded that the chapter entitled "Fruitage" gives many accounts of people who had been healed solely by reading the book with an open mind. Healing began to take place. One even lost the desire for the tobacco and alcoholic cocktail habit. They were encouraged and shown how to study the Bible Lesson-Sermon.
The practitioner, on regular visits to them, spoke of God as the only intelligence and explained that He is reflected by His own purposeful ideas. Man is such an idea. Man made in His image and likeness has an indestructible identity and purpose. Jesus was eternally aware of this relationship between God and man, and thereby he beheld the perfect man where others saw a sinning and weak mortal. Oh, this young couple found good alone to be contagious as a result of their study and application of Christian Science, and thus began to lose the contagion and fear and hate that had been consuming so much of their time and thought. They knew when they were healed, and it was so acknowledged by all concerned. One of the two was completely healed of a large cavity in one lung.
Now again they were ready to have a home and earn a livelihood. They had had anxious moments about this, but they were trusting in God's love all the way, and this was the result. Medical and clinical examinations were taken, as required in their preparation for employment, with a perfect bill of health in each case. Ideas for a serviceable business unfolded to them successfully as they continued to grow in their study and application of the eternal living truth concerning God and man.
Dear friends, neither years nor a lack of them bring an understanding of God. It comes as the result of one's regular adherence to and alignment with Principle. This brings the results of harmony, health, and dominion that are man's true heritage. Check your alignment with the laws of Life, Truth, and Love often. Let us remember the words of Mrs. Eddy found on page 174 in the Christian Science textbook: "The thunder of Sinai and the Sermon on the Mount are pursuing and will overtake the ages, rebuking in their course all error and proclaiming the kingdom of heaven on earth. Truth is revealed. It needs only to be practised."
[Delivered circa 1956-1959.]