John D. Pickett, C.S.B., of Chicago, Illinois
Member of the Board of Lectureship of The Mother
Church,
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts
Awareness of man's God-given dominion is the great need of mankind, John D. Pickett of Chicago told a large audience in Torrance, Monday evening.
Mr. Pickett held that the basis of demonstrating this dominion is spiritual understanding of God and of man as the expression of God.
"With this understanding comes the spiritual capacity to overcome ungodlike beliefs of fear, sin, sickness, and other destructive forces," he declared.
A well-traveled member of The Christian Science Board of Lectureship, Mr. Pickett spoke in the church edifice at 218th St. and Manuel Ave. under the auspices of First Church of Christ, Scientist, Torrance. He was introduced by Scott Albright, first reader.
In his lecture entitled "Christian Science: The Unfailing Power of God Made Practical," Mr. Pickett emphasized that God's law of healing, as taught and practiced by Christ Jesus, is universal and available to everyone.
"There are two basic footsteps demanded of us," he said, "if we are to make practical in our lives the power of God to solve the problems of the present age. One: to gain the spiritual understanding of God. Two: to have the correct view of man made in the image of God."
Mr. Pickett explained that prayer as understood in Christian Science is spiritual knowing that man is not motivated by anything less than divine Love.
In discussing the nature of law, the lecturer pointed out that law covers both rights and responsibilities.
"One who knows the nature of law only in part," he said, "is often heard to say, 'I know my rights.' But the mature citizen also knows his responsibilities. In Science it is knowing our divine rights and accepting our spiritual responsibilities that fulfills the law."
Mr. Pickett maintained that God, divine Love, cannot be understood through the material senses.
"Our impression of Him," he declared, "must come through spiritually enlightened consciousness, because God is Spirit and His nature is composed of spiritual qualities alone. Also, God is Love; and divine Love never fails. The fulfilling of the law of Love is our heritage to prove. The love derived from God is a quality reflected in the pure consciousness of man, and it carries divine Love's unfailing power."
This power is ever available to bring dominion over accidents, he stated.
"Accidents are unknown to God, or immortal Mind, and we must leave the moral basis of belief and unite with the one Mind, in order to change the notion of chance to the proper sense of God's unerring direction and thus bring out harmony," he said, quoting from "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy.
It is not necessary to curtail activities in business or sports to gain protection from accidents, Mr. Pickett said. "On the contrary," he declared, "we have only to acknowledge and understand that the one Mind, God, governs all activity in order to eliminate accidents from our experiences."
He emphasized that everyone can be free from fear, frustration, and failure through spiritual means alone.
"We find salvation," he said, "by looking beyond the fable to the fact, beyond the mechanistic to the spiritual, beyond the mortal to the immortal. Divine Principle enables one to go straight to the right choice and stick to it. Thus we find salvation. We feel divine Love's ever-presence, whose gentle impulsion unfailingly imparts healing and gives action to all true thought."
[Delivered Nov. 26, 1962, at First Church of Christ, Scientist, 218th St. and Manuel Ave., Torrance, California, and published in The Torrance Press, Dec. 2, 1962.]