James G. Rowell, C.S.B., of Kansas City, Missouri
Member of the Board of Lectureship of The
Mother Church,
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts
A lecture on Christian Science was given under the auspices of Seventh Church of Christ, Scientist, of Chicago, in the church edifice, 5318 Kenmore Avenue, Thursday evening, April 25, by James G. Rowell, C.S.B., of Kansas City, Missouri, member of the Board of Lectureship of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts.
The subject of the lecture was, "Christian Science: True Education." The lecture, which follows, is reprinted from a previous issue of the Leader.
At the outset of a discussion of Christian Science as offering a true education, let us examine for a few moments the objectives of education as agreed upon by educated people generally and set forth in dictionary definitions. One of the definitions of "to educate" is "to develop and cultivate mentally and morally." Further definitions bring out the fact that two things are demanded of education: first, that it inform and enlighten, and second, that it develop, discipline, and strengthen the mental and moral qualities which further the health, harmony, and happiness of the individual and his usefulness to society. "Education in its highest sense," one educator says, "comprehends the development of all the faculties of men to the end that a true knowledge of God and His universe may be attained; and that this knowledge may be assimilated, consecrated, and used in the service of mankind."
Christian Science reveals and teaches "this true knowledge of God." It shows us the falsity of a concept of God as subject to changeableness and wrath, and asks us to rejoice in the spiritual fact that "God is love," as John expresses it; that He is divine Truth; that He is not only the source of life, but that He is Life itself; that He is divine Principle, which is also Spirit, the divine and only Mind, the great and only cause, the one and only self-existent Being.
Christian Science corrects our false and limited beliefs about man, too. It shows us that man, in the likeness of God, his Father, is spiritual, not material. It teaches that he reflects all the qualities of his perfect original; that he is an intelligent, upright, efficient expression of his creator. Man is seen, through Christian Science, to be the complete expression of divine Mind, the embodiment of all the qualities of his Maker. "Perfect God and perfect man" is "the basis of thought and demonstration" (Science and Health, p. 259) in Christian Science. The education or development of mankind Christian Science shows to be the result, not of accretion, that is, the addition of one fact or quality after another to the human mind, but of the unfoldment of spiritual facts and qualities to human consciousness. In his true selfhood each individual is a perfect reflection of God; and Christian Science enables the individual to realize this fact and to express these qualities in his daily life.
When a photographic plate is developed, the image of the person or object photographed is revealed. Before the plate was developed, the image, although it was on the plate, was hidden to human vision. The developing process simply revealed it. God is expressed in man, but mortality is not that expression. Like the picture on the undeveloped plate, man, the image of Spirit, Life, Truth, and Love, is hidden to unenlightened human consciousness until, by correction of the false and unfoldment of the true, the spiritual, real man is recognized and is seen to be the only man there is.
The sensitive photographic plate records exactly that which is photographed. The chemical bath or process of development does not create the image; it simply brings it out. The root meaning of the verb "to educate'" is "to lead forth," "to bring out." The process of education or development, then, does not fashion man in the image of God; God, Himself has already done this. It does not change the real man at all, but it does "lead forth," bring out, or reveal in individual consciousness the image of God whose reflection man is.
Mankind has been advancing slowly through the centuries, largely through what is termed the trial and error process. One after another, material panaceas have been welcomed, tried, found wanting, and discarded. The degree of civilization which we find on earth today has been reached through learning from experience rather than through true education. Christian Science teaches that progress could be, and would be, rapid and painless if thought were molded by true education to expect and to accept the unfoldment of reality.
Although the truth about God, man,
and the universe is eternal
and always present, it must come as a revelation or a discovery to the human
mind. Because of the nature and character of this truth, it is all there is to
reality. For this reason, it is subject at all times to being discovered,
understood, and demonstrated. A falsity may be believed or accepted for an
indefinite period of time, but nothing other than truth can be either known or
proved.
That this knowledge of the real nature of man is practical and helpful to those who have it, and blesses all those upon whom their thought rests, is shown by two instances which I wish to share with you. It is becoming clearer that a great deal of the sickness and even of the indulgence in sin among men and women is traceable to unhappy human relationships. These instances of the application of the truth about man to human problems will show you that results were not accidental, but followed the realization of scientific truth.
A young woman, a Christian Scientist, after being without work for some time, secured through scientific prayer a good paying office position. She was so very happy about it that her disappointment was great when she learned that the man under whom she worked was known among the other employees as a bully, selfish, inconsiderate, and even cruel. To work with this man was not an easy matter, and the young woman presently found herself agreeing with the general belief that he was mean and selfish.
One day she felt a great sense of compassion sweep over her as she thought of the heavy burden of condemnation that was being heaped upon this man by all those around him, well deserved though it seemed to be. She resolved that she, at least, would do what she could to lighten his load. She began very patiently and persistently to reverse every wrong thought about man which came to her when thinking of him or hearing him spoken of. She declared frequently that man is unselfish, kind, loving, and considerate, for he is Godlike. She held to these thoughts about man, no matter what the evidence was. Four months passed before she could notice any change at all, but before six months were gone there was decided improvement. The Godlike qualities of the real man were actually becoming apparent. This young man is now one of the best liked men in the office. All of her fellow workers are enjoying the results of the young woman's loving and persistent effort to realize the true nature of man.
The second story is that of a young man of my acquaintance who is in the book and stationery business. Let him tell it in his own words as contained in a letter to me.
"For several years I had been
trying to sell to a certain large corporation. It was merchandise which they
used in large quantities, but there seemed to be something wrong; they would
not buy from me. I had met the purchasing agent of this firm, of course, but he
persisted in not even recognizing me whenever we were thrown together in any sort of gathering either civic
or social. I was told by a friend that he had remarked that he would not buy
anything from my company. I finally awoke to the fact that the thoughts I was
holding about the purchasing agent, the corporation, and business in general
were far from being helpful to me, so I began to correct my thinking. I tried
to lift the whole problem into the realm of divine Mind. The purchasing agent,
I acknowledged, was, in his true selfhood, a child of God, reflecting all the
qualities of divine Mind. I saw further that I did not have 'things to sell,' I
had qualities of Mind to express, and I must express them in all I did.
Expressing all of the qualities of divine Mind I saw to be my only real
business. I found that there was a lot of erroneous thinking on my part to be
exchanged for right thinking, and this I set about to do. In a few days I
received a telephone call from the corporation asking me to call on the
purchasing agent at a certain time that day. Words cannot express my gratitude.
At the appointed time I was at his office, and as I entered he arose from his
chair, greeted me, and called me by my first name. We had a most pleasant
interview, and I left with a substantial order — and a heart full of gratitude
for Christian Science, which had taught me how to clear up that situation. I
have been able to be of no little service to the corporation since that time,
and our relationship continues to be most pleasant."
Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science, wrote in her book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 483): "After the author's sacred discovery, she affixed the name 'Science' to Christianity, the name 'error' to corporeal sense, and the name 'substance' to Mind. Science has called the world to battle over this issue and its demonstration, which heals the sick, destroys error, and reveals the universal harmony." In this paragraph the reader finds the objectives of true education stated in a new and clear light. Men must learn that Christianity is scientific. They must learn, too, that through application of the truths it teaches they can prove that corporeal sense is error and that the only real senses of man are spiritual. Finally they must learn that divine Mind is the only substance. This understanding will bring to light individual and universal harmony. Mrs. Eddy's discovery was a spiritual discovery. It came to her from Spirit, the creator of all things real. Christian Science is the final revelation of truth, because it is the full revelation of truth, the revelation of the nothingness of evil or error and the allness of God, good. Nothing more can be revealed. The unfoldment of this revealed truth, will, of course, be infinite in nature and character. Being revealed, truth needs only to be understood, taught, and practiced. This constitutes true education.
Physical scientists are changing their beliefs about matter. They think of matter today either as electrical energy or as a mental concept. They have come a long way since 1875, when Mrs. Eddy defined matter as "the grosser substratum" of "mortal mind" (Science and Health, p. 293), in other words, as simply a mode of erring thought, a state of delusive consciousness. We all know how real one's concepts of material objects and physical actions seem to be in a dream. Awake, we realize that the substance of what appeared to be matter in the dream was only thought. Those things that seemed to be so real were only false mental concepts. They were not always true, even to our mental concepts of things when we were awake. Dream concepts, we agree, are not even truly mental; they are falsely mental. If one's thinking were as logical as Newton's this dream concept of matter might be to him a falling apple revealing the true, scientific nature of matter as merely an error of thought, a counterfeit or misconception of real substance, which is Spirit. The physical scientist's changed thought in regard to matter shows even to the materially minded that their sense of substance is all they ever have. Again it hints at the spiritual fact that the true substance is eternal, changeless. One's belief about substance is all that changes or ever will change. The true sense or spiritual understanding of substance is as eternal and changeless as substance — Spirit, itself.
Even though the more advanced physical scientists may admit that matter is a mental concept, they still have a far greater discovery to make to arrive at the true concept of matter and understand that it is falsely mental — a belief, a perversion or misconception of Spirit.
Instead of a changeable, destructible universe of matter, Christian education gives us a true concept of the universe which God made — a spiritual universe, one of beautiful and useful ideas, one governed and preserved by God's laws, which maintain it in perfect harmony. This is, of course, the only real universe, but true education teaches men also how to make the most of what seems to be their present environment, how to clean it of ugliness and sin, and causes them to magnify and to rejoice in all that is good, beautiful, and helpful in it.
Matter as a mode of mortal mind must continue to be considered until mortal mind is instructed out of belief in itself by Truth, and immortal Mind is found to be the only Mind and true substance. To the question, "Is it correct to say of material objects, that they are nothing and exist only in imagination?" our Leader replies in a very helpful way. Her answer, in part, is (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 87): "To take all earth's beauty into one gulp of vacuity and label beauty nothing, is ignorantly to caricature God's creation, which is unjust to human sense and to the divine realism. In our immature sense of spiritual things, let us say of the beauties of the sensuous universe: 'I love your promise; and shall know, some time, the spiritual reality and substance of form, light, and color, of what I now through you discern dimly; and knowing this, I shall be satisfied. Matter is, a frail conception of mortal mind; and mortal mind is a poorer representative of the beauty, grandeur, and glory of the immortal Mind.'" The great naturalist, John Muir, who was not a Christian Scientist, but whose uplifted consciousness glimpsed many realities, wrote: "A thousand Yellowstone wonders are calling, 'Look up and down and round about you!' And a multitude of still, small voices may be heard directing you to look through all this transient, shifting show of things called 'substantial' into the truly substantial, spiritual world whose forms flesh and wood, rock and water, air and sunshine, only veil and conceal, and to learn that here is heaven and the dwelling place of angels." (Our National Parks, p. 74.)
Ignorance, superstition, and hatred of truth are three of the greatest foes to the progress of the human race. Educators will agree that one purpose of education is to ferret out and destroy this triad of human enemies. This can be done by presenting the truth of being to individuals in a practical, logical, and winning way. Drugs, the surgeon's knife, war, human theories, creeds, dogmas, etc., will never uncover or eradicate these errors of thought and their all too familiar offspring, fear, sin, suffering, and death. Nothing but true education can possibly rid the human family of the hypnotic state of mind fundamental to these delusive errors. The religion taught and practiced by Christ Jesus offers the one true education that will remove from mortal mind all that is offensive and afflictive. It will uplift, purify, and harmonize the thinking of men until finally material sense with its false testimony will disappear and the spiritual, immortal senses will be found to testify truly of man and the universe as spiritual and perfect.
Because of the deceived and deceiving nature of evil, men, until instructed through true education, do not know evil for what it is, in truth, a lie. Ignorance, superstition, and hatred of truth masquerade as something either to be desired or to be feared — as intelligence, as good, as power. They champion matter as substance, as creator, as destroyer. Through ignorance, superstition, and hatred of truth, men accept the claims of evil as inherent in a person, a thing, or a place. They allow evil's promises of fleeting pleasures and threats of inescapable temptations, unavoidable suffering, and certain death to become their tormentors. This triad of errors claims to be able to perpetuate itself from generation to generation. With these errors firmly entrenched in what is held out to youth as education, human beings are in the plight spoken of by the great Teacher when he declared, "If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch." Nothing but Christ, Truth, can open the blind eyes, and so enable men to enjoy the presence of good at all times and in all circumstances. Pouring the truth of being into human consciousness "through flood-tides of Love" (Science and Health, p. 201), as Mrs. Eddy recommends, will reduce these falsities to their native nothingness and reveal the real man and the real universe of divine Love's creating.
Can you imagine any more harmful and afflictive state of ignorance than the belief that God is not the only Mind — that there are many minds each striving to rule; that man is separated from God, Spirit; that there is a place where God, Spirit, true substance, is not, and therefore a place where a perverted, material sense of substance, named matter, exists? True education will correct these lies of material sense, but until they are corrected, men will sin, suffer, wage war, and die in consonance with their false beliefs.
True education is not one-sided. It never exposes and destroys the false, the counterfeit manifestation of ignorance, by showing it to be unreal, without offering an improved belief or the truth itself to put in its place. There is nothing in true education to be afraid of; it betters every situation. Truth destroys a lie and retains its revealed position with blessings and benefits to all, even to those who mistakenly oppose Truth's appearing and deny its reality and power.
I once heard a man rather indignantly defend himself and his neighbors against the accusation that superstition is prevalent among mortals. He declared, "We in this community are not superstitious." Perhaps some of you feel the same way about yourselves. Let us examine our thinking.
Christian Science reveals matter and material objects and forms to be false, finite conceptions of the infinite — of divine Mind and its infinite ideas. Any reliance upon or trust in a false concept as real is superstition. To accept the material, unreal sense of creation in place of the spiritual, the real, and to worship or to fear it, is to have superstitious trust in the power of the unreal while ignoring the spiritual real as of little or no value. The belief that there is life, truth, intelligence, or substance in matter is a prevalent form of superstition, one that the human race pays for dearly. The wages of this form of superstition are "all the ills that flesh is heir to." It is clear that almost all of so-called education is built on superstition and men entertain superstition without realizing that they are doing so. As each one glimpses his own folly, he finds the means at hand in that very fact to begin to turn to Truth and away from superstitious error. Material culture, the piling up of wealth or fame, will never free men from superstition. True education alone supported by spiritual understanding can and will do this.
The declaration, "I do not hate Truth, and I do not believe that others do," allows how little we really know even of ourselves and our modes of thinking. Can anyone conscientiously believe that there is, in belief, no human hatred of Truth after he has stopped to consider the motives, ambitions, and aims governing men in their daily round of affairs? Christ Jesus said: "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Are not human beings, generally, serving mammon more consistently than Spirit? Are they not looking to matter for happiness, for sensation, for satisfaction, for completeness, for wealth, for power, for substance, for life, for intelligence? Paul warned us that "the carnal mind is enmity against God." Are not the subtle and the aggressive suggestions of the desirability and pleasure of a selfhood in matter the veritable human hatred of Truth and of men's true selfhood? Would not this mistaken, perverted sense of Spirit's children, made in His likeness, close and bolt the door against human enlightenment and progress?
Our Leader tells us (Science and Health, p. 242): "Self-love is more opaque than a solid body. In patient obedience to a patient God, let us labor to dissolve with the universal solvent of [divine] Love the adamant of error, — self-will, self-justification, and self-love, — which wars against spirituality and is the law of sin and death."
A blind self-satisfied acquiescence or absorption in a mortal, material selfhood is one of the subtlest and most depraved states of thought that hatred of Truth could possibly find in which to clothe itself. Such a state of mind blandly crucified the Saviour of mankind, persecuted the prophets and seers, and is doing in our own day every conceivable thing to misrepresent, pervert, and distort the spiritual ideas brought to light by the Holy Comforter. Nothing but Christian Science, true education, can arouse the human mind to see its mistake, its own falsity, and cause it to yield to Truth, the only real Mind.
In her spiritual interpretation or
explanation of the word "Elias," Mrs. Eddy says in part (Science and
Health, p. 585), "Christian Science, with which can be discerned the
spiritual fact of whatever the material senses behold." To bring to light
the spiritual fact about whatever the material senses behold, is the province
of true education. The spiritual understanding that everything that the
material senses behold is either a counterfeit or an opposite of some spiritual
fact is the key with which we may begin to unlock the treasures of reality and
to enjoy heaven here and now.
Human love in all its varied manifestations is revealed to be sometimes a close counterfeit and sometimes an absolute opposite of real, spiritual love. Christlike love is a quality of intelligence essential to the harmony of human relationships. No term has been less understood or more grossly misused than love. Selfishness, which enters into the human sense of love, is a "kingdom divided against itself." Its "desolation" is seen wherever the illusion of life, truth, intelligence, and substance in matter is cherished. Corporeal personality — one's own, and that of others — is the center and circumference of selfishness. Love, so called, that is possessive or wants to be possessed, that dominates or allows domination, that lusts for or desires mortal, material possession, is a counterfeit of real love. Such love is really based on matter and its so-called attraction, and so is a form of human hatred of Spirit. Love that reflects the divine, delights in giving and serving, whereas selfish love thinks only of getting and holding. Envy, jealousy, malice, resentment, sensitiveness, hurt feelings are not products or evidences of love. They are error's attempted reversal of love. John declared, "God is Love." Mrs. Eddy assures us that we may speak of the "love of [divine] Love." It must be clear to every thinker that God's love is true love, and that love, to be love, must measure up to His love. True education reveals and teaches spiritual love, reflected of Love divine, the only real Love, forever changeless, chaste, and beneficent.
Human approximations, counterfeits, and opposites of spiritual love must all give way to real love reflected from God. Failure to understand and to express real love to each other involves men in sin and suffering; the understanding of unselfish love and the practice of it solves problems of human relationship and confers the blessing of harmony on all concerned.
One Sunday morning when the subject of the Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson was "Love," a Sunday school teacher endeavored to show his class of older boys the marked difference between real love and the sensuous desires falsely referred to as love. In the class discussion it was brought out that real love, irrespective of the response it meets, remains constant and continues to be expressed in thought and deed; that true love faithfully persevered in overcomes every adverse obstacle; that no error can long withstand divine Love reflected in unselfish affection; that one who really loves in the divine way will uncover selfishness in himself and in others and will rebuke it "in true brotherliness, charitableness, and forgiveness," as Mrs. Eddy in the Manual of The Mother Church admonishes us to do (p. 40).
A few weeks later one of the boys sought out the teacher and related the following experience. "After our discussion in class about love, I thought about it a good deal, because there was a boy in the office where I work with whom I had had an uncomfortable relationship. From the beginning of my work there, we just seemed to disagree, and the breach kept on getting wider. After our class discussion, I saw that there was a lot of selfishness on my part and that only real love would heal it. I began to examine my thinking about the other boy and to correct it where it was at fault. I began to look for and to appreciate his good qualities. As I searched my own consciousness for the facts of his true selfhood, I found many things manifested in him that were desirable. I held on to them faithfully and magnified them instead of his weaknesses. One morning as I was going into the office, I got a hearty slap on the back and a cordial 'Good morning' from him. This gave me the opportunity I had been earnestly longing for. I made the most of his cordial greeting. We have learned to know each other better. Our differences have faded away. In this short time we have become good friends. To be able to prove in my own experience the power of unselfish love in overcoming selfishness and misunderstanding has brought to me a joy and peace that I have never felt before."
True education teaches temperance in all things. It commends naturalness and simplicity in deportment and in dress. Overindulgence in what the world calls the good things of life leads to satiety and disgust. Intemperance is a phase of self-love, of matter worship. It is sensation-seeking; it looks for satisfaction in matter, where no satisfaction can be found. Intemperance warps taste and dulls spiritual perception. It binds mortals to habit-forming drugs, alcohol, and tobacco and thus frustrates the free exercise of righteous and dispassionate judgment. Temperance, even in eating, should certainly commend itself to students of Life. Man does not live to eat. Although it may seem necessary at this present time to eat in order to live. Temperance in action requires that we do not demand of ourselves or others work which seems to be beyond reason. Leisure for spiritual growth will not be wasted in useless, even harmful physical exercise by one who is seeking a true education. I do not mean by this that physical exercise is always unscientific and harmful to men; I wish, instead, to point out the waste of time and energy in overindulgence in physical sport. There are men — you may know some of them — who cannot attend church because it interferes with their Sunday morning golf. Over-exercise on Sunday morning demands a long nap on Sunday afternoon, and thus passes one day in which one might have had leisure for repentance, rethinking, and opportunity for spiritual growth.
True education teaches that mental freedom under divine Principle can be found only through total abstinence from the use of narcotic drugs, alcohol, and tobacco. In order to keep his faculties sharp for learning from God and for serving mankind, Abraham Lincoln refused to befuddle his thinking by indulgence in alcoholic beverages. His pledge, written in 1846, adopted at that time and kept throughout his life, might well be signed by everyone who hopes to prove himself to be a really well-educated man or woman. The pledge reads: "Whereas, the use of intoxicating liquors as a beverage is productive of pauperism, degradation and crime; believing it is our duty to discourage that which produces more evil than good, we therefore pledge ourselves to abstain from the use of intoxicating liquors as a beverage." The one who called my attention to this pledge commented: "The 'whereas' means because its following statements are true. No one can deny that the use of intoxicating liquors as a beverage is productive of 'pauperism, degradation and crime.' It is equally evident that we should 'discourage that which produces more evil than good.' The logical, inevitable conclusion is that we should abstain from 'the use of intoxicating liquors as a beverage.'"
The Christian Science Publishing Society in Boston, Massachusetts, was conceived by Mrs. Eddy as an instrument through which to make more available to all mankind the truth about the nature of God, and His presence and power to heal and to save men from all evil. All of the Christian Science periodicals are published by our publishing society. They are, The Christian Science Journal, the official organ of The Christian Science Church, containing, besides informing articles and testimonies of healing, a list of recognized practitioners, and of the Churches of Christ, Scientist, with their public Reading Rooms; the Christian Science Sentinel, a weekly magazine of helpful religious articles and testimonies of proved cases of healing; The Herald of Christian Science, which makes available articles on Christian Science in six foreign languages with the original English text preceding each page of translation; a Bible Lessons Quarterly for use in studying our textbooks; and an international daily newspaper, The Christian Science Monitor, designed, as Mrs. Eddy stated, (Miscellany, p. 353), "to injure no man, but to bless all mankind."
All of these publications are performing their part as aids to the understanding of the great fundamental textbook for true education, the Bible. The Bible Lessons Quarterly, as its name suggests, offers a systematic, scientific study course of the meaning of the Bible under significant and interesting subjects such as God, Sacrament, Life, Truth, Love, Spirit, Soul, Mind, Christ Jesus, Man, Substance, Matter, Reality, etc. There subjects are presented in citations from the Bible and explanatory passages from Science and Health. The Lesson is designed to be read in its entirety every day. Many people have been healed through spiritual truths revealed in our publications and through devoted study of the daily Lesson-Sermon.
A child's teacher had written several notes to the little girl's parents, urging them to do something for her eyes, both of which seemed to turn inward. The child's father had no regular employment and was barely able to supply food for his family, working daily at whatever he could find to do. For this reason he neglected doing anything for the child until the condition became so bad that she could see out of only one eye. Again the teacher insisted, and the father took the child to an oculist, who, unable to fit satisfactory glasses, sent him to an eye specialist. The specialist took observations and made tests, deciding that an operation was necessary. This was on a Friday morning. He asked to see the child on Monday.
On Friday afternoon the father was doing some work at the home of a Christian Scientist. He had read a few copies of the Christian Science Sentinel, which she had given him previously, and that led him to ask her whether she thought that Christian Science could heal his daughter's eyes. She assured him that many people had been healed of even worse conditions when they turned wholeheartedly to God. She explained further that many had been healed through the understanding that came to them through reading. She lent him a copy of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, and gave him several numbers of the weekly periodical, the Christian Science Sentinel. The father, having no work on Saturday and Sunday, spent most of the time reading Christian Science literature to his daughter. Whenever he would stop reading, the little girl would say, "Daddy, read some more please."
On Sunday afternoon the father
stopped reading to do some necessary chores. The child picked up a Sentinel and
began reading to herself. Returning, the father noticed that she was reading
with her head in a natural position. Joyously he kept on reading to her and
having her read to him. Assurance that she had been healed came to the grateful
father, and this healing was confirmed by the specialist's examination on
Monday afternoon. Evidently greatly puzzled by the results of his tests, the
physician sent the girl to another specialist, whose investigations proved
conclusively that the child's vision was normal. She was given a written
statement to that effect and returned to school. This healing occurred more
than a year ago. The child is in school and is seeing normally.
Rising like mountain peaks along the generations, there have appeared from time to time among all peoples, men and women of exalted vision and ideals, revelators of spiritual truths which have been cherished by the wise and passed on to those who followed them. These personal revelators have borne the fruit of spiritual truth because of their great love of Truth and their burning desire to be of help to their fellowmen. Their unselfed love lifted them into a mental realm of clear thinking and spiritual power. Whether they realized it or not, they were being taught of the Christ to see and to proclaim the high possibilities of man as the reflection of God. Not evolution from mud to Mind, but revelation from divine Mind to quickened human consciousness is the process of improvement of mankind.
Mary Baker Eddy has her place among the personal revelators of Truth. She has made the largest contribution to the cause of true education since Jesus of Nazareth, the great Teacher, poured out to multitudes the fact of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. Speaking of her discovery, she says (Science and Health, p. 146) "Divine metaphysics is now reduced to a system, to a form comprehensible by and adapted to the thought of the age in which we live." The Science of Christ has been stated in its completeness; it needs only to be understood and practiced. That there will, of course, be great unfoldment in its demonstration is evident to any thinker. The Discoverer of Christian Science has said (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 84): "Centuries will intervene before the statement of the inexhaustible topics of Science and Health is sufficiently understood to be fully demonstrated."
We owe a great debt of gratitude to all personal revelators of Truth; first, for their good works, unmistakably the demonstration of their love for mankind, and second, for their clear and provable precepts. Let us be wise and take full advantage of the spiritual facts, so lovingly and painstakingly presented to us for our own good and that of others. Every personal revelator is a propitiation for the sins of others, that is, he furnishes a practical example of self-knowledge, repentance, and reformation. He is blazoning the path from sense to Soul for generations to come. Mrs. Eddy is the outstanding teacher of this age; her life exemplified divine truth applied to human affairs. She is the Leader of the Christian Science movement. Those whose progress is most marked in the demonstration of Christian Science are those who acknowledge Mrs. Eddy in thought and deed as their Leader. This is in no sense a worship of Mrs. Eddy's personality; it is merely giving credit to certain revealed and proved qualities and characteristics of spiritual intelligence where credit is due.
Through the redemptive influence of divine Love manifested in its law of reflection as presented in true education, business men and women, scholars, artists, salespeople, clerks, craftsmen, etc., have learned to realize more fully their true selfhood in the likeness of divine Mind. This has enabled them to manifest naturally more keenness, spontaneity, and originality in thought and act, and less fear, limitation, and fatigue. The understanding of Truth not only heals sickness, discord, and sorrow that have become objectified to the material senses, but it also acts as a law of prevention to any appearance of loss, inharmony, or imperfection of any kind by correcting the thought or motive which, if indulged, would sooner or later, produce them.
Man is the highest work of God. The Discoverer of Christian Science puts it (Science and Health, p. 518), "He [man] is lord of the belief in earth and heaven, — himself subordinate alone to his Maker."
Democracy is spoken of as "government of the people, by the people, and for the people," but it should never be forgotten for a moment that men are subordinate to their Maker; that they are here to manifest, to glorify Him. In a democracy, then, men are free to pattern their lives after their Maker and to select as their representatives in government those who have demonstrated in daily deeds the nearest approach to the qualities and characteristics of the ideal man. Through earnest striving to use the wisest, the purest and noblest in human experience, we draw nearer to the manifestation of righteous government. Expediency or mere appeal to numbers, with utter disregard for spiritual qualities, in an attempt to build up or to perpetuate personal or party leadership or domination, is a sign of moral defilement and is a departure from true government, wherein and whereby men, governed by their Maker, express the divine attribute of wisdom, justice, mercy, love, etc., in their administration of government.
True education reveals and teaches God's unerring government, of which just human government is our highest human concept. Human governments improve as correct concepts of God and man improve the individuals responsible for government. In a democracy that means you and me — every responsible citizen. We must all learn more of the truth about God and His government of man and use what we know daily.
Mary Baker Eddy wrote (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 61): "The education of the future will be instruction, in spiritual Science, against the material symbolic counterfeit sciences." And she also wrote (p. 252): "Christian Science is not only the acme of Science but the crown of Christianity. . . . It has one God. It demonstrates the divine Principle, rules and practice of the great healer and master of metaphysics, Jesus of Nazareth. It spiritualizes religion and restores its lost element, namely, healing the sick. It consecrates and inspires the teacher and preacher; . . . it encourages and empowers the business man and secures the success of honesty. It is . . . the wise man's spiritual dictionary; . . . yea, it is the pearl priceless whereof our Master said, if a man findeth, he goeth and selleth all that he hath and buyeth it."
[Delivered April 25, 1940, at Seventh Church of Christ, Scientist, 5318 Kenmore Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, and published in The Chicago Leader of Chicago, Dec. 20, 1940. A few very long paragraphs were broken up for this transcript.]