Christian
Science Proves
That
Life Has Both Meaning and Value (Summary)
Elisabeth
Carroll Scott, C.S.B., of Memphis, Tennessee
Member of the
Board of Lectureship of The Mother Church,
The First Church
of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts
"Are
you really satisfied with your life?" Mrs. Elisabeth Carroll Scott asked
an audience here on Sunday, March 24th, thus opening her subject:
"Christian Science Proves That Life Has Both Meaning and Value."
Currently
on an extended tour as a member of the Christian Science Board of Lectureship,
Mrs. Scott spoke in the edifice of First Church of Christ, Scientist, Coronado.
She was introduced by Mr. Jack Matlock, First Reader of this church.
The
lecturer spoke substantially as follows:
Have
you, ever evaluated your life as a whole? Are you satisfied with it? I doubt if
many are actually satisfied with their present experience of life. If you are
dissatisfied with your life, as you live it day by day, Christian Science,
given to the world by its Discoverer, Founder, and Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, can
transform your life. This Science will show you how to live, for it is the
Science of living. It brings to humanity the evidence that Life is God. It
comes into human experience, yours and mine, and changes that experience by its
transforming power. It enables those who accept it to prove for themselves the
practical truth of Jesus' statement (John 10:10), "I am come that they
might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."
Many
earnest Christians are disappointed with their present limited experience. They
are aware that their lives do not manifest the abundance of good promised by
Christ Jesus. They know that Jesus declared that his disciples should have
unlimited power — power over all the so-called forces of evil. Yet many of his
followers today are aware that they do not know how to exercise the power
promised by the Master. They are sometimes deeply stirred by their own
inability to heal the sick and sinning and they wonder why Jesus' promises are
not fulfilled for them.
If
you long for a mere fruitful life, if you desire to exercise the divine power
over evil promised by Jesus, turn to Christian Science. It will bring you a
stronger, purer, more fruitful life, for it will enable you to exercise divine
power. It will make your life a happy one. It will tell you that you do not
have to change life or to do one thing to it. You have only to understand it,
for, in order to express the abundant life promised by Christ Jesus, it is
essential that you understand what life is.
Christian
Science differentiates clearly between the real and the false, which parades as
real. It makes clear the distinction between the false concept of man as a
mortal, destined to die, and the man who, the Bible tells us, is created in
God's image and likeness. God is Spirit, Mind. He is incorporeal. His image of
Himself embodies His knowledge of Himself. We are, in our true being, the image
and likeness of God; hence we perceive that we must go beyond our human sense
of ourselves in order to find ourselves. One who gains knowledge and
understanding of God gains knowledge of his real self, God's expression. Only
he who finds himself in the presence of God finds his true selfhood. Mrs. Eddy
says in one of her Messages to The Mother Church (Message for 1901, p. 5),
"We are not transcendentalists to the extent of extinguishing anything
that is real, good, or true; for God arid man in divine Science, or the logic
of Truth, are coexistent and eternal, and the nature of God must be seen in man,
who is His eternal image and likeness."
God
is Life and man is Life's expression. Man is eternally alive before God.
Because Jesus knew this, he raised the dead. He knew that Life is all-powerful,
ever present; he knew that Life can never be destroyed, conquered, or dispelled
and he proved this for himself and for others. Because God is Life and man
possesses, by reflection, every quality of God, man expresses vitality,
activity, immortality.
[Delivered
Mar. 24, 1957, at First Church of Christ, Scientist, Coronado, California, and
published in The Coronado Eagle and Journal of Coronado, California, Mar. 28,
1957.]