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The Bulletin Board is for gratitude for Christian Science and the Church, as well as timely excerpts from the Bible, the works of Mrs. Eddy, and the early workers that help and encourage. We are very grateful for all posts that conform to these guidelines, but will edit or remove anything that the Practitioners feel is not in complete accord with pure Christian Science or in any way disrespectful of it.
We also ask that you keep your postings as concise as possible. If you quote the Bible, please use The King James Version, as this is what Mrs. Eddy used. Thank you!
From CS Journal, July 1886, excerpted from “Church and Association” article:
SUMMER COMMUNION SERVICE –
At the close of Mr. Gill’s sermon, the beloved pastor of the church, Mrs. Eddy, administered the sacrament, after she had received into fellowship those who presented themselves for membership.
Happy indeed are those who receive the Right Hand of Welcome in Divine Love from such a pastor as this! She who walks so close to God may well bid others into the wealth of His riches and His power. Self-consecration becomes a joy in itself, when such rewards as she has earned burst upon the vision. She welcomes us to a communion with Spirit, that shall bring as its result a regeneration of ourselves, making us enter into communication with Jesus, who demonstrated the entireness of God, the supremacy of Spirit, and the nothingness of matter.
This communion can come only by regeneration, by the baptism of Spirit, as taught through Christian Science. This baptism with fire brings out the true odor of divinity, establishing the omnipresence of God, imparted to man in healing the sick by salvation from sin, and triumphing over a sense of (dead and buried) understanding, and revealing the Comforter which leadeth into peace.
This it is to eat the bread. What is the Bread of Christian Science? It is the strength and nutriment that God gives to the fainting heart and faltering footsteps, in the awful hours of human helplessness; yea! that power He imparts, by which we gain a recognition of Himself,—that recognition which is never grasped by intellect, but by the humble heart.
What is the Cup of Christian Science? It is that cup which is drank in affliction. It is the exhilaration of joy, after the triumph over temptation. It is the fruit of that vine of which the Father is the husbandman. It is that wine-press which each child of God must tread alone,—that wine-press whose seeds of sin must be crushed, and which the weary feet may not leave till each seed is in itself crushed,—that out of this essence God shall distil a new creature, which shall bear witness of Himself as the Love which heals.
We are bidden, as members of this church, to partake of the silent sacrament, to come to this table of His preparing with thanksgiving. To us is spoken the command, “My child, give me thy heart;” while it is ours to answer:
Search me, oh God, and know my heart;
Try me and know my thoughts;
And see if there be any wicked way in me.
“But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” (II Corinthians 4:3-4)
To the human mind, the message of the Christian Science angel is dark and fearful, triggering Armageddon-like chemicalization in a world unready and unwilling to receive it; it “arouses the ‘seven thunders’ of evil, and stirs their latent forces to utter the full diapason of secret tones. Then is the power of Truth demonstrated, — made manifest in the destruction of error.” (Key to the Scriptures by Mrs. Eddy, p. 559)
7 is the number of completeness. Thus, the 7 thunders are symbolic of the best that error can do in warring against the gospel or “good news” that sin, disease, and death are, in truth, unreal. The anti-gospel or anti-good-news is both the original lie and the primordial father of it; ever-devising new ways to thunder forth in pounding, mesmeric insistence that life on earth is short, tragic, and filled with sin, disease, and death.
Yet, in spite of this, the 7 thunders are forbidden to express themselves, since error is by nature self-cancelling, with no voice to utter it, no pen to write it, no ear to hear it, no reader to read it, absolutely no means of communicating its blustering, non-existent news. “And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not.” (Revelation 10:4)
Relative to the present day and this week’s Bible lesson, Mrs. Eddy has unmasked the unreality underlying the contagion of mass-hysteria that erupts from time to time in history: “Human fear of miasma would load with disease the air of Eden, and weigh down mankind with superimposed and conjectural evils. Mortal mind is the worst foe of the body, while divine Mind is its best friend.” (Science and Health, p. 176)
A closing thought from Genesis 45: Joseph never uttered a word to anyone in Egypt about his past mistreatment.
“And [it] was heard in Pharaoh’s house, saying, Joseph’s brethren are come: and it pleased Pharaoh well, and his servants . . . And [Pharaoh told Joseph,] take your father and your households, and come unto me: and I will give you the good of the land of Egypt, and ye shall eat the fat of the land . . Also regard not your stuff; for the good of all the land of Egypt is your’s . . . ”
In short, Pharaoh felt it was an honor to settle all of Joseph’s relatives — including his brothers — on the choicest land in all Egypt. This means that Joseph never told anyone in Egypt about the past treachery of his brothers against him, thereby protecting his brothers from the wrath of Pharaoh that surely would have resulted had he known. . Joseph had come out of a fiery furnace without even the “smell of the fire” upon him! (Daniel 3:27).
Thanks so much for the additional information! Please note that earlier today, the opening sentence of the article (just after the Isaiah quotation) was omitted during the copy/paste process. This is corrected and the article is now complete.
[“Wonderfully Sustained by Truth” Part 2 of 2]
It was suggested that each of us say aloud something Scientific. My husband repeated the Scientific Statement of Being (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. p. 464). [Mr. Christie] repeated those dear consoling words of our Leader, “Peace, be still! our Father is at the helm.” Then I repeated the first verse of the ninety-first Psalm: “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty,” and I was followed by our little one, who, throughout it all had been so courageous and brave, with the first verse of our Mother’s beautiful poem “Satisfied:”—
It matters not,
What be thy lot
So Love doth guide;
For storm or shine—
Pure peace is thine—
What’er betide.
We then silently tried to realize God’s Allness and to know that “He holds the wind in His fist.”
About eleven o’clock Nezzell noticed that the water was receding, and in some unforeseen way we found a lamp and some dry matches and were thus enabled to see.
Our experience lasted from five o’clock in the afternoon until half past two the next morning. Most of that time we were in the water. We never experienced the slightest trouble of any kind. Once, while standing on the stove, Nezzell (who was very thinly dressed) complained of being cold. Mr. [Christie], without knowing how it got there or where it came from, reached out and found a coat of his floating around on something. It proved to be a heavy one, and although soaked with water, kept her warm nicely. Again, when I seemed to be chilled, he was able to reach a pair of portières, which served to keep us warm, wet as they were.
But not until we were able to leave our house did we realize how wonderfully we had been protected and how much we had to be thankful for. We found that our house had floated a distance of two squares, and upon going around to where it had stood a realization of the awful destruction that had been wrought dawned upon us, for where, that afternoon, we had looked out upon hundreds of pretty homes in front of us, was now a barren waste, the houses were piled up in mountains of wreckage all around us, while our house had been carried to the highest part of the highest street in the neighborhood and there it stood perfectly intact, out of harm’s way from the floating debris which would surely have demolished it had we not gone when we did. Surely did we feel grateful that we had placed our safety in our Father’s hands with the feeling that “not my will, but Thine, be done,” knowing full well that “He doeth all things well.”
We attribute our safety entirely to Christian Science, and we are striving to show our gratitude to our Leader by following more closely in her footsteps, learning of her greater humility, deeper love, and broader charity for all mankind.
-— Mary E. Christie, Galveston, Tex.
Thank you . . . the subject of “faith in drugs” and the history of that faith, in every age, repeatedly confirms the proverb: “there is nothing new under the sun.”
TWO VIEWS OF BODY – SENSE’S OR SOUL’S
Excerpt, Science and Health, 1875 edition, p. 41:
The most scientific man of whom we have any record, Jesus of Nazareth, called the mortal body that we suppose substance, “ghost”; and his body that others called spirit, “flesh and bones”; showing that substance to his understanding was the deathless Principle that embraces man and is forever inseparable from Soul. But the Jews, strongly material, called the real idea of God, even the body that was not matter, a spirit or ghost; and the body they laid in a sepulchre, substance. By this error they lost logic and Truth, therefore lost sight of Jesus at the very moment when he presented more than ever the real idea of God, and because of this belief, the idea was taken from them. The higher he wrought the problem of being through spiritual science, the more odious he became to the materialistic world that understood him not. Life, Intelligence and substance to them were matter, but to him they were God, the Truth of man; therefore he reckoned himself not matter but Spirit; not sense, but Soul. Said he, “Spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have,” but this he said three days after his burial, before relinquishing the belief of substance-matter; after that, his disciples even could not see him.
(Please let me know if this procedure doesn’t work for you) –
> https://mbepapers.org/
> Click on “Access the Papers” (button at center of page)
> Enter “Key to Job” (with quotation marks) in the Search field (upper right-hand corner)
> Click on “This man began to build (Unfinished and Finished)” (this is the sermon that includes the “Key to Job”)
PLEASURES OF SENSE vs. PANGS OF SENSE
“In his mortal agonies, Job’s wife tempted him, saying: ‘Dost thou still retain thine integrity? Curse God and die,’ but Job resisted this temptation of evil and rebuked his wife. Hereby we learn that Adam’s estate in error — where the senses were supposed to supply him only pleasure — was more subtle than the pains of sense to mislead mortals. [Adam] yielded to the temptations of the flesh and thereby lost a sense of harmony; he had never possessed its science, while through the pangs of sense Job was instructed and made able to resist the temptations of evil.” (Sermon, “Key to Job”, Mary Baker Eddy, 1887.)
“Meekly we kneel at our Master’s feet, for even a crumb that falleth from his table. We are hungry for Love, for the white-winged charity that heals and saves; we are tired of theoretic husks, — as tired as was the prodigal son of the carobs which he shared with the swine, to whom he fed that wholesome but unattractive food” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 369:19–24).
“‘The earth brought forth food for man’s use.’ Do not say there is no intelligence in food, but instead, strive for the intelligence that sees what both earth and food are. Adhere to the statement that divine intelligence directs man, and governed by it, eats, sleeps, walks, and talks harmoniously” (Collectanea, p. 60).
The Bible teaches that living on earth is successful to the extent I reject or turn off wrong thinking and give place to right thinking. The wrong-thinking side of the scales of thought must always be lighter than the right-thinking side, and it should be growing lighter, more insubstantial, every moment, every day.
To the extent that I engage in right thinking, I have attained that state of being which Mrs. Eddy described — in very plain terms — in an 1886 edition of Science and Health.
“At present, we know not fully what we are, but this is certain, that we shall be Love, Life, and Truth when we understand them.”
Wrong thinking is like the mist or fog that blocks the sun’s ray while right thinking is like the sun’s ray itself. These two cannot in the least mingle with one another, ever. “The carnal mind is enmity with God” (Rom. 8:7).
The Bible designates right thinking as “God”, “the Word” (“Logos”), “the Spirit of Truth”, etc., and wrong thinking as “the adversary”, “the accuser”, “satan”, a non-existent talking serpent, etc. These two are more distant from one another than east is from west, or as somethingness is from nothingness..
To Christ Jesus as the Son of man, wrong thinking was felt as something immediately discordant, and he never failed to correct it, to rebuke it, to cast it out — instantly and forcefully — as something not his own.
God grant that I be as dedicated to right thinking and as sensitive to wrong thoughts as Christ Jesus was.
“Thy Will Be Done”
Around A.D. 70, the church at Corinth was once again in disharmony as in previous days when Paul composed his two epistles to restore them. Now it was Clement’s turn, one of the earliest church fathers, to write. His first letter contains a magnificent exhortation urging the congregation to reflect the harmony omnipresent in God’s creation. This excerpt is a relevant “treatment” for any discordant condition on earth today, especially any group or nation in conflict with itself:
Let us consider and behold with the eyes of our understanding his long-suffering will; and think how gentle and patient he is towards his whole creation.
The heavens moving by his appointment, are subject to him in peace.
Day and night accomplish the courses that he has allotted unto them, not disturbing one another.
The sun and moon, and all the several companies and constellations of the stars, run the courses that he has appointed to them in concord, without departing in the least from them.
The fruitful earth yields its food plentifully in due season both to man and beast, and to all animals that are upon it, according to his will; not disputing, nor altering any thing of what was ordered by him.
So also the unfathomable and unsearchable floods of the deep, are kept in by his command;
And the conflux of the vast sea, being brought together by his order into its several collections, passes not the bounds that he has set to it;
But as he appointed it, so it remains. For he said, Hitherto shalt thou come, and thy floods shall be broken within thee.
The ocean, unpassable to mankind, and the worlds that are beyond it, are governed by the same commands of their great master.
Spring and summer, autumn and winter, give place peaceably to each other.
The several quarters of the winds fulfil their work in their seasons, without offending one another.
The ever-flowing fountains, made both for pleasure and health, never fail to reach out their breasts to support the life of men.
Even the smallest creatures live together in peace and concord with each other.
All these has the Great Creator and Lord of all, commanded to observe peace and concord; being good to all.
But especially to us who flee to his mercy through our Lord Jesus Christ; to whom be glory and majesty for ever and ever. Amen.
“[T]he truth of Christian Science [is,] namely, that man’s harmony is no more to be invaded than the rhythm of the universe” (Retrospection and Introspection, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 61).
Supplanting flesh with Spirit, sense with Soul: “Healing is the lessening of the material sense of body” (Laura Sargent).
“That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6).
This saying may be expressed metaphysically: “That which is born of nonexistence is nonexistent and that which is born of Spirit is Spirit” (note the capital S). Compare the King James Version translators’ rendering of the first letter of the word “spirit” in John 3:6 with Mrs. Eddy’s direct and bold statement on page 77 of the f1rst edition of Science and Health: “The final understanding that we are Spirit must come.” An appropriate metaphor for this affirmation of absolute oneness is the sun and the rays emanating from it. Thus, originating from Spirit, I express, through and through, the nature of Spirit, my one and only origin, just as a ray originating from the sun expresses, through and through, the nature of the sun only. And, as the sun is greater than any of its rays, so Jesus said, “My Father is greater than I.”
Again in the unveiled first edition, Mrs. Eddy insists: “That we are Spirit and Spirit is God, is undeniably true…” (page 155). And yet again: “We are Soul, Spirit and not matter…” (page 169). Likewise, the third edition, volume 2, affirms on page 58, “At present we know not what we are, but this is certain, that we shall be Love, Life and Truth.”
In Mrs. Eddy’s study of Job, he is healed, “born again”, by cursing the day (that is, the finite calendar day) he was born of materiality, blotting out the false sense of material birth. Job finally arrives at the understanding that he had never been born of the flesh to begin with, as a child of time, his true being having been begotten of Spirit, as a child of eternity.
“One day Mrs. Eddy touched Adam Dickey’s hand with her finger and asked him, ‘What is this?’ He replied, ‘Matter.’ She said, ‘It is not; it is Spirit.’ Then another time she looked at him and said, ‘You are Spirit.’ And he said, ‘No, Mother, I am spiritual.’ She said in a very emphatic way, ‘You are Spirit.’ And he said, ‘Mother, I do not see that.’ She said, ‘You are Spirit,’ the third time, but he said he could not see it. When he was going to his room he met Mrs. Sargent and told her of the conversation with Mrs. Eddy and she said, ‘Oh, Mr. Dickey, why did you say that! Mother was trying to give you her highest teaching'” (Collectanea).
The word “truth” is related to the same word from which “trust” and “troth” (as is “betroth”) are derived; in modern English that word is “tree”. Thus, the ancient wordsmiths likened truth to the sturdiness, endurance, and faithfulness of a trusty oak.
TWO KINDS OF EVIDENCE
The word “evidence” is derived from the Latin evidentia, from video, “to see.”
The word “idolatry” is derived from the Greek word meaning “thing seen.”
Mrs. Eddy’s allegory, “The Trial” (SH 430-442), deals with attorneys battling over 2 kinds of evidence, both sides vehemently contradicting each other: mind versus Mind, the former presenting evidence of things seen and the latter presenting evidence of things not seen, also identified in Hebrews 11:1 as “the substance of things hoped for” or “faith.”
At the beginning of the trial, in the lower court of the senses, the accused (a critically sick patient) allows the prosecuting attorneys and a flood of witnesses to dominate the court — without a single “I object!”
During Hitler’s reign of terror, the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda successfully employed the technique of “the Big Lie” — the mesmeric repeating of a self-evident falsehood via party, press, and pulpit: radio broadcasts, newspapers, motion pictures, billboards, public notices, speeches, sermons, tracts and handouts, educational materials for children and young adults, with great urgency and emotional force — along with government censorship of any opposing viewpoints — all for the purposes of mass-“enlightenment”, which was nothing more than mind-control.
In the court of lower consciousness, the show-trial ends with a conviction — the death penalty! — without a peep of protest from the attorney-deprived convict, paralyzed, speechless with mind-monopolizing fear.
But on appeal, as he finally comes to his spiritual senses, the convict allows his attorney, Christian Science, to hold court and present evidence in the Supreme Court of Spirit, ultimately proving that the all the lower court’s “evidence” gathered by the physical senses amounted to nothing but a Big Lie.
At this point, the evil accusers of the lower court of mind cry out, “[declaring] that Christian Science was overthrowing the judicial proceedings of a regularly constituted court” (SH 437:25), but the higher court of Mind quickly dismisses this contempt-of-court claim.
At last, the lower court of sense and all its occupants are silenced, vanquished, dispersed like a wisp of smoke in a windstorm. And one Mind prevails.
More than ever before, Christian Scientists must refuse to allow thoughts from the lower court to kick Science out of their thought-life! “Thought passes from God to man” and only from God to man, not vice versa, “that man may have audience with Spirit” alone, not with fear, but with that which casts out fear, “the divine Principle, Love, which destroys all error.” (SH 284:30, 15:11)
Therefore, with the flaming sword of the Word of God protecting the Tree of Life in every direction, it’s time, as never before, to strike at the head of the phantom paper dragon of the Apocalypse that “deceiveth the whole world” (Rev. 12:9); time to turn whatever consciousness remains of its “reality” into dust and ashes!
“Thought passes from God to man, but neither sensation nor report goes from material body to Mind. The intercommunication is always from God to His idea, man.” (SH 284:30–32, emphasis added.)
“And great multitudes were gathered together unto him….And he spake many things unto them in parables….And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.” (Matt. 13: 2-3, 10-11.)
Evidently, Jesus did not feel as free to speak to the multitudes of Matthew 13 as he did to those in chapters 5-7, in which he speaks more directly (the Sermon on the Mount). “Bird of a feather flock together,” and, as a whole, the great multitudes of Matthew 13 were so matter-minded that they were unable to receive the thoughts that pass from God to man except in an obscure way.
On my journey “uphill all the way”, God grant that I resist, subdue, and silence matter-mind more with each step, so that, on each level of attainment, I may always be open to all the angel-thoughts waiting for me there.
“The Waters Will Be Pacified, And Christ Will Command The Wave.”
(SH 570 : 21.)
“From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” (Psalm 61:2, the prayer of David, who, far from home, was tempted to feel unsafe from enemies within and without.)
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, was faced with multiple crises occurring simultaneously. In his famous soliloquy, Hamlet expresses indecision whether “to take arms against a sea of troubles” or simply give up. Alexander Pope likened this sea of troubles to flood-waters besieging the walls of a city.
At the climax of the exodus from Egypt, Moses had to face 3 major problems occurring all at once: 1.) the army of Pharaoh pursuing him, 2.) the defenseless, terrified people violently protesting against Moses, doubting and denouncing his whole exit plan, and 3.) the presence of the Red Sea stopping their flight.
Against all such discord and instability, God remains immovable, more unchangeable than a tuning fork that maintains its pitch every moment, day by day.
From the human standpoint (which Is sinking sand), Moses could not possibly take up arms against the sea of compound troubles threatening him from every direction. But, placing his trust in the “Rock [substance] that is higher than” himself — something more concrete than the most dense of material solids — he was able to stand on infinitely higher ground, infinitely more substantial than the convulsive, rancorous waters clamoring for his attention, tempting him to take his eyes off God and thereby fail in his mission.
Thus Truth engrounds me on the rock,
Upon Life’s shore,
‘Gainst which the winds and waves can shock,
Oh, nevermore!
(Mary Baker Eddy, Hymn 254)
“Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.” (Zech. 4:6.) Thus shall Christian Scientists becalm the tempestuous waters spewed forth from the mouth of the illusory, thrashing serpent of mortal mind and transform them into a sea of glass, mirroring the eternal stability of the substance of Spirit.
From Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary:
“[1 Samuel] 30:1-6 – When we go abroad in the way of our duty, we may comfortably hope that God will take care of our families in our absence, but not otherwise. If, when we come off a journey, we find our abode in peace, and not laid waste, as David here found his, let the Lord be praised for it. David’s men murmured against him. Great faith must expect such severe trials. But, observe, that David was brought thus low, only just before he was raised to the throne. When things are at the worst with the church and people of God, then they begin to mend. David encouraged himself in the Lord his God. His men fretted at their loss, the soul of the people was bitter; their own discontent and impatience added to the affliction and misery. But David bore it better, though he had more reason than any of them to lament it. They gave liberty to their passions, but he set his graces to work; and while they dispirited each other, he, by encouraging himself in God, kept his spirit calm. Those who have taken the Lord for their God, may take encouragement from him in the worst times.” (Emphasis added.)
So important!
Exodus 23: “Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.”
“ANGELS. God’s thoughts passing to man; spiritual intuitions, pure and perfect; the inspiration of goodness, purity, and immortality, counteracting all evil, sensuality, and mortality” (SH, p. 581)
“WILDERNESS … the vestibule in which a material sense of things disappears, and spiritual sense unfolds the great facts of existence.” (SH 597)
When faced with any difficulty in my life, before I stretch forth a human-will-inspired hand to steady the ark — before taking any action or speaking any word — I must listen to the angel of God . I must “[w]ait patiently for divine Love to move upon the waters of mortal mind, and form the perfect concept.” (SH 454)
Immortal Mind has the answer, a place prepared for me, but I must wait upon God long and often enough to acquaint myself with the Angel of His presence.
Excerpts from “His Angel” (CS Sentinel, May, 1909), by Blanche Hersey Hogue:
“[T]he things required of him who would follow it [the angel of Exodus 23], and the happy results of obedience to it, are clearly stated. God sends His angel to each receptive heart. His highest idea of good then goes before the mortal, keeping him, bringing him into the prepared place.”
“When the promise reads to the student that God will send a pure and perfect spiritual intuition to keep him in the way, and to bring him into the place which God has prepared, the mental process of spiritual guidance can be comprehended. When it is seen that an angel is not an etherealized person, but a right idea, and that such right idea can become a dominating influence in the mind of the individual who cherishes it, mortals need no longer grope in doubt concerning divine help, for they learn that the angel of one’s highest sense of good lies within, not without, the borderland of one’s own thinking, and consequently is an ever-available help in every problem of life. This angel, admitted, understood, and obeyed, fosters the right living which naturally follows right thinking; and so salvation can begin today, and the place which God has prepared can be, in a degree, a present possession.”
“The mortal is admonished to ‘beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions.’ Truly, every would-be Christian has long since learned that his highest ideal has no pardon for the unworthy and the base, but holds him unwaveringly to his highest and best performance! ‘For my name is in him,’ continues the record,—the seal of divinity marking every right idea as its own, declaring every pure and perfect thought God’s offspring! Then the promise follows, the reward of obedience: ‘But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries.’ By simple obedience to the highest monitor of heart and conscience, right purpose and endeavor are strengthened, and every Christian warrior may find himself equipped for the battle with the hosts of self, wherein God’s angel is indeed an adversary unto all the foes of righteous manhood.” (Emphasis added}
The Cherokee Parable of the Two Wolves fits in well with this discussion.
Also, this excerpt from “By Prayer and Fasting”, CS Sentinel article, July, 1943, by Ruth W. Herwood:
“Jesus responded, ‘Bring him hither to me.’ … It was as if he had said, Bring him to where it is known that Spirit is the only power —to the understanding that man is spiritual, not material.
“It was evident that in no other way than by the understanding and recognition of man’s perfection could this child be saved. Jesus’ explanation to his disciples of their failure, ‘This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting,’ showed the necessity of fasting from any material suggestion of a personal self needing to be healed, and the holy desire to do the will of the Father, divine Spirit. The pure reflection of God. Mind, could see only the pure image of Love.
“It is significant that the healing of this child came after Christ Jesus had returned from that sacred mountain-top experience known as the ‘transfiguration.’ Before that pure elevation of thought, disease could have no witness, and so melted away into its own nothingness.
[The article then quotes p. 222 of Mrs. Eddy’s Miscellany, and her interpretation of prayer and fasting as “refraining from admitting the claims of the senses.”]
“This interpretation of Jesus’ words by our Leader shows plainly the requirement of absolute purity of thought as a requisite for healing.
“Prayer and fasting bring the pure recognition of the Christ. We find ourselves in ‘the secret place of the most High,’ where Christ dwells forever with the Father. The realization that the divine image and likeness ceaselessly beholds the face of God is the prayer which heals. Such prayer demands fasting from the illusion of the senses. It is the Christ-consciousness which heals and saves.”
Excerpts from Orison Swett Marden’s masterwork, Pushing to the Front:
“James Watt, I never saw such an idle young fellow as you are,” said his grandmother; “do take a book and employ yourself usefully. For the last half-hour you have not spoken a single word. Do you know what you have been doing all this time? Why, you have taken off and replaced, and taken off again, the teapot lid, and you have held alternately in the steam, first a saucer and then a spoon, and you have busied yourself in examining and, collecting together the little drops formed by the condensation of the steam on the surface of the china and the silver. Now, are you not ashamed to waste your time in this disgraceful manner?” The world has certainly gained much through the old lady’s failure to tell James how he could employ his time to better advantage!
Frederick the Great was terribly abused because he had a passion for art and music and did not care for military drill. His father hated the fine arts and imprisoned him. He even contemplated killing his son, but his own death placed Frederick on the throne at the age of twenty-eight. This boy, who, because he loved art and music, was thought good for nothing, made Prussia one of the greatest nations of Europe.
Ignorant parents compelled the boy Arkwright to become a barber’s apprentice, but Nature had locked up in his brain a cunning device destined to bless humanity and to do the drudgery of millions of England’s poor; so he must needs say “hands off” even to his parents, as Christ said to his mother, “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” (Emphasis added.)
Galileo was set apart for a physician, but when compelled to study anatomy and physiology, he would hide his Euclid and Archimedes and stealthily work out the abstruse problems. He was only eighteen when he discovered the principle of the pendulum in a lamp left swinging in the cathedral at Pisa. He invented both the microscope and telescope, enlarging knowledge of the vast and minute alike.
The parents of Michael Angelo had declared that no son of theirs should ever follow the discreditable profession of an artist, and even punished him for covering the walls and furniture with sketches; but the fire burning in his breast was kindled by the Divine Artist, and would not let him rest until he had immortalized himself in the architecture of St. Peter’s, in the marble of his Moses, and on the walls of the Sistine Chapel.
Pascal’s father determined that his son should teach the dead languages, but the voice of mathematics drowned every other call, haunting the boy until he laid aside his grammar for Euclid.
The father of Joshua Reynolds rebuked his son for drawing pictures, and wrote on one: “Done by Joshua out of pure idleness.” Yet this “idle boy” became one of the founders of the Royal Academy.
Turner was intended for a barber in Maiden Lane, but became the greatest landscape-painter of modern times.
Schiller was sent to study surgery in the military school at Stuttgart, but in secret he produced his first play, “The Robbers,” the first performance of which he had to witness in disguise. The irksomeness of his prison-like school so galled him, and his longing for authorship so allured him, that he ventured, penniless, into the inhospitable world of letters. A kind lady aided him, and soon he produced the two splendid dramas which made him immortal.
The physician Handel wished his son to become a lawyer, and so tried to discourage his fondness for music. But the boy got an old spinet and practiced on it secretly in a hayloft. When the doctor visited a brother in the service of the Duke of Weisenfelds, he took his son with him. The boy wandered unobserved to the organ in a chapel, and soon had a private concert under full blast. The duke happened to hear the performance, and wondered who could possibly combine so much melody with so much evident unfamiliarity with the instrument. The boy was brought before him, and the duke, instead of blaming him for disturbing the organ, praised his performance, and persuaded Dr. Handel to let his son follow his bent.
“Jonathan,” said Mr. Chase, when his son told of having nearly fitted himself for college, “thou shalt go down to the machine-shop on Monday morning.” It was many years before Jonathan escaped from the shop, to work his way up to the position of a man of great influence as a United States Senator from Rhode Island.
A parent might just as well decide that the magnetic needle will point to Venus or Jupiter without trying it, as to decide what profession his son shall adopt.
Wellington was considered a dunce by his mother. At Eton he was called dull, idle, slow, and was about the last boy in school of whom anything was expected. He showed no talent, and had no desire to enter the army. His industry and perseverance were his only redeeming characteristics in the eyes of his parents and teachers. But at forty-six he had defeated the greatest general living, except himself.
Give every boy and girl a fair chance and reasonable encouragement, and do not condemn them because of even a large degree of downright stupidity; for many so-called good-for-nothing boys, blockheads, numskulls, dullards, or dunces, were only boys out of their places, round boys forced into square holes.
THE SCIENTIFIC RENDERING OF “LEAD ME NOT INTO TEMPTATION” –
(A handwritten letter from Mary Baker Eddy to James Neal, January 28, 1897, regarding the duties of a CS practitioner):
My beloved Student,
Your letter is my best New Year’s gift. I had felt for some time the fitness you possess for healing. I knew it when you were a member of my College class. It looked a waste of your talents to have you in a counting room. Now, thank God, I have at least one student in Boston that promises to be a Healer such I have long waited and hoped to see. Oh may the Love that looks on you and all guide your every thought and act up to the impersonal, spiritual model that is the only ideal — and constitutes the only scientific Healer.
To this glorious end I ask you to still press on, and have no other ambition or aim. A real scientific Healer is the highest position attainable in this sphere of being. Its altitude is far above a Teacher or preacher; it includes all that is divinely high and holy. Darling James, leave behind all else and strive for this great achievement. Mother sighs to see how much her students need this attainment and longs to live to see one Christian Scientist attain it. Your aid to reach this goal is spiritualization. To achieve this you must have one God, one affection, one way, one Mind. Society, flattery, popularity are temptations in your pursuit of growth spiritual. Avoid them as much as in you lies. Pray daily, never miss praying, no matter how often: “Lead me not into temptation,” — scientifically rendered, — Lead me not to lose sight of strict purity, clean pure thoughts; let all my thoughts and aims be high, unselfish, charitable, meek, — spiritually minded. [Emphasis added.] With this altitude of thought, your mind is losing materiality and gaining spirituality, and this is the state of mind that heals the sick. My new book will do you much good. Do not purchase one, Mother wants to give you one. I welcome you into the sanctum of my fold. God bless you.
Your loving Teacher,
MB Eddy
The text of this letter is featured in Lyman P. Powell’s Mary Baker Eddy: A Life Size Portrait.
“George Müller cared for 10,000 orphaned children in Bristol during the 19th Century. He never made appeals for money, trusting implicitly in God, he received £1,500,000 in answer to prayer. At present day prices, this would be well over £86,000,000.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWZIkGbC3f0 – “The Legacy of George Müller”
https://www.mullers.org/ – inspiring website! Lots of features, also has
an interactive area for children.
“False sense has entered into every human concept, aspiration, and activity: hence every department of human thought awaits the redemptive coming of the divine idea. All things must be judged at the bar of unvarying and eternal Truth, be seen and known for what they are as contrasted with what they seem. This is ‘the judgment-seat of Christ,’ before which the tares of error are separated from the wheat of Truth. The true interpreter of history and of life is thus recognized as a prophet, an ambassador of God. He subjects every event, phenomenon, and belief to the test of Truth. This is the scientific order; it always honors the Principle of being, and therefore ‘the gates of hell’ cannot prevail against its determinations. Referring to the rule of this Christ-idea in the spiritualized consciousness. Christ Jesus said, ‘Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’ This binding and loosing is not a making or shaping of facts; it is a discovery of facts, an interpretation of phenomena, through the recognition and demonstration of the truth; and according to Christ Jesus own words this royal prerogative pertains to his every disciple.” — John B. Willis article on “Father, Save Me From This Hour,” CS Journal, 4-19-1910
“To the Christian Scientist the wondrous words of the Master, spoken not only to Peter but to all his disciples, “Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven,” have a vital present significance. He has come to know that the Mind ‘which was also in Christ Jesus,’ and which was mighty in healing the sick and sinful, is no less potent today when expressed understandingly by him who is of ‘a humble and contrite heart.’ Through that spiritual intuition which accepts its high calling and demonstrates its verity, the ‘thus saith the Lord’ of Christian Science is again declared with power, and the wonder is again repeated that on earth man may speak ‘as one having authority.'” — John B. Willis article: “A QUESTION OF AUTHORITY,” CS Sentinel, 9-9-1911
See also 2 other John Willis articles discussing Matthew 16:19 —
“THE WAYSHOWER”. CS Sentinel, 8-16-1913
“PERSONALITY AND POWER”, CS Sentinel, 5-13-1916
Also: “GOD’S WORK NOT REVERSIBLE”, Ernest C. Moses . CS Journal, 6-30-1912 – very thorough, trenchant, but too long to quote here.)
“BUT IF YE HAD KNOWN”
“But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless.”
Mrs. Eddy’s unpublished sermon based on Matthew 12:7 quoted above harmonizes completely with Micah 6:8’s call for justice, mercy, and humility to be inseparably united in my service to God. Here are some excerpts from that sermon:
The great question determining and encompassing all fact resolves itself into this inquiry: What is God? A person or a Principle?
But if God is a person influenced by a petition or prayer and loves you more for the asking, He is not unchanging.
And this Truth, this Life, and this Love, yea, this Principle that is God must be understood to be demonstrated, brought out in our lives and, when understood, we shall know what this meaneth: “I will have mercy and not sacrifice,” and cannot know until we understand God as a Principle instead of [believing] in God as a person . . . .
Justice is the true demand of mercy and we should only help those who help themselves. Justice condemns sin while mercy points out the escape from sin, but unless justice joins hands with it, mercy is a mistake: a word without the spirit of the word, and a deed that is uncharitable. The history of religion is replete with examples proving the sad results of believing God a person and that this person pardons sin. If God pardons criminals while yet the motive and malice lie latent to reenact the crime, their blood would be upon His hands according to scripture . . . .
As we near the boundary of Science wherein Soul instead of sense furnishes the conclusions of man and the explanation of God, we shall improve our sense of sacrifice and gain the true definition, and reach exercise of mercy.
The only sacrifice we shall then retain will no longer be a demand on others, but a requirement of one’s self in obedience to the command, “Take the cross and follow me”: it will be a forgetfulness of self, and this is science. Self-abnegation is indispensable to science, and why? Because the first chord — the keynote — of Christian Science is: put being into the hands of Principle instead of person, and this Principle or God demonstrated by what is good only, and by works rather than words.
GOD’S PRESERVATION OF MAN IS CONDITIONAL
“. . . for the Lord preserveth the faithful.” (Psalm 31:23)
God preserves man to the extent that man preserves Spirit-Mindedness from the intrusions of matter-mindeness.
Double-mindedness means giving divided attention to Mind by entertaining another mind alongside.
Practically speaking, the parable of the wheat and tares teaches that Mind and mind “grow together” in a relative state of double-mindedness until Mind is strong enough in me to subdue mind entirely, thus bringing about the single-mindedness of loving God, not in part, but in wholeness of heart, soul, mind, and strength.
“Progress takes off all shackles and the finite yields to the Infinite. Advancing to a higher plane of action, thought grows new, and rises from the personal to the Impersonal; from the mortal to the Immortal, which is from the material to the spiritual idea of God.” (SH, 1st edition, p. 221)
LOVE INDIVIDUALIZED VS. ANIMAL MAGNETISM COLLECTIVIZED
“WATCH lest you accept the common notion that the small power represented by David’s little stone, overthrew a great power, called Goliath. David, as the visible representative and manifestation of the omnipotence of divine Mind, was the invincible giant, equipped with infinite power that overthrew Goliath, whose power lay wholly in deception through size.
“The trick of the mesmerism of sense testimony, is to reverse everything, magnifying the nothingness of error so that it seems like a giant, and belittling the power and presence of Spirit.” (Carpenter, WP 153)
The name “Goliath” means “passage, revolution, heap”. As he stepped onto the battlefield every morning and evening, Goliath presented himself as a mountainous heap of intimidation. Like an animal in Darwinian struggle for dominance, Goliath was totally dependent upon how he appeared to sense, not soul.
Morning and evening, morning and evening, day after day, Israel listened to Goliath proclaiming himself as the way, the truth, and the life of Israel, as the supreme leader of a revolution not only against King Saul and his army, not only against the nation of Israel, but against the God of Israel Himself. Thus did Goliath pound his drum, insisting that surrendering to him was the only safe passage out of the conflict between Philistia and Israel. And Israel listened, very closely, to every drumbeat.
The picture of Israel’s king and army demoralized by fear demonstrates how an entire nation can fall under the collective, apathy-inducing spell of animal magnetism.
David, on the other hand, had spent many hours, days, months set apart, alone in the wilderness, tending sheep, practicing the presence of God, learning to listen to the beat of a different drummer — the still, small voice of the Spirit; learning that there is no presence or power apart from God; learning that the presence of anything unlike the Presence of Omnipresence, even the presence of a ferocious lion or bear, is not presence at all, but absence. “There is no vapid fury of mortal mind – expressed in … bestial ferocity… and this so-called mind is self-destroyed.” (SH 293)
So when David, aligned with God, came out of the wilderness to Israel’s encampments in order to bring cornbread to his misaligned brothers, it was like the meeting of 2 opposing weather fronts. Yet David prevailed, in spite of his brothers’ chemicalized, jealous fury. Nor could the cringing collective consciousness of Israel’s army drag David into the bottomless foxhole of fear and apathy that they had dug for themselves.
“You must realize that harmony is the only reality, and that it has no opposite” — no Goliath. (Carpenter, WP 125)
“One with God is a majority.”
Check out the excellent article, “IF I BE LIFTED UP” by Grace Roberta Wasson, from the July 1921 CS Journal: good explanation of how Christ reversed the curse.
Here is an excerpt:
“The Jewish patriarch came near confusing the Adam definition of serpent with the Christ definition, when God bade him cast his rod upon the ground and he saw it become a serpent. Moses fled from what he saw, but that which he saw was an hallucination. God bade him return and pick up the serpent. Moses’ obedience opened his eyes, gave him spiritual vision, which contradicted sense testimony, and he then knew that he had been subscribing to general belief which was absolutely false, regarding an expression of Deity. He learned that serpent, instead of being a dangerous, loathsome, writhing reptile, which he refers to in his Edenic allegory as “cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field,” was exactly the reverse of what he had supposed. This vision was to become enlarged, for in the twenty-first chapter of Numbers we read how, when the Hebrew pilgrims turned from God and cried out against the Almighty, the “fiery serpents” appeared among the people, “and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.” Then, returning penitent, they besought Moses to ask God to forgive them for their sins, and God advised Moses accordingly and ‘Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.’
“The serpent, as Satan’s tool, is a symbol of sin adjudged (or death, for the wages of sin is death), but when elevated or lifted up, as Moses did in two instances, it becomes the type of Christ. Brass speaks of judgment, as in the brazen altar of God’s judgment, and in the laver of self-judgment (Exodus 27). The brazen serpent is a type of Christ who was made ‘to be sin for us, who knew no sin,’ in bearing our judgment, for we are told in John’s gospel, that ‘as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.'” [emphasis added]
The early part of the Book of Isaiah makes vivid the curses that befall God’s people for the sin of idolatry. The latter part of Isaiah makes equally vivid the blessings that overtake God’s people as a natural result of destroying their idols and returning to God. These blessings and cursings are mentioned throughout the law of Moses, most especially Deuteronomy 28.
“I have . . . saved . . . when there was no strange god among you: therefore ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, that I am God” (Isaiah 43:12).
This is why the reforms of Gideon and Hezekiah parallel each other. as do the great victories following those reforms.
The inside enemy must be dealt with first; this being done, victory over any outside enemy becomes a very simple matter, indeed.
“The idols of civilization are far more fatal to health and longevity than are the idols of barbarism” (SH 173:30-31).
Just one example of such idolatry: opioid use has become so widespread that these substances are now polluting municipal water supplies of major American cities. Prenatal exposure to opioids has resulted in babies addicted at birth.
“If God created drugs good, they cannot be harmful; if He could create them otherwise, then they are bad and unfit for man; and if He created drugs for healing the sick, why did not Jesus employ them and recommend them for that purpose?” (MW 25:27-31.)
See also: http://www.ourcivilisation.com/medicine/usamed/deaths.htm – a record that should keep us awake and watchful until this idol of today’s uncivilized civilization is cast down from its high place and destroyed forever!
Where’s the Love?
To say, “Nothing ails you” in the scenario that Mrs Eddy describes (SH 460) is equivalent to a defense attorney entering a courtroom without presenting a single witness or item of evidence in his client’s favor, yet announcing to judge and jury, “My client is innocent,” then exiting the courtroom – leaving his client open to an unbridled onslaught of attacks from his accusers.
“Love is priestess at the altar of Truth” (SH 454).
A priest or priestess is a mediator of reconciliation between God and man.
Divine Love employs Christian Science as Mediator, or Paraclete (another name for the Holy Ghost – SH 588 and John 14): Counselor, Attorney, Advocate, and this fact illumines the pages of Mrs. Eddy’s allegory, “The Trial”, in which Christian Science single-handedly triumphs in the Supreme Court of Spirit to reverse the decision of the lower court of the Accuser (SH 430-442).
Note the vehemence with which Christian Science so passionately argues against the testimony of mortal mind and its swarm of lying witnesses that have ganged up against the defendant, a dying patient, distracted and overwhelmed with pain and hopelessness.
As a defense attorney, Christian Science is neither cringing nor matter-of-fact (unlike a hireling public defender), but battles pro bono for the welfare of the accused with a devotion that can only be compared to a parent protecting his/her beloved child from a murderous mob.
Mrs. Eddy spoke of 2 weather-belief challenges, the first easier than the second (from “Watches, Prayers, Arguments”) —
[The first challenge:] “When I work for the weather, everybody wants fair weather, only they believe there will be bad weather, and I only have to overcome that belief;”
[The second challenge:] “[B]ut when malice comes in and declares there shall be storms, then I have a task to overcome that.
“Now make real to yourselves: There is no envy, malice, hate nor revenge. God is Love, and Love is All. All is health and holiness. There is no opposite.”
Mrs. Eddy is saying here that if desire for fair weather (a constructive thought) is prominent in the thoughts of those around her, then it is a relatively easy thing to dissipate the “bad-weather” thought.
But if something beyond merely “bad weather,” such as a series of violent storms (a destructive thought), is prominent in the group-thought, superseding the “desire-for-fair-weather” thought, then greater thought-effort. mightier insistence on the supremacy of Spirit is required for successful outcome.
The media habitually dramatize hurricanes, and is currently reporting the possible arrival of a “storm of biblical proportions.” Millions of people are presented with this “information” and contributing, consciously or unconsciously, to a group-malpractice mentality confirming the “reality” of the storm.
The “biblical proportions” description is typical of mortal mind, which is constantly trying to intimidate me into viewing things based on an erroneous (physical) frame of reference: comparing my allegedly puny human size with that of a hurricane; when, in reality, I only need compare the hurricane’s size with the size of God, the boundless magnitude of the Power of God, the all-transforming energy of the Omni-Activity of God that overrules and nullifies the existence of all storms, the infinite immensity of the Presence of God, which dwarfs the size of the universe itself — as David did with Goliath.
So I must remember that “one with God is a majority” and carry out an inspired watch, waiting, and if necessary, tarrying long in God’s presence, stopping only as the Spirit leads.
So important! The changes made to Mrs. Eddy’s Manual can be likened to changing the tables of physical and mathematical constants in the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, upon which chemical engineers and physicists depend for error-free outcomes in their research endeavors.
“Create in me a clean heart.”
HEART: “Mortal feelings, motives, affections, joys, and sorrows” (SH 587:23).
“The manifestation of God through mortals is as light passing through the window-pane. The light and the glass never mingle, but as matter, the glass is less opaque than the walls. The mortal mind through which Truth appears most vividly is that one which has lost much materiality — much error — in order to become a better transparency for Truth. Then, like a cloud melting into thin vapor, it no longer hides the sun” (SH 295:16).
Desideratum: Create in me cleaner, clearer transparency of heart as defined in Mrs. Eddy’s glossary: “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death” (Phil. 4:3); that I may suffer self to die in greater and greater ways. For to allow mortal self to express itself is to smudge or besmear the transparency that God created me to be.
Excerpt from Mary Baker Eddy’s letter, dated Jan. 28, 1897, to James Neal, a very successful early Christian Science worker: “Pray daily, never miss praying, no matter how often: ‘Lead me not into temptation’ – scientifically rendered – Lead me not to lose sight of strict purity, clean, pure thoughts; let all my thoughts and aims be high, unselfish, charitable, meek – spiritually minded.”
[See Lyman P. Powell’s biography of Mrs. Eddy, p. 322.]
These 2 references have been of help to me:
1. “Those only who are tried in the furnace reflect the image of their Father” (MW, 278:17-18).
2. “Letter on Body,” by Edward A. Kimball – https://bit.ly/2FmLtr3
From SH, 1st edition, page 42:
The most scientific man of whom we have any record, Jesus of Nazareth, called the mortal body that we suppose substance, “ghost”; and his body that others called spirit, “flesh and bones”; showing that substance to his understanding was the deathless Principle that embraces man and is forever inseparable from Soul. But the Jews, strongly material, called the real idea of God, even the body that was not matter, a spirit or ghost; and the body they laid in a sepulchre, substance. By this error they lost logic and Truth, therefore lost sight of Jesus at the very moment when he presented more than ever the real idea of God, and because of this belief, the idea was taken from them. The higher he wrought the problem of being through spiritual science, the more odious he became to the materialistic world that understood him not. Life, Intelligence and substance to them were matter, but to him they were God, the Truth of man; therefore he reckoned himself not matter but Spirit; not sense, but Soul. Said he, “Spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have,” but this he said three days after his burial, before relinquishing the belief of substance-matter; after that, his disciples even could not see him.
“Never was there a more solemn and imperious call than God makes to us all, right here, for fervent devotion and an absolute consecration to the greatest and holiest of all causes. The hour is come. The great battle of Armageddon is upon us” (emphasis added; see CS Journal, August, 1886; also, Miscellaneous Writings, page 177).
CHRIST-THOUGHT vs. HEREDITY-THOUGHT
“Sickness is neither imaginary nor unreal,– that is, to the frightened, false sense of the patient. Sickness is more than fancy; it is solid conviction. It is therefore to be dealt with through right apprehension of the truth of being” (SH, 460).
One of the greatest fear-inducing myths in modern medicine is the law of heredity, which condemns people to disease, even before they have exited the womb, often long before the predicted disease is supposed to manifest itself in the body. It takes the fear-inspired rumination process described in Mrs. Eddy’s allegory of the “The Trial” (SH, 430) to an even more exaggerated level of disharmony. It is like arresting, trying, convicting, and imprisoning someone for committing a crime not yet committed, in the belief that it will be committed in the future. “Genetic counseling” is no different than the now-defunct theology of predestination, which posited that a newborn baby’s destiny – heaven or hell – is the unalterable, arbitrary decision of a distant, sovereign Judge.
“‘It was Fear who handcuffed Mortal Man and would now punish him. You have left Mortal Man no alternative. He must obey your law, fear its consequences, and be punished for his fear'” (SH, 436).
Although intended to be helpful and friendly, this chaotic way of thinking about illness dreamt up by modern medical thought is not friendly at all. The solution to this? “…[T]here is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother” (Proverbs 18:24): the Christ-thought, embodied in the promises of God: “Perfect love casteth out fear.” “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” “Lo, I am with you always.” The heredity-thought is the anti-Christ thought, error posing as a friendly shadow that is “with you always”, fiercely seeking to stick even more closely, nearer than hands and feet, a wolf in sheep’s clothing with one purpose only: to replace the Christ-thought with itself, and then “to steal, kill, and destroy” (John 10:10).
Thank you! The life-philosophy of: “with every bit of good there must come some bad” is no different than proposing that for every 2+2=4 thought there is an equal and opposite 2+2=5 thought. This is, of course, eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, believing that both good and evil are valid and have equal standing in the sight of God, who stated conclusively that “everything that He had made” is not only “good”, but “very good.” This is the tree of thinking both correctly and incorrectly simultaneously; the tree of thinking “I can” and “I can’t” simultaneously; the tree of telling oneself to “Press on!” and “Give up!” simultaneously; the tree of knowldge of God and devil, holding both in mind simultaneously.
James 3:11-12 – “Can both fresh water and bitter water flow from the same spring? Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh.” See also James 1:8 and 4:8. All of theses verse are very direct in admonsih me against eating of the tree of double-mindedness.
Thank you, and so true!
Joshua 1:8 – “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.” This was the encouraging conditional promise that God spoke to Joshua after Moses’ passing, as Joshua contemplated the mighty challenges ahead of him in filling Moses’ shoes. Note that Joshua had the 5 Books of Moses only: the only source of the written Word of God in Joshua’s day (there were no Psalms, Proverbs books of the prophets, no other books of Israel’s histroy from which Joshua could receive instruction), but they were enough, indeed.
With the advent of Christ, Jesus was able to draw from a much larger storehouse of scripture than could Joshua: that is, all the books of the Old Testament. Thus, the battle plan of God on behalf of humanity was made clearer as Jesus gathered greater and greater power from this larger arsenal of holy sciripture available to him at the time.
With the advent of Mrs. Eddy’s revelation of Christian Science, she was able to draw from an even larger body of scripture: the Bible itself — the Old and the New Testaments, and from her inspired study of the Bible, she gave the world Science and Health, along with all her other writings. The Bible was her one and only source of inspiration.
“My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh” (Prov. 4:20). Thus, it is the Word – our devotion and active obedience to the Word, supported by Mrs. Eddy’s correlative writings – in mind, mouth, ears, eyes, heart continually, as never before – that will make the Allness of God more and more real to us until God and His image become the only Reality, infinitely dwarfing, overshadowing any supposed giant in Canaan, or Goliath, or any great red dragon dreamt up by mortal mind.
“I Met God in the Morning”
I met God in the morning,
When my day was at its best
And His presence came like sunrise,
Like a glory in my breast.
All day long the Presence lingered;
All day long He stayed with me;
And we sailed in perfect calmness
O’er a very troubled sea.
Other ships were blown and battered,
Other ships were sore distressed,
But the winds that seemed to drive them
Brought to us a peace and rest.
Then I thought of other mornings,
With a keen remorse of mind.
When I too had loosed the moorings
With the Presence left behind.
So, I think I know the secret,
Learned from many a troubled way;
You must seek Him in the morning
If you want Him through the day.
— Ralph Spaulding Cushman
Mrs Eddy admonishes me in the Blue Book:
“WATCH – The first thing in the morning, call on God to deliver you
from temptation and help you to be awake.
Then do your chores, not as a dreamy hashish eater, but with a clear sense of what to do
and just how to do it.
Then sit down and first get yourself into a consciousness of your
power with God, and
then take up the outside watch.
Sit until this is clear, – [even]if [it takes] two hours.” [emphasis added]
So,the secret to bettering world conditions (taking up “the outside watch”) is not to rush precipitously into a watch every time I am made aware of a need or crisis. It took Queen Esther 3 days to get the Mind of God regarding the threat to her and her people, to shake off her human feelings of agitated, frantic concern. “First get yourself into a consciousness of your power with God.” Only then could she approach the King with her request, which a metaphor for anyone approaching God with a watch/request. Esther’s majestic quieting of her mortal mindedness is illustrated by her putting on her royal garments, because having the Mind of God about a problem is having dominion over that problem, which is true majesty.
If I take up any outside watch without first getting myself into a consciousness of my power with God, then my watch is in vain, and I am actually malpracticing on the world instead of uplifting it.
This is also the secret to making one’s individual life outside the prayer-closet a moment-by-moment demonstration of “harmony, health, holiness” that not only affects one’s own life, but is contagious.
Thank you! “Rise in the conscious strength of the spirit of Truth to overthrow the plea of mortal mind, alias matter, arrayed against the supremacy of Spirit” also can apply to watching and praying for healing today’s world conditions. After the children of Israel left the the cauldrons of Egypt and the wilderness, their next assignment was to overthrow the giants of Canaan and place each piece of territory gained, no matter how large or small, under the jurisdiction of the Spirit of Truth. This is how the Lamb of God (divine Love) overcomes the world and “taketh away the sins of the world.” As more and more of today’s Canaan lands come under the jurisdiction of Spirit through successful spiritual warfare, then more and more of “the kingdoms of this world [will] become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ” (Revelation 11:18).
SH 148 – “Truth, Life, and Love are the only legitimate and eternal demands on man, and they are spiritual lawgivers, enforcing obedience through divine statutes.” STATUTE is derived from the Latin word stare meaning “to stand, make or be firm”. Furthermore, Webster defines “statute” as “an act of the legislature of a state that extends its binding force to all the citizens or subjects of that state, as distinguished from an act which extends only to an individual or company…” Thus, the “divine statutes” provide me with an indestructible foundation upon which to “stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.” The statutes of Science also give me legal standing to pursue error, expose its perjuries in spite of its incessant, roaring testimony in the lower court of consciousness (mortal mind), “I am telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth!”
The chapter heading of SH 379 reads “Jurisdiction of Mind,” and JURISDICTION is derived from the Greek: “a place marked off.” Mrs. Eddy’s allegory of the trial (SH 430) begins in apparent hopelessness, as if the patient’s mind is in a jurisdiction off-limits to God Himself, but at last, in the higher court of awakened consciousness, “the plea of Christian Science heals the sick,” because mortal mind, satan, has absolutely no jurisdiction to which it could possibly lay claim, anywhere in the universe. The jurisdiction of Mind is omnipresent.
From the standpoint of absolute Christian Science, you are so correct! My comment is based on chapter 6 of Science and Health:
“SCIENTIFIC TRANSLATION OF MORTAL MIND
First Degree Depravity. Unreality
PHYSICAL. Evil beliefs, passions and appetites, fear,depraved will, self-justification, pride, envy, deceit, hatred, revenge, sin, sickness, disease, death.
Second Degree Evil beliefs disappearing. Transitional qualities
MORAL. Humanity, honesty, affection, compassion, hope, faith, meekness, temperance.
Third Degree Understanding. Reality
SPIRITUAL. Wisdom, purity, spiritual understanding, spiritual power, love, health, holiness. Spiritual universe
In the third degree mortal mind disappears, and man as God’s image appears. Science so reverses the evidenc before the corporeal human senses, as to make this Scriptural testimony true in our hearts,
‘The last shall be first, and the first last,’ so that God and His idea may be to us what divinity really is and must of necessity be, – all-inclusive.”
By the phrase “opens up my mortal mind” I mean the gradual transformation of mortal mindedness to Immortal Mind-fullness. As the math-ignorant mind of a child learns the basics of the numeration table, then advances by degrees to master the principles of addition, subtraction, multiplication, etc. all the way up to integral and differential calculus, that mind is gradually throwing off ignorance and gradually embracing more and more understanding of the principle of mathematics in action, growing from simply believing that it is true, to actually demonstrating its truth. To that successful student, ignorance is eventually completely thrown off, that former math-ignorant mind is now completely non-existent, replaced by complete mastery and practical (not merely theoretical) understanding of the subject. Thus my daily prayer: “God grant that my thoughts decrease and His thoughts increase in me — every moment, every day — that I may have no other gods before You, no other mind but Mind, that I may actually come to the realization, beyond mortal belief, that You are the only thinker, Yours are the only thoughts.”
Mildred Le Blond wrote, “When Mrs. Eddy announced that, ‘all is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation,’ she did something for the human race it cannot ever escape, and which will do more to lift the human race out of fears and limitations than any statement ever made by anyone.” One of Mrs. Le Blond’s readers confirmed this, exclaiming, “Yes! It was this very statement that was used by the practitioner who healed my mother of blindness, my father on his deathbed, and my little brother of double hernia. I was seven years old, but I can still hear my parents repeating this statement with the conviction that it would heal them.
“As I have testified before, my mother’s sight was restored in three treatments. Then my father asked for treatment and was healed the same day, in one treatment. When my parents spoke to the practitioner about my little brother’s condition, she said, ‘You know what healed you, just keep knowing All is Infinite Mind manifested.‘ The next day it was found that the little truss he had been wearing was no longer needed. That same statement in Science and Health – understood by the practitioner – had healed him, too. Those three, almost instantaneous, healings in Christian Science have been the watershed experience of my life.”
It is reported that Mrs. Eddy constantly kept on her desk a hymn book open to John Henry Newman’s “Lead, Kindly Light.” Also, as she observed the “garish day” of pride and creeping materialism affecting the Boston church (especially the Board of Directors), she recommended that this hymn be sung often.
There are hundreds of testimonials bearing witness to the protective and transformative power of this prayer-hymn, how it has lifted so many up and out of seemingly impossible circumstances.
In keeping with the magnificent SH 299:7-17 passage quoted above, is the 3rd verse:
So long thy pow’r hath blest me, sure it still
Will lead me on
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone.
And with the morn those angel faces smile,
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile!
“The morn” signifies the dawning of understanding, awakening to angel thoughts that come to anyone who responds to temptation properly, just as Jesus overcame the devil in the wilderness, and afterward, according to fixed principle, as day follows night, found himself in the company of angels.
JOSEPH’S “ROBE OF SCIENCE”
The “many colors” of Joseph’s coat are symbolic of Science (SH 568, paragraph heading – “The robe of Science) or what Mrs. Eddy called “truth’s prism” (SH 556).
Joseph’s testing began when his brothers, blinded by jealousy and envy, tore off his “coat of many colors” and sold him into slavery. Joseph’s brothers were unable to discern a world beyond their own color-blind, mesmeric, monochromatic viewpoint.
But even as a slave in Egypt, Joseph remained clothed in his right mind, held to the truth that he was created in the image of God, and thus he made sure that his every action in Egypt — no matter how menial — reflected the standards of excellence of the Most High. No matter how difficult the circumstances in which he found himself, Joseph never removed his stately robe of Science, but wrapped himself in it ever more tightly, even after he left his physical garment in the hands of Potiphar’s wife, and even after it was exchanged for a drab prison uniform.
How does this apply to me?
“One of Mrs. Eddy’s students was very irritable over having to do so much domestic work. She said she did not have time for so much material work. Mrs. Eddy smiled and said, ‘I didn’t know there was any material work’” (Essays and Other Footprints, page 72).
Thank you! The composer, Johannes Brahms, used the phrase “in tune with the Infinite” to describe a moment of deep musical inspiration, and the phrase is also the title of book written in 1897 by Ralph Waldo Trine.