Watching Point 51

51 — WATCH lest you fail to differentiate between the use of scientific arguments and being a channel for divine Mind. You wash a window in order to let the light shine through. Letting the light shine through is the office and finale of true mental work, whereas washing the window is the preparation. This preparation is accomplished through argument.

We should regard ourselves as having an infallible spiritual indicator, which enables us to know when we are reflecting divine Mind. The arguments are a ladder which aids us in climbing to the altitude of reflection, but we should anticipate the day when thought has been so established as a clear transparency for Truth, that we heal without the argument. Mrs. Eddy once declared, “I sometimes think argument hinders the work by materializing the thought. Hold to the spiritual… If you are a Christian Scientist and can speak the Word and it is done, all right; but if you have to argue, be very careful what you argue.” See Science and Health, 454:31 and Miscellaneous Writings, 359:4.

Mrs. Eddy has provided us with scientific statements as ingredients, which, when properly used, gather the sweet essence or perfume of Spirit. The odor of this perfume, when allowed to escape, is what heals the sick.

In one of her classes Mrs. Eddy said, “When carrying a case, and having used the arguments for some time and not healing, depend upon it, they are implanting the belief in the patient’s thought. The arguments must be dropped. But when one is teaching a child to walk, they give the child a finger to hold by; but they do not withdraw the finger until the child can walk; then the finger is removed. So with arguments; they are the finger.”