1939 Association Address

by Mildred LeBlond

INTRODUCTION

It is with love and joy that I greet you today. I think we can all rejoice in this our first association meeting. The formation of a new body of Christian Science students is indeed a momentous occasion, because it demonstrates in increasing measure, as an individual group, the oneness of Mind and idea; and it makes history for the Christian Science Movement, in that it spreads, in a greater degree over the face of the earth, the understanding of the one and only Mind.

Let us begin right here in this our first association meeting to see that this is not a meeting of human beings who have come only to fulfill a duty or to do a right thing, but also it is a demonstration of the oneness of Mind and idea. Let us realize that something is happening in the world today because of our knowing; and, because of this meeting, the world will be a different tomorrow. This is not too much to expect. This should be true wherever an association meeting is being held.

We are not engaged in a religious endeavor only, but we are also learning an accurate, infinite Science, the Science of God and man, a Science by which our lives may evermore and forever reveal God, who is Principle and idea. These annual meetings are provided for in the Manual of the Mother Church. Associations of students signify that we are united in the recognition of the unity of good and the oneness of our Being. In order that this unity may be felt on these occasions and especially show the unction and action of the one Mind, we must claim individually and collectively the inspiration of law of Mind and stand for both. Our membership is not fulfilling healing merely by our faithfulness in attendance at these meetings, it implies a spiritual responsibility which I am sure every member of this Association is glad to accept and maintain.

The purpose of these meetings is also to replenish our thoughts with ideas, in order that we may heal ourselves and others more quickly and accurately. Christian Science is not just a religion in the accepted sense of the word, but it is also a Science, interpreting a Principle to the world which is omnipresent and a power which is therefore demonstrable. We must stress the need of healing, healing ourselves, healing the nations, healing the world. The Truth must be told and lived, for it takes the Truth to displace an error, and displacing an error of any kind is healing.

At all times, we must be careful and watchful that our Christian Science is not just words, academic learning only, words which roll easily off the lips but have no root in demonstrated reality.

"First purify thought, then put thought into words, and words into deeds; and after much slipping and clambering, you will go up in the scale of Science to the second rule, and be made ruler over many things. Fidelity finds its reward and its strength in exalted purpose. Seeking is not sufficient whereby to arrive at the results of Science; you must strive; and the glory of the strife comes of honesty and humility."

When Mrs. Eddy announced that, "All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation," she did something for the human race that 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. Now, if we do not know that there is but one Mind, there would be no reason for us to be here today; but knowing this is why we are here. Because we are here in one body and knowing the one and only Mind to be our Mind and the Mind of all men, what we do here today will be beneficial to all mankind. What we do here today will do something for the world and will keep on doing it; for the Truth we state both in relation to God and man is continuous.

The object of an association meeting is always that of progress. We Christian Scientists have learned something of divine Principle and the law of our Being. Learning something of it, we are not to rest in that first step nor in any step further along. There will never be a time when we can say, "Now I have all of it." Human consciousness must first be analyzed and then redeemed; and that means ceaseless, joyful work, and that goes on forever. There will never be a time when we can rest on our oars and say, "I don't have to think anymore," because thinking is all there is to us or anybody, and we have to think better for ever and ever. This is infinite and eternal existence, and at the same time, it is the end of sin, disease and death.

In these hours of our annual meeting it is well for us to realize that no ordinary event is transpiring. That which is divine makes divine requirements and provides our ability to meet them. The infinite is impersonal, and the strange and happy peculiarity of this impersonal power is that when demonstrated, it blesses and heals persons.Our meeting is devoted to the demonstration of our oneness with Mind, Principle, the infinite and only God.

In order that it may fulfill all that it is designed to accomplish, let us set aside a material, personal, and finite sense of things. Let Mind be the one and only God, our Mind; be the one and only Ego, our Ego; and permit I AM to announce and demonstrate its own omnipotence. Let us attain the truth of Mind, and from that supremacy carry on our work for individual, racial and national welfare.

We are not a few persons with as many minds. There is only one Mind, therefore, our Mind. This one Mind being infinite, it is ever unfolding; thus, we are ever unfolding.

JOY

Joy is not a mental trimming to be put on or take off at will. Nor is it fleeting or dependent on chance or circumstance. Joy is an essential and fundamental quality of divine consciousness. As such, it is something for us to demonstrate. Joy is a lubricator. It is necessary to put joy in the place of hard duty or responsibility.

Thomas Carlyle has this to say of joy:

"Give us, O, give us the man who sings at his work. He will do more in the same time, he will do it better, he will persevere longer. One is scarcely sensible to fatigue whilst he marches to music. The very stars are said to make harmony as they revolve in their spheres. Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness, altogether past calculation in its power of endurance. Efforts, to be permanently useful, must be uniformly joyous, a spirit all sunshine, graceful from very gladness, beautiful because bright."

Certainly, joy is a shining quality. One of our lecturers once put us to a real test in this way when he said, "If we have not joy, we have not Science, for the primal quality of this Science is joy. Joy in God's perfect creation."

Then the joy which comes from the appreciation of all things from the standpoint of Mind, seeing Mind's ideas, is real and enduring joy. We are naturally joyful as we are conscious of Mind's ideas. The individual should never be without joy when he understands it in this way. No matter how little he may believe he possesses or understands these ideas, he has the opportunity to know what he has as real: to be joyful because man and the universe is Mind manifested! ... because they are real! ... because they are here! ... and here and now are ours! ... yours ... and mine!

Divine consciousness is naturally a joyful consciousness. The joyful consciousness is a rich consciousness, and indestructibly rich because it perceives and understands Mind's ideas to be omnipresent.

In the parable of the rich man who stored up much goods we learn that he lost his so-called riches because he was not rich toward God. Being rich toward God is to understand, and, therefore, to have joy in the fact that man and the universe express Mind, as Mrs. Eddy tells us,

"The divine Mind maintains all identities, from a blade of grass to a star." ¹

Joy plays an important part in the salvation of each one of us. "With joy," quoting from a lecturer, "fill ye, draw water out of the wells of salvation, — there is no other bucket." In an excerpt from one of Mrs. Eddy's letters which appeared in the Christian Science periodicals, we find that she had this to say about joy: "So, dear friend, cultivate joy, hope, faith. Life lies before you glorious; banish the shadow, seize the substance; and God, good, is with you always."

ENTHUSIASM

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Every great and commanding moment in the annuls of the world is the triumph of some enthusiasm." The sense of this word among the Greeks affords the noblest of it. Enthusiasm signifies God in us. Too many times the word enthusiasm has a human meaning only, or it is associated with human zeal, which Mrs. Eddy defines in Science and Health as blind enthusiasm, or not seeing the object of our enthusiasm as related to God. Per-haps we think that to be enthusiastic about something is to be merely humanly effervescent. The basic meaning of the word enthusiasm being in God, (en theo), we find that to be scientifically enthusiastic would be to appreciate things from a Godly standpoint.

To be enthusiastic about a flower would not only be to like it or see the beauty in it, but to understand and see that it expresses the beauty, grace, and life which is God. Would not life be happier and brighter for all of us if we allowed ourselves to be thus enthusiastic — to let the God-in-us appreciate everything from a blade of grass to a star — as an expression of His nature? We should permit ourselves to be enthusiastic over our work, no matter what it is. Every achievement in the world, great or small, has come to fruitage because someone displayed lasting enthusiasm for it.

¹ S&H 70

Because of his spiritual understanding, the Christian Scientist, of all people in the world, is equipped to be rightly enthusiastic. He appreciates all things made of God as real, eternal, and beautiful. Expressing God's appreciation of his own perfect universe is the proper sense of true enthusiasm. In the light of this understanding of enthusiasm, things grow and come to fruitage.

Mrs. Eddy once asked a lady who was a friend of mine if her husband was interested in Christian Science. The lady replied, "No, he isn't." Then she thought within herself, "That isn't actually fair to my husband," and turning to Mrs. Eddy, she said, "I did not answer your question about my husband correctly. He isn't exactly interested in Christian Science, but he is not at all antagonistic." Mrs. Eddy's answer was, "That is right, my dear, cherish every little bit of good, that it may root and blossom and bear fruit." One could say that lady was rightly enthusiastic of the little good her husband manifested, because she knew that seeming little expressed God.

You all have had the experience, no doubt, of coming into the presence of someone who recognized your good, and how it enabled you to express in greater measure the things you were capable of doing. When this is done from the standpoint or recognition that God is the only good — that all good from the infinitesimal to the infinite manifests Him — our very presence will prove a veritable blessing to all our associates, and all our associations, and we may also say we have been rightly enthusiastic.

IF vs. IS

Somebody said, "I am trying to know that I am in my right place," is he right? Can he do it? Could he ever get in his right place by imagining it to be bigger than his understanding? Is not his right place in him? Understanding includes all place, and it means all that space means, ... all that law means, all that Association means, in fact, all that everything means. Understanding is the crux, is the nature of God and man and the truth of being. In the measure that this understanding appears, these statements begin to disappear from the thought and habit of Christian Scientists.

There is nothing bigger than consciousness. Consciousness is primal, infinite, the one Mind. You cannot possibly have anything larger. It is infinite, the infinity of all that is. It is the divine Principle of all being and consciousness. Our own consciousness measures up to this standard just to the degree that we quit these expressions of mortal mind. This one particular expression has become quite a habit with some of us. The error of it is that it binds us to a past instead of opening up to the possibility of the present. It binds us to a past which insists we are all just struggling along with difficulties, and we do not seem to have much power to overcome them. How could we with such a limited mind in that we could put it in a place? Is God in His right place? The divine fact that God is the only Mind is now ready to be demonstrated by any who will demonstrate it as the essential thing in his welfare.

I elaborate a little because I am of the impression that there seem to be quite a few persons who feel it means something to say, "I just know I am in my right place." He could not possibly know that. He could only believe it. He should know his right place is in him. That is the difference between knowing and believing. Consciousness being God, it is infinite; therefore, it is all inclusive, including all ideas and all place.

ATONEMENT and EUCHARIST

This subject has been so misrepresented by the teaching of false theology and employed in the use of religious rites and ceremonies that it requires some study on the part of the Christian Scientist to gain a practical understanding of the atonement which he may use in his daily living.

"The Atonement is a hard problem in theology," Mrs. Eddy tells us. ² It is hard because nothing but gloom and suffering have been associated with it by the so-called Christian churches. The fact is that neither gloom nor suffering has anything to do with the atonement.

Basically, the atonement, as understood in Christian Science, is the knowledge of man's at-one-ment with God, Mind — the understanding of the oneness of Being and that one being God. Jesus, endeavoring to teach his disciples the true meaning of atonement, gave them as symbols the bread, the cup, and the wine. We all know there is far more involved that mere ceremony in the Last Supper in which Jesus broke bread and passed the cup to his followers. He was telling them of their oneness with God, and, by the use of the symbols, was showing them how to live the atonement.

"Our Eucharist is spiritual communion with the one God. Our bread, "which cometh down from heaven," is Truth. Our cup is the cross. Our wine the inspiration of Love, the draught our Master drank and commended to his followers." ³

The first part, Our Eucharist is spiritual communion with the one God is given a new meaning by the definition of the word Eucharist, (Webster's) joy, to be grateful. We might put it this way: our Eucharist is joyful atonement with the one God or, grateful communion with the one God. It indicates for us the state of thought required in the demonstration of our oneness with Mind, that which joyfully asserts and maintains the one divine Being, God, in the face of seeming evil.

Our bread is the Truth we know, and are, about any situation with which we may be confronted. Our cup is the cross, but it is far from being the cross of old theology from which hang gloom and suffering. It signifies the elimination of false beliefs, and this need not be a mournful occasion but a joyful one. Our wine is the inspiration of Love, the mighty power of thought which gladly and joyfully spiritualizes one's experience by the realization of the Truth of Being, that God and man is one. Principle and its idea is one, as Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health.

² S&H 23

³ S&H 35

When Jesus was confronted with the seeming evidence of sin, disease or death, he assert-ed and maintained man's oneness with God; and he knew it so well that the evidence changed instantly. When he said to the man with the withered arm, "stretch forth thy hand," or to Lazarus, "come forth," he was demonstrating the at-one-ment and Eucharist as understood in Christian Science.

Every time you or I heal a case, we are doing the same thing, asserting and maintaining the oneness of God and man in the face of seeming testimony to the contrary, a testimony which would tell us that God may be all right, but man is either sick, sinning, or dying. Being is one, and this one is God. If God is not sick, man cannot be sick. Or if God is not dying, man cannot be dying. Or if God is not sinning, man cannot be sinning. Asserting and maintaining the one-ness of Being in the face of seeming contraries, brings about the evidence which proves that God and man is one. Thus, we find that Christian Science is the only religion or Science in the world today which is teaching the practical demonstration of the Atonement and Eucharist.

OUTLINING

A healing in Christian Science, whatever may be the nature of the case, is a divine event, and resounds down through the ages; but if it were not also a human event, it would have no practical value for us. We do not demonstrate health primarily, but we do demonstrate one being — Mind and idea, Soul and body — wherein health and wholeness are indigenous. Here arises the question as to how far thought may be permitted to visualize the results of a treatment. Is it possible not only to declare the restorative healing action of omnipotence but mentally to behold and thereby be sure of the improvement or healing? In answering this question it is well first to observe that it would be obviously erroneous to behold mentally or be conscious of no improvement as a result of treatment. Mrs. Eddy says the definition of Mind is "Deity which outlines but is not outlined." ⁴

When Jesus commanded Lazarus to come forth, he unquestionably recognized the prerogative of Mind in outlining the event. He knew there was nothing about Lazarus which could say, "I am dead, and I cannot come forth." He knew that Lazarus would come forth — must come forth — even the selfsame Lazarus. Such a result could not appear if a mere personal sense of the patient and practitioner obscured the science of Mind; but if Mind and the immutability of the law of Mind constituted the treatment, the result of the treatment is as much a part of the treatment as anything in it. In this way we may say that it is legitimately outlined. That is to say, the result of the treatment is actual, real and humanly evident. And it must be so in order to accomplish what Science and Health calls the metaphysical healing of physical disease."5

To attempt to outline the result of divine action is objectionable only because human thought, however much improved, can only imagine what the divine effect may be. But when Mind is actually demonstrated, or speaking more accurately, demonstrates itself — its own presence and power — the healing may be mentally visible before it is humanly apparent. Because of the omnipresence of Mind so demonstrated, the human evidence of healing becomes inevitable.

⁴ S&H 59

⁵ S&H 150

These "ideas are perfect, real and tangible to spiritual consciousness." ⁶

Returning again to our book for this statement in the definition of Mind, "Deity, which outlines but is not outlined," we draw the conclusion that nothing separated from Mind, Deity, can imagine or outline Deity. We can understand Him, and the statement is also to the effect that God does outline. Also in the definition of Mind is the statement, "the only I, or Us." The inference, then, is that thought can only outline in the proportion that it approximates Deity. It is sheer animal magnetism to try to imagine the result of a Christian Science treatment, but to know the result with the certainty of Mind — that is God, that is divine Science. That the effect of such knowing results in improved health of a human being does not vitiate either the treatment or the human evidence of it, for both are actually divine. When we do as we are counseled by Mrs. Eddy,

"When we subordinate the false testimony of the corporeal senses to the facts of Science, we shall see this true likeness and reflection everywhere." ⁷

This being accepted in regard to all things everywhere cannot be rejected in regard to anything. The purpose of a treatment is to heal. This purpose cannot be fulfilled unless the treatment knows it will heal the case, and the treatment being Mind in full operation and activity could not but outline its own perfection.

Science is divine and can bring about divine results only. The phenomena of divine Science are perfect and eternal, and therefore, any attempt to conceive of them humanly tends to hide the scientific action of Mind and thereby delay or prevent demonstration. Recognizing the practical value of Science, we are wise to expect every good thing from it. Science can and will do immeasurably more for us than it has done in the past if we will remove the clamps of mere finite wish, hope or desire and permit the divine Mind, to provide through its own scientific presence and law, the beauty and abundance of its own creation. The real Christian Science treatment occurs when Mind, affirming itself, excludes the sense of a patient and practitioner, and the Truth — the intelligence of immortal Mind — obliterates error. In this way of working the confidence which characterized some of the ancients may be ours. In this way, with Christian Science to instruct us, we ought to have all the inspiration and expectation which enabled them to say, strong>"Thus saith the Lord."

SPIRIT

In the vocabulary of the Christian Scientist, Spirit is a word of vast importance. As used in ordinary religious instruction its many connotations are full of mystery and uncertainty. Spirit is scientifically synonymous with eternality; in fact, Spirit is eternal duration. When Mrs. Eddy defined substance as Spirit, she revealed the indestructible nature of all being.

Nearly all of the religious education promulgated by the word spirit is finite and limited and is so utterly contrary to the facts of eternal and self-existent being, imperishable substance, that it is begot of spiritualism, mysticism, occult, theosophy, and all theories and practices of eastern theology and religion. The moment that the concept of Spirit reaches up to the divine meaning of the word, or in the degree that this occurs, the supposititious occult influence of the various erroneous systems are seen to be unreal. None of them have any seeming existence apart from the false concept of Spirit. Spirit being eternal substance is the self- existent entity and eternal duration of divine Being, and there is no other Spirit.

⁶ S&H 269:17

⁷ S&H 516

When thought proceeds from Spirit, it is necessarily characterized by Spirit, imperishable substance, and operates as the law of that imperishable substance to anything and everything that may come within range of thought. As we dematerialize the concept of Spirit, we reject all limitations of finite sense, and we find all conscious sense of existence proportionately free from fear, destruction, disaster, disease, or lack, for Spirit is the substance of our being now and forever.

When we demonstrate Spirit as Spirit would demonstrate Itself, the fear of repudiating matter and material methods is removed. "When the substance of Spirit appears in Christian Science, the nothingness of matter is recognized." ⁸

Matter is only a perishable sense of the imperishable. When fear predominates, this perishable sense rules consciousness. To gain and maintain our spiritual identity there must be persistent affirmation and realization of the facts expressed in Science and Health,

"Christ presents the indestructible man, whom Spirit creates, constitutes, and governs. Christ illustrates that blending with God, his divine Principle, which gives man dominion over all the earth." ⁹

Accepting this fact, we affirm and may realize that we are made of Spirit, imperishable substance, and that everything which pertains to us is made of the same substance and is consequently imperishable, abundant and permanent.

“The way out of any seeming human difficulty is Spirit, and the way of Spirit is eternal substance; and anything that is necessary to the human evidence of divine sub-stance — whether the claim is a belief of destroyed tissue or bone, lacerated flesh or broken bone — will necessarily appear. Spirit cannot suffer, sin, or die; consequently, there is no suffering substance, disfiguration, disintegration, deterioration, perishing or perishable substance. Spirit demonstrated fulfills its law of perfect substance, thus bringing to light the scientific action of the divine Mind on human minds and bodies." ¹⁰

When Mrs. Eddy says, "emerge gently from matter to Spirit," and admonishes us to go from "sense to Soul," we note that Spirit and Soul are icapitalized, signifying Deity. In our demonstrations, then, we must go from a belief of substance as matter to an understanding of substance as Spirit and from a material sense of Soul to Soul as God. We must also learn to associate our blessings with Spirit, not matter — however material they may appear to be. More than once in our experience we have lost something humanly and perhaps failed to regain it because we did not associate it with Spirit — imperishable substance — instead of with matter. This does not mean that we are spiritualizing matter, far from it. In the first place, there is no matter. What this does mean is that our whole work is that of dematerializing consciousness, therefore, dematerializing the concepts of Spirit.

⁸ S&H 480

⁹ S&H 316

¹⁰ S&H 210

We are taught in our book "Spirit is the only substance." ¹¹ All things beautiful and harmless are ideas of Mind, therefore anything which adds to our comfort and happiness should have the protection of the realization of this fact, the fact that our blessings are associated with Spirit and can never be disassociated from Spirit, even though they appear as human convenience and comforts.

PROPHYLACTIC and THERAPEUTIC

"The prophylactic and therapeutic (that is, the preventative and curative) arts belong emphatically to Christian Science, as would be readily seen if psychology, or the Science of Spirit, God, was understood." ¹²

Because Christian Science holds before thought the need and necessity of healing, it is possibly that the therapeutic, or curative, art in Christian Science is more generally studied and understood by the student. Christian Scientists, however, should have an equally good knowledge of the prophylactic, or preventative, art also. We must seek a better understanding of the prophylactic mental processes of thought and thus be able to prevent disease. How much better to do this than unknowingly allow disease to appear.

The study of the prophylactic art of Christian Science reveals to us the necessity of casting out of thought the qualities of thinking which in belief seem to develop disease. We cannot begin this education too soon. In this regard Mrs. Eddy has a wonderful statement,

"Christian Science commands man to master the propensities, — to hold hatred in abeyance with kindness, to conquer lust with chastity, revenge with charity, and to overcome deceit with honesty. Choke these errors in their early stages, if you would not cherish an army of conspirators against health, happiness, and success." ¹³

Now, that which chokes an error is the opposite of that error, and that is really what we mean by prophylactic — a quality of Truth which displaces the error, thus proving error's nothingness.

Sometimes it is hard to realize that such qualities as disobedience, for instance, can make a man sick. Christian Science practitioners find quite often that an erroneous mental characteristic, not having been destroyed in its early stages, finally attempts to displace the activity of the individual. Realizing this clarifies to us the experience which Jesus had with the centurion when he asked Jesus to heal his servant. Jesus answered him saying,

"I will come and heal him." The centurion replied, "Speak the word only and my servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me; and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it." ¹⁴

¹¹ S&H 280

¹² S&H 369

¹³ S&H 405

¹⁴ Matthew 8

The centurion recognized that Jesus spoke with divine authority, even as he, the centurion, had spoken with human authority. He expected the disease to obey Jesus' authority and be cast out as a soldier would obey his command. Could the centurion have done this, or understood this, had he not learned obedience himself? How wise is he, then, who recognizes and casts out of his thinking such qualities as disobedience, fear, dishonesty, resentment, et cetera, thus preventing these qualities from later attempting to express themselves in disease. As Mrs. Eddy counsels,

"Eradicate the image of disease from the perturbed thought before it has taken tangible shape in conscious thought, alias the body, and you prevent the development of disease." ¹⁵

Had the centurion not been trained in obedience, he never could have had this experience.

We are noticing today how much attention the doctors are giving to the misguided emotions and connecting their action with the secretional action of the glands of the body. It is interesting to note that the word secretion comes the word secret, and, in like manner, that the action of the secretions of the system also takes place unseen. If we are educating ourselves daily to choke these errors in their early stages by the power of Mind — by letting Mind be the quality of our thinking — we are doing what it is possible to do with the prophylactics of Christian Science. Mrs. Eddy states,

"God's preparations for the sick are potions of His own qualities. His therapeutics are antidotes for the ailments of mortal mind and body." ¹⁶

In order for Truth to be our consciousness, the soil of thought must be prepared that the Truth may root and blossom and bear fruit. The parable of the sower and the seed, which Jesus gave to his followers, illustrates this point.

"In the soil of an honest and good heart the seed must be sown; else it beareth not much fruit." ¹⁷

The following is from the article called Fidelity from Miscellaneous Writings:

Too soon we cannot turn from disease in the body to find disease in the mortal mind, and its cure, in working for God. Thought must be made better, and human life more fruitful, for the divine energy to move it onward and upward.

Warmed by the sunshine of Truth, watered by the heavenly dews of Love, the fruits of Christian Science spring upward, and away from the sordid soil of self and matter. Are we clearing the gardens of thought by uprooting the noxious weeds of passion, malice, envy, and strife? Are we picking away the cold, hard pebbles of selfishness, uncovering the secrets of sin and burnishing anew the hidden gems of Love, that their pure perfection shall appear? Are we feeling the vernal freshness and sunshine of enlightened faith?

The weeds of mortal mind are not always destroyed by the first uprooting; they reappear, like devastating witch-grass, to choke the coming clover. O stupid gardener; watch their reappearing, and tear them away from their native soil, until no seedling be left to propagate and rot.

I believe that no active Christian Scientist can fail to see that herein lies a model for his daily living and that this has something to do with the demonstration of the one and only Mind as his Mind.

15S&H 400

¹⁶ S&H 268

¹⁷ S&H 272

CHARACTER BUILDING

No human being is of any value except for his character. We love and respect each other, not because of what we see physically, but because of that which we do not see — integrity, honesty, and loving kindness. These things exceed anything we may see with our eyes. Nobody pretends character is visible or that you can see an ideal; and yet, they know that they respect and perhaps reverence it. It is all invisible; but is it less desirable and less scientific because it is not visible?

The Kingdom of God is within you; that is, it is where you are thinking and not where you are looking. In our experience in Christian Science we all no doubt have found that we spend much more effort on the academic or intellectual side of Christian Science than we do on the application of the Truth learned to the transforming of our natures. Mrs. Eddy describes the wrestling of Jacob with error,

"Then said the spiritual evangel: 'Let me go, for the day break-eth;' that is, the light of Truth and Love dawn upon thee. But the patriarch, perceiving his error and his need of help, did not loosen his hold upon this glorious light until his nature was transformed." ¹⁸

In the demonstration of a transformed nature, we begin with the character of God, and through our study of the Bible and Science and Health, we find out what the character of God is. Our next step in this demonstration is to let that character which is God's be our character. One outstanding statement regarding the character of God is found in Unity of Good,

"Until the heavenly law of health, according to Christian Science, is firmly grounded, even the thinkers are not prepared to answer intelligently leading questions about God and sin, and the world is far from ready to assimilate such a grand and all-absorbing verity concerning the divine nature and character as is embraced in the theory of God's blindness to error and ignorance of sin 19

"We are all sculptors, working out or own ideals, and leaving the impress of mind on the body as well as on history and marble, chiseling to higher excellence, or leaving to rot and ruin the mind's ideals. Recognizing this as we ought, we shall turn often from marble to model, from matter to Mind, to beautify and exalt our lives … Scientific discovery and the inspiration of Truth have taught me that the health and character of man become more or less perfect as his mind-models are more or less spiritual." ²⁰

These and other references to be found in the works of our Leader indicate two outstanding points in the reformation of the character or nature of the individual. • One is that his model must be the character of God, and that that character must become his character. • The other point is that God knows no evil, and, therefore, man can know no evil. This understanding of the unreality of evil is basic to the development of a godly character.

We say that God is Love, but what good does that do us unless we accept Love as our very Being? It is because of this that we are enabled to see our fellow man as Love sees him. We say God is Spirit. What is the nature or character of Spirit? Indestructibility and eternality are the characteristics of Spirit. What will that avail us, however, unless we demonstrate the eternal substance of man and the universe?

¹⁸ S&H 308

¹⁹ Unity 6

²⁰ Peo 7

These qualities, then, become the qualities of our consciousness or character. Again, we say God is Truth; but how useful is that unless truthfulness is seen to be the quality of our own nature and character. All of the fine, clear statements we may make, and even the perception of them as facts, are of little value if the redemption of character is neglected. It is far easier in the study of Christian Science to grasp an academic understanding of Truth than it is to prove it by expressing it in our daily living — thereby accomplishing the transformation of our character.

The building of a Godly character is also the elimination of disease. All practitioners of Christian Science witness instances where healing is made seemingly difficult for the moment because of the patient's erroneous characteristics. Logan Clendenning, a noted physician who has a syndicated newspaper column, tells of the experience of a personal friend of his, a man who according to materia medica had a certain form of heart disease. This physician said that he knew it had been brought about because of the man's reaction to the aggressiveness of his wife, who was constantly goading him to do something which either he did not want to do or felt was beyond his ability to accomplish, and that the heart attacks gave him an excuse for not having to do it. Here is an outstanding example of what failing to transform character seems to bring about. The disease, therefore, is seen to be mental and not physical If the man had been willing to go forward, and if the wife had been willing to be less aggressive, the physical condition would never have occurred.

It is in the belief of the false emotions where the seeming cause of sin, disease, and death are bred. It is the soil, so to speak. Things practitioners of Christian Science have known for sometime — and which doctors are beginning to find out — are that the emotions and the glands of the system are one and the same thing. By false emotions we mean resentment, injustice, envy, jealousy, anger, hatred, etc. Sometimes these emotions are actively expressed by persons, and then again, they may lie passive in thinking (in a sort of place out of sight of their daily lives.) We live over them, and talk over them, and argue over them, but this does not destroy them.

These erroneous qualities or emotions must be answered by the fact of spiritual existence and so be destroyed. Take the person who is endeavoring to make a demonstration of Love, of having the right attitude of thought toward man and the universe. He needs to watch his thinking to see if he is responding to the belief of the unkindnesses and hates of the world. What emotions do these stir up in him? The person who is demonstrating efficiency needs to watch that impatience and intolerance are not allowed to operate in him over the seeming stupidities in the world. Or the person who is demonstrating goodness needs to watch that he does not be-come self-righteous or super-critical over the seeming evil beliefs in the world.

Evil has only two ways to accomplish its purpose — that of seeming to be real. It is either, one, to get a person to do an evil thing; or two, to get him to be greatly disturbed because he believes someone else is doing evil.

What we call the human body is largely made up of glands. The activity of the glands is called secretions or excretions. The word secretion is interesting in this analysis, as it comes from the word secret. So we may well see that what we term the secretional action of the system is really the secret process of thinking.

We all know that it is possible to have a smiling face, cheery words, and yet be bearing underneath all that a deep sense of hurt, resentment, grief, or the like. This we must educate ourselves through Christian Science not to do! If we have a smiling face, let it have its being in Mind — feeling that way inside and outside.

"If beset with misguided emotions, we shall be stranded on the quick sands of worldly commotion, and practically come short of the wisdom requisite for teaching and demonstrating the victory over self and sin." ²¹

In other words, if the commotions of the material belief of thinking stir in us reactions of one kind or another, we have thus placed ourselves in a position where, for the time being, we have lost control of ourselves.

One of the steps necessary to character building is to learn to detect and eliminate the misguided emotions. We are finding these emotions eventually exemplify themselves in erroneous physical conditions. Fear, hatred, temper, deceit, worry, jealousy, resentment, injustice, et cetera, are some of the misguided emotional qualities. Leading doctors and psychologists of today are declaring the depressing and unwholesome effects on health and character of these qualities. The decoy of mortal mind is to get us to look at a physical condition and give it a name and then endeavor to heal the physical condition; whereas, the real culprit is mortal mind, erroneous thinking, some wrong characteristic of mortal thought, which is never the consciousness of man, whose Mind is God.

"Disease is always induced by a false sense mentally entertained, not destroyed. Disease is an image of thought externalized. The mental state is called a material state." ²²

Sometimes we even say, "I don't know what I have been thinking to cause such a result!" That which says, "I don't know," is dead and will never know; therefore, never approach a demonstration with such a declaration. Say, rather, "I have the power to know what I have been thinking and can eliminate it."

"Know, then that you possess sovereign power to think and act rightly, and that nothing can dispossess you of this heritage and trespass on Love." ²³

Reformation is entirely self-reformation. We cannot reform the other fellow out there. The reformation, or the development of the character of God as our character, takes place individually.

"Can you see an enemy, except you first formulate this enemy and then look upon the object of your own conception?" ²⁴

The belief of war, famine, and evil men can only be met at the door of our own thought, never a correction of things external to consciousness. Real character, Godly character, our character, is entirely separate from the seeming erroneous sense; just as gold and diamonds are found in their pure state in the midst of dirt and coarser material. They have been surrounded by this seeming mass for ages, perhaps, but they have never blended with it. Any fine metal refuses to blend with the coarseness with which it may be surrounded, and it stays fine metal because it refuses to surrender its identity. So it is with our character — the character which is God — it has always been perfect, and it is so now.

²¹ Ret 79

²² S&H 411

²³ Pul 3

²⁴ Mis 8

FEAR

The average person says, "I am free. Who says I am not free? I can walk the streets in absolute freedom, I am not a slave. I can vote, and I can do a whole lot of other things which indicate that I am free." But let that individual come to some difficult experience — a sense of pain or other difficulty — and he finds he is not as free as he thought he was. Why, he is afraid! Well then, is he really free? He is enslaved by the fear of disease. Is he then free? Did you ever hear of anyone being freed from the fear of evil except through Christian Science? Not that we say the Christian Scientist has overcome it entirely, but it is necessary that he do it sometime.

Fear is no part of the divine Being. Everybody will, must, admit that. Who can conceive of God being afraid, of His existing in a state of fear? How could He know anything of which to be afraid? Has He put something in His own universe of which to be afraid? Would He do that? Would He be afraid of Himself? Could He be? There is nothing in all God's universe unlike Himself of which to be afraid, ... . but the human being gauges his sense of life by the testimony of the material senses, a life separate from God, a finite reason on every hand to be afraid. Something on every hand to fear. So, basically, fear is the result of believing in an existence separate from God.

How shall we do away with fear? From a human standpoint there is nothing to prevent the human race from going on being afraid; and as long as it is afraid, it is an enslaved race. How shall we free ourselves individually from this slavery? There is no way except the way of absolute Science, no other way. It is the way of the Christ.

"Christ dwells forever in the bosom of the Father, God, from which it illumines heaven and earth, ²⁵

... the Christ which reveals that God is all, ... that God is Mind — our Mind ... that God is Spirit — our Spirit ... that in that oneness of being which Jesus understood and demonstrated and which he explained in the statement, "I and my Father are one," there is nothing to fear. The moment the Christ is born in the individual consciousness, ... the moment that divine idea appears — and the moment we begin to understand its meaning, ... the moment it has appeared in the realm that we call consciousness, it begins its transforming work. Then you begin to say, "I need not fear because in this divine presence there is no sin, disease, or another evil to fear." There is nothing — only good, God. There is no way in this realm for evil to announce itself and to cause us to fear. Christ Jesus did it in this way, and there is no other way for us to do it.

The world today is filled with the fear of impending war. The glorification of war is fear quite as much as is the dread of it. National pride is national fear. We are apt to deceive ourselves or be deceived in regard to this error, for we nearly always handle pride in these cases, instead of fear. Fear, error, is always animal magnetism, and it is mankind's greatest enemy.

²⁵ S&H 334

God is not afraid, therefore you are not afraid, I am not afraid. Fear is a claim designated as a belief in life, substance, and intelligence separate from God, which is animal magnetism. The fear of nations, or many nations, appears to be growing. It would appear to be great if we were to admit that any fear is great. Remember that fear in any form is nothingness. Why? Because it is based on a belief of life separate from God, and there isn't any! However great it may appear to be, it is still nothingness. A million fears still make nothing. "There were they in great fear, where no fear was." ²⁶ We must see this when considering international dangers; doing thus, we shall ourselves come to understand more clearly the omnipotence of Love, the only real power, adequate, competent, ever- present and available.

Affirm that your understanding of God is greater than what seems to be your fear and that fear cannot prevent the demonstration of Christian Science. That which you know to be God is the power now operating through the treatment, and the power of God in the treatment is not afraid. The treatment is operating in spite of what seems to be your fear; hence, do not fear your sense of fear. It is nothing! A good thing to say at a time when one thinks he is afraid is, "This is not my fear. I am not afraid." You will always notice when you do this that thereafter, there is less fear or maybe none at all. [Mr. Wade's lecture referred to a person seeing a cloud above in the sky that momentarily darkens the landscape and realizing that it is not "my" cloud. He likened that cloud to fear, and reminded the listeners that it not "my" fear any more than it is "my" cloud.]

We are all as safe as is omnipotent God. The one divine Mind, our Mind, is not afraid. Can we use that one Mind with which to fear? Are we living as infinite Life and Love, God, and still be afraid? Is there anything outside of or beyond God; is there anything inside God to fear? God made all and proclaimed it good. Fear is godless, mindless, powerless, not included in consciousness. Fear cannot act on body or understanding. It does not manifest itself as subjective or objective; it is not yours, mine or anyone's. And if we seem to fear, it is not our fear; and it does not make any difference.

A Christian Science treatment of fear displaces all the suppositional presence of fear through understanding that God, Mind, is the all and only presence. Fear is a fake belief within a fake belief, without cause, effect, or continuity. Fear is always about the future. It is not this minute, hour, or today, of which we are afraid, but the next minute, the next hour, or the next day. Now, when we see it that way, we are less afraid, and we begin to see that the government of divine Principle is established in ourselves to surmount human difficulties as nothing else can. The fears, then, that are associated with what is called supply, for instance, or related to lack of any kind, are not a part of the divine plan and purpose. There is no mind that is afraid, for God is Mind, our Mind, and will never be afraid.

God is not afraid of Himself. Fear is a myth. It never has existed, never had origin, never self-existent; for Mind, our Mind, is origin and self-existence. Fear does not operate according to law. It has no influence or power. Nobody believes it. Nobody is afraid. There is no Mind to think it. It has no actual value because it has no actual Mind. There is only divine Principle, one divine Mind, and that Mind is our Mind. Are we, can we, be afraid?

²⁶ Psalms 53:5

ERROR

The word animal magnetism used by Mrs. Eddy as a term for error was a wise choice. It puts error in the mental realm because of the word magnetism. It puts it back to mortal mind, and when we see it there, we are enabled to break it up and destroy it by the understanding of the one infinite divine Mind. Mind could not act as a treatment for matter, even if there were matter, because they are opposites — like frost and fire — but when animal magnetism is seen as a mental error or a belief in a mortal mind opposite to God, the only Mind, we can, with this understanding of the Science of Mind, utterly destroy the belief of mortal mind or animal magnetism.

Now, the meaning of the word malpractice is bad or wrong practice, wrong activity. Christian Science deals with the Science of Mind, or spiritual consciousness or right practice, and the belief in its opposite, mortal mind, or malpractice. In Christian Science practice, when we use the word malpractice, we necessarily mean the practice of wrong thinking. True practice is the activity of spiritual consciousness. Malpractice is the belief of the activity of material thinking. The only reality is divine Mind and its ideas. Yet, Mrs. Eddy says,

"A knowledge of error and of its operations must precede that understanding of Truth which destroys error." ²⁷

[... must precede ]

In accord with this, we note in the Scientific Statement of Being that it begins with a denial of the reality of evil, "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter." Then follows the statement of God, "All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation." ²⁸ Also, in the chapter called Animal Magnetism Unmasked, we find this same procedure. It begins with statements regarding the nothingness of error,

"Animal magnetism has no scientific foundation, for God governs all that is real, harmonious, and eternal, and His power is neither animal nor human. Its basis being a belief and this belief animal, in Science, animal magnetism, mesmerism, or hypnotism is a mere negation, possessing neither intelligence, power, nor reality, and in sense, it is an unreal concept of the so-called mortal mind. Then follows this pronouncement of Spirit, God: "There is but one attraction, that of Spirit. The pointing of the needle to the pole symbol-izes this all-embracing power or the attraction of God, divine Mind." ²⁹

Jesus, in the temptations recorded in Matthew, uses the same method, that of first denying the reality of evil. In the first temptation he said, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." In the second instance he said, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." In the third instance he said, "Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve." Thus we find it is necessary to the demonstration of the Science of Mind in our lives to know what evil claims to be, and that it is not true and why. [Talk about how it is possible to deny that 2+2 are not 5 because you know that 2+2 are 4.]

²⁷ S&H 252:8

²⁸ S&H 468:9

²⁹ S&H 102

Since there is but one Mind, and this Mind is infinite and eternal, it can know no evil, because evil is finite and self-destructive. This is the science of the unreality of evil, and the proof is that when we take this position, we can destroy the belief in evil. As we realize that this infinite Mind is our Mind, we better understand why the Christian Scientist has enlisted to lessen sin, disease and death in the world. From the standpoint of the Mind which is God, the individual Christian Scientist is seeing and knowing the unreality of evil.

Man is the thoughts he thinks. For generations this great truth has unfolded, for have we not heard, "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he," and "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so?" We are finding, therefore, that the individual never has anything with which to deal except his own thinking no matter what the error claims to be ... himself, someone else, a place, or a thing.

In order for him to experience malpractice, he must be conscious of it. That is, therefore, where the work must be done ... . in his own thinking. It is not that the individual is responsible for the whole belief of error, but he is responsible for what he believes he sees, hears, or feels of evil. The following statement from Romans,

"For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace," ³⁰ and Mrs. Eddy's statement, "Beloved Christian Scientists, keep your minds so filled with Truth and Love, that sin, disease, and death cannot enter them," ³¹

... give much light on the subject of malpractice. These two declarations could be said to contain the basic understanding of true practice and malpractice. They contain an assertion of what malpractice claims and what is needed to heal it. Carnal thinking is death, malpractice, material mindedness, the practice of wrong thinking. Spiritual consciousness is life, is peace, for it is the knowing of the one infinite Mind as our Mind, and this is true practice.

The belief in two minds persisted until our Beloved Leader announced to the world that "All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation." This made mortal mind lose its identity as mind and be seen as a false limited material sense of things, "A misstatement of Mind, God." ³² This led humanity out of dual thinking for the first time.

Sometimes we hear someone say that so-and-so is malpracticing on them. If such a temptation comes to anyone, he himself is being tempted to malpractice. Is it not carnal thinking, malpractice, to believe the suggestion that there is an evil man? It makes no difference what the other fellow thinks. Really it doesn't! It is not what he is thinking, but what you are thinking he thinks, that makes the difference. Are we believing in error, or are we understanding the one Mind? If the suggestion that there is an evil person, place or thing meets no response or fear in our thinking, malpractice would shortly go out of business for lack of activity.

³⁰ Romans 8:6

³¹ My 210

³² Un 35:21

Remember, the point is not what they are thinking, but what we think they are thinking that counts, because consciousness is fundamental to existence, is existence. In fact, the kind of existence you have is dependent upon what you are demonstrating as consciousness. Declare only such thoughts as you wish manifested. Mrs. Eddy states,

"Mortal mind produces its own phenomena, and then charges them to something else, — like a kitten glancing into the mirror at itself and thinking it sees another kitten," ³³ [... its own phenomena] but she also says, "In Science, Mind is one, including noumenon and phenomena, God and His thoughts." ³⁴

Thus one sees that he individualizes his own world through either his limited material sense of things, by mortal mind claiming to be his thinking, or through his understanding of the one Mind, God, the Mind of man, which includes noumenon and phenomena.

Still clarifying this, our Leader says, in speaking of the new heaven and earth,

"This testimony of Holy Writ sustains the fact in Science, that the heavens and earth to one human consciousness, that consciousness which God bestows, are spiritual, while to another, the unillumined human mind, the vision is material." ³⁵

We are apt to forget that what we call matter is mortal mind, which is one definition Mrs. Eddy gives of it in the Glossary. Therefore, to overcome the belief in matter, we must destroy mortal mind by seeing its unreality from the standpoint of divine Mind, not that we are responsible for the whole belief in evil or matter, but each one of us is responsible for the evil which he admits he believes, sees, hears, or feels.

If we continue to charge the forms of evil which seem to confront us at times as persons, places, or things, to the persons, places and things themselves, and not to mortal mind, and if we then fail to see that it is error claiming to operate as our thinking, and that the healing needed is in our own consciousness, then we are not understanding how to handle malpractice or destroy the belief in mortal mind. To be carnally minded is death, malpractice, but to know man and the universe from the standpoint of the one infinite Mind as our Mind is to be spiritually minded and is life and peace. Doing this does not only handle malpractice, but it utterly destroys it.

³³ S&H 220:18

³⁴ S&H 114

³⁵ S&H 573:5

MALPRACTICE

A great many things have been said — and many things are still said -- about mal-practice, which do not tend to clarify the thoughts of Christian Scientists concerning that false claim. Any student here is aware that much time and energy have been wasted in the endeavor on the part of earnest students to handle this particular error. There is always a correct way, and it is well for us to insist upon the fact that we can understand that way, and follow it effectually. I am speaking of this because it is observed that there are two divergent views, or what might be called attitudes of thought, concerning what is known as malpractice. On one side, we often find people looking here and there to discover some hidden thing they call mal-practice. On the other hand, we find that students are sometimes prone to ignore this claim when they should recognize it.

Our aim should be absolute Science. In the measure that we attain that correct mentality we shall find that we are able to recognize this or any other particular phase of error, and that our ability to handle it is coincident with our recognition of it. Unquestionably, there are times when almost everybody finds it necessary to argue against this claim; but the argument is value-less unless it results in a clear realization of the nothingness of error. I have been surprised to meet persons and sometimes practitioners of long standing, who think that they suffer for righteousness sake. Such an attitude of thought is an open door for all sorts of attacks. One who believes he must be attacked because he is a Christian Scientist needs to handle, not malpractice directed against himself, but his own mesmeric belief in malpractice.

The fact about this particular false claim is not discerned by those who imagine that they are the object of its attentions. We need to remind ourselves frequently and clearly that all error is designated by the term mortal mind. We often find, furthermore, that what seems to be a personal difficulty, which might reasonably be ascribed to malpractice, will fade out when we see that the false claim of a power apart from God — designated as mortal mind — is a supposition, irrevocably opposed to the divine Christ, Truth. Being nothing more than a supposition, it is unreal. From observation, and not a little experience, I am convinced that this view is the effectual way of handling malpractice.

When we recognize that Truth is one and infinite and that the divine and only Mind is self-existent, we can see that the counterfeit of it claims also to be one and infinite and self-existent. This counterfeit naturally opposes that which threatens its claim of existence; and here, in its fear of annihilation, one may find the basic activity of all that is called malicious animal magnetism or malpractice. In handling this claim in any specific instance, one should permit thought to express the omnipotence and omnipresence and allness of good so effectually as to utterly annihilate any claim of law associated with the belief that there is any other Mind than the one Mind. It need hardly be stated that we should consistently know and constantly prove the protective power of omnipresence.

Protection against any possible belief of trouble — of any nature whatsoever — is a part of the daily work of a Christian Scientist; at the same time, it is incorrect — not to say foolish — for Christian Scientists to imagine all sorts of evil and then proceed to work against the creations of their own imagination. A consciousness of the substance and allness of Spirit and a consequent realization of the unreality of matter and of material personality fulfills the metaphysical requirements of 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 is adequate protection. This protection should be broad enough to cover all of what mortal mind calls possibilities and specific enough to reject the false claim of law through which and by which animal magnetism seems to have influence or to exert influence. The work should definitely annul the claim of a mortal mind.

To sum this up, we can see that it matters not what so-and-so is thinking about us, and it is not our work to make him change what he thinks. Our work lies in the understanding of the one Mind, and from that standpoint, to see that there exists no one to think mortally at all, for there is no mortal mind, there is but one Mind, God. Mrs. Eddy says,

"It is true that the mistakes, prejudices, and errors of one class of thinkers must not be introduced or established among another class who are clearer and more conscientious in their convictions; but this one thing can be done, and should be: let your opponents alone, and use no influence to prevent their legitimate action from their own standpoint of experience, knowing, as you should, that God will well regenerate and separate wisely and finally; whereas you may err in effort, and lose your fruition." ³⁶

We are healing ourselves all the time, ... healing ourselves of the suggestions presented to us that the universe and man are material and that God is far off. As we heal ourselves of these claims, we find evidenced to our vision the fact that the universe and man are spiritual and that God is not a God afar off but just at hand. This understanding of so-handling malpractice does away with all contention, battle, and struggle. Our work is done when we are at peace within ourselves with the understanding that God is All-in-all.

³⁶No 9:4

FINITE SENSE

Mrs. Eddy says, "Mortal man has made a covenant with his eyes to belittle Deity with human conceptions. In league with material sense, mortals take limited views of all things."

"As mortals drop off their swaddling clothes, thought expands into expression. ³⁷

And, "The limited view of God's ideas arose from the testimony of the senses." ³⁸

These statements and others to be found in the writings of our Leader show that she has given us the name, mortal mind, to designate that which is not the divine Mind, a limited, and therefore, unreal mind.

Unless there are two causes, there could not be both good and evil. In the light of Christian Science, which teaches that God, good, is the only Cause, evil is only a limited sense of good. What we term the material universe and material man — which, of course, is not true, but only a belief — are but a finite sense of the spiritual universe and spiritual man, which is a divine fact.

There could not be two causes, material and spiritual, constantly at war with each other. Were this the case, victory would be first on one side and then on the other.

"This theory would keep truth and error always at war. Victory would perch on neither banner." ³⁹

In the last analysis, what we term matter, in any and all of its belief, is but a finite sense of the infinite.

³⁷ S&H 255

³⁸ Mis 164

³⁹ S&H 492

Our progress in Christian Science is not going from imperfection to perfection. Such a situation would be impossible in the understanding of divine metaphysics. How, then, may we look upon the forward steps which are brought about by education in Christian Science or Christian Science healing? It is simply this: that as finite sense is relinquished, the infinity of Being appears; Truth appearing and error disappearing; sickness disappearing, health appearing; dying disappearing, Life appearing. Evil is but the hidden existence of good. When we wipe off from the escutcheon of consciousness the belief of material blots, finite sense, we see divine and infinite and perfect Being appearing — which has always been there and was only momentarily out of sight because of the belief in finite sense. The wonderful statement found in our Scientific Statement of Being, "All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all," sums up this question in its entire perfection. And so it is.

SUNDAY SCHOOL

It is necessary that we understand the importance of Sunday School work, or the importance of the Sunday School in relation to the Christian Science Movement. Much of the material for the future Christian Science Movement will come from the ranks of the children. The need is to realize that Christian Science must be presented to them in such a way that it will be fundamental and therefore lasting. It must be presented in an attractive way, also, so that instead of it appearing to them merely as a religion — a dose of which is to be taken when they find themselves in difficulties — it shall be presented to them in the nature of a practical, demonstrable, dependable science, the Science of Divine Mind — which may be utilized in the nursery, school or college, as well as in latter years in the social and business world. It must be presented so that they, in their youth, may learn to apply the Science of Mind in their daily lives, so that in adult years to come they will easily and naturally apply it in their vocations, whether artistic, commercial, or academic, resultantly with more healthful, happy and truly successful lives.

In speaking of Truth, Mrs. Eddy writes,

"It is the dear children's toy and strong tower; the wise man's dictionary; the poor man's money; 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." ⁴⁰ And, "This spiritual idea, or Christ, entered into the minutiae of the life of the personal Jesus. It made him an honest man, a good carpenter and a good man, before it could make him the glorified." ⁴¹

There is far more involved, as we know, in being a Sunday School teacher or worker than the mere acceptance of the work in order to serve the church. Really, there is no more important work in the entire Movement that that found in the Sunday School and which, as we know, involves more time than just one hour on Sunday morning. In reality, we are laying a foundation for the future generations of the Christian Science Movement, laying foundation stones for future workers, practitioners, readers, and lecturers, as well as a more enlightened and normal youth, a more responsible fatherhood and motherhood, and a more obedient sonship.

⁴⁰ Mis 252

⁴¹ Mis 166

All this we may expect in accordance with Mrs. Eddy's teaching that man is made in the likeness of God, which God Mrs. Eddy defines as "The creative Principle - Life, Truth, and Love." ⁴² Further, defining this Trinity,

"This rule clearly interprets God as divine Principle - as Life, represented by the Father; as Truth, represented by the Son; as Love, represented by the Mother." Man, the idea of Mind, naturally expresses these qualities. Because of this we feel secure and encouraged to go ahead in our work with the children; for . . "The formation of mortals must greatly improve to advance mankind." ⁴³

In order to bring about this desideratum we must be sure to make our statements of Christian Science correctly, thereby laying an accurate foundation for the student in his application of this spiritually scientific knowledge to his daily life for his or her betterment. This should apply during the entire time the student is in the Sunday School, whether he is being taught the Commandments, the Beatitudes, or the Lesson Sermons.

"In practicing Christian Science you must state its principle correctly, or you forfeit your ability to demonstrate it." ⁴⁴

This injunction of Mrs. Eddy's is an important reminder to us to be exact in our teaching.

In our effort to be exact, however, let us not overlook the importance of inspiration and spontaneity. Say the old truths in a new way. A little boy in the Christian Science Sunday School was told that "God is Love." "Aw, tell me something new! he cried.” When Miss Whitcomb was superintendent of The Mother Church Sunday School, she made a big point of inspiration and spontaneity of thought. A teacher came to her one morning to unfold an idea that had come to her in regard to teaching. Miss Whitcomb listened lovingly and then replied with a smile, "That is just splendid — for one Sunday."

Sometimes in discussing the importance of the children in relation to the Christian Science Movement, one hears someone say, "Oh, well, there will be plenty of workers who will come to us from other walks of life, churches, et cetera." Yes, that may be true, but does it not seem entirely logical that the best workers of the future should come from Christian Science families or where as children they were trained in Christian Science Sunday Schools, and taught to apply the truths learned there in their daily lives? Can we place too much importance on this work in our Sunday Schools?

Then there is another point: we teachers in the Sunday School should be prepared to give the exact meaning of words employed by Mrs. Eddy in elucidating Christian Science as well as words found in the Bible. We should interpret them according to the age of the student, as it were, always being careful to give the words their proper pronunciation. Remember that Christian Science is not only a religion, but an accurate Science as well.

Ideas come first as thoughts; then they are put into words. How necessary it is if we are to give the children the correct understanding of Christian Science that both the meaning and the pronunciation of the words should be correctly given. This applies, of course, to our own use of words in explaining ideas to the children that no confusion may result. In a class of small boys just beginning the study of the Lesson Sermons in The Mother Church Sunday School, the word affliction appeared. The teacher asked the class if anyone knew the meaning of that word. One small boy put up his hand. "Tell us," said the teacher. "Well, you see, it is this way," began the child falteringly, "You look in the mirror and what you see there is your affliction." That illustrates the importance of the children knowing words and their meaning if they are to get the right idea of Christian Science!

⁴² S&H 502

⁴³ S&H 61

⁴⁴ Mis 242

Then there is the thought of discipline — an important thing to understand, and it is of primary importance to understand what it is. Because the word discipline is related to the word disciple, it gives a new meaning to the word, showing more definitely what is required in the disciplining of a child. If we start out to discipline an error and draw the attention of the child to what we are doing, the resistance seems increased thereby. Rather, let us discipline a child by teaching his thought to follow or become a disciple of truth — leading him away from the contemplation of an error to something better — even though, for the moment, we may not find it possible to turn his interest at once to God or man — scientifically speaking.

Mrs. Eddy says, "Children are more tractable than adults, and learn more readily to love the simple verities that will make them happy and good." ⁴⁵

A substitute worker was, one Sunday, led to a class of boys which had been giving a good deal of difficulty in that particular Sunday School. She found them engrossed in the subject of a prize fight which had taken place that week, and it seemed impossible to divert their attention to any other subject. She asked the boys what it took to make a good prize fighter. "Strength" was the reply. She related strength to God, showing the boys that mere animal strength was not desirable, but real strength was a quality of God. The conversation turned to Washington and Lincoln as men of strength — of not merely physical strength but mental integrity. Their attention was called to that prizefighter known as "Gentleman Jim" and to the courtesy and consideration for which he won that title. Their interest eventually enlisted, the boys acknowledged Jesus, the Christ, as the truly strongest character that ever lived on earth. When the Sunday School session was over, the superintendent came to inquire what had taken place because the class had been so orderly and attentive.

We do not talk down to children. Of course we all know that pedagogy in Christian Science has a different modus operandi than it has in other modes of learning. In the material world it is believed that man has to be educated from nothing to something, that he has to acquire something he lacks. In Christian Science we start out with the perfection and the completeness of man — that he is already intelligent — whole, spiritual. Our teaching in the Sunday School, therefore, approaches the student differently. We know he knows before we tell him something. This attitude cultivates the natural ability of the student to think for himself.

"In Science," says our Leader, "it can never be said that man has a mind of his own distinct from God, the all Mind." ⁴⁶ In other words, God is the Mind of man. Our work along this line is to "arouse the dormant understanding from material beliefs to the apprehension of spiritual ideas and the demonstration of divine Science, thereby casting out devils, or error, and healing the sick." ⁴⁷

Really, we know our work in the Sunday School is awakening consciousness to the facts of spiritual existence. How many experiences we have all had in teaching which prove that the awakening of the student is the teacher's awakening, too. Allowing the children to question, and asking questions of them is very beneficial. It demonstrates ideas for both students and teacher. It demonstrates the spontaneity and oneness of Mind and idea. If teachers talk too much, the students may lose interest or allow their thoughts to wander. We are not in the Sunday School to tell them how much we know but how much they know.

Mrs. Eddy has provided direction for this type of work.

"The next lessons consist of such questions and answers as are adapted to a juvenile class, and may be found in the Christian Science Quarterly Lessons, read in Church services." ⁴⁸

Questions should be so formed that the student cannot answer yes or no, but promotes reasoning in order to give an answer. An example of a poor mode of teaching would be to ask such a question as "Is God Love?" [We could ask, "Why is God Love?" and "What does this mean in your life?"]

In rousing the dormant understanding, we are rousing in the student his natural ability to appreciate spiritual ideas, and questions and answers are a great help along this line. We all know how much more an idea is ours when it comes as our own consciousness than when we merely accept someone else's idea.

Lessons should be prepared. Still, we must not forget that inspiration is a natural faculty of ours. Why? Because there is but one Mind. Webster gives one definition for inspiration as enlivening influence, creative influence. When a student asks you a question, even if you have not heard it before, it is possible, because of this enlivening and creative ability of Mind which is our Mind, to know an immediate and correct answer. Also, this is true of the student whom we question. It is possible for him to give an immediate, accurate, metaphysical answer.

Our teaching, based on the all-knowing Mind, has great possibilities and is far reaching. It takes it out of the realm of scholasticism and advances it to that of Mind. It is important to recognize the attempt of the student to express an idea. If the idea is well expressed, appreciate it by commenting on it. If the idea is not so well expressed, help the student to unfold it correctly. At the same time, let him know his effort is appreciated.

Each child is an individual, and no two children will express an idea in the same way. By realizing their spiritual individuality and making radiant room for each, the teacher does much to help them unfold.

⁴⁵S&H 236

⁴⁶ S&H 204

⁴⁷ S&H 583

⁴⁸ Man, Sect 3, Art. 20

It is also important to teach the child to know Mrs. Eddy, to understand her, love, and appreciate her. Some years ago, a friend of mine repeated an incident to me which is humorous on one hand but serious on the other. A little girl in a Sunday School asked the teacher if the superintendent was Mrs. Eddy. The answer was, "No, that is our Superintendent." The teacher there missed an opportunity. The child was quite evidently seeking to find out who Mrs. Eddy was. The teacher should have used this opportunity to tell her. The churches in some measure have cleared the question of who Jesus was and of his place in Christianity and civilization. It is certainly right that our children shall understand who both Jesus and Mrs. Eddy, are along with their individual contributions to the world.

Mrs. Eddy evidently thought that work with the children was important.

"The sapling bends to the breeze, while the sturdy oak, with form and inclination fixed, breasts the tornado. It is easier to incline the early thought rightly, than the biased mind. Children not mis-taught, naturally love God; for they are pure-minded, affectionate, and generally brave." "It is a joy to know that they who are faithful over foundational trusts, such as the Christian education of the dear children, will reap the reward of rightness, rise in the scale of being, and realize at last their Master's promise, 'And they shall be all taught of God.' Ah, children, you are the bulwarks of freedom, the cement of society, the hope of our race." ⁴⁹

LACK

One could say that the only thing an individual needs to be healed of is lack. Whether it is illness or some other form of error, the problems that confront us are a lack of some kind,... lack of health, ... of happiness, ... of supply, ... of friends, ... of work. It is not so much a need to demonstrate the things just mentioned as to look beyond the picture presented to us and see that it is a belief in lack and, primarily, not a lack of things.

Jesus gave the perfect remedy for lack when he said, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, all these things shall be added, "that is, establish the kingdom of God, the consciousness of the perfection and completeness of God's creation, as your consciousness, and after that, these things shall be added. Understanding, then, is the only need.

If we are not careful, however, we start out the demonstration on the basis of accretion. Whereas Mrs. Eddy says, "Christian Science presents unfoldment, not accretion." ⁵⁰ If we believe in accretion, we start out to get what we think we lack. This really is never a healing, for unless we are healing the belief in lack, ignorance of God, there never will be enough ... even if we have all there is.

There is only one way in which the root of lack may be pulled out, and that is to root ourselves in Mind and look out from Mind rather than up to it. Looking up to Mind we will be conscious of what Mind has, but of which we may not have. Looking out from Mind we become conscious of all that Mind possesses, therefore, what we possess. If, for instance, one seems to be without work, the first think is the realization that because he is one with God, one with Mind, looking out from that Mind he already is occupied, reflecting Mind, even as Jesus said in the parable of the prodigal son, "Son, thou art ever with me and all that I have is thine." It is never ours through getting. You have to become conscious that you already possess it, are it.

⁴⁹ Mis, My, Pul

⁵⁰ S&H 68:27

Is not life that is based on accretion or getting the problem of the economic world? And would not life correctly understood as manifestation or giving be the solution? It may be said that the profound statement, "All is infinite Mind and infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all," holds the key to the situation.51 A Christian Scientist can do nothing better than ponder the meaning of this statement and determine how to make "Infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation" the basis of his living and giving. This understanding will bless not only his own daily life but that of others.

What happens when a person bases his existence separate from God, Mind? Feeling and fearing lack, he proceeds to acquire what he thinks he needs in order to live and enjoy life. This state of living someone has well expressed as "digging in a ditch to earn enough money to buy some food to get enough strength to dig a ditch." So, around and around goes this erroneous sense of living, whether the person be termed affluent or otherwise. The result of this accretion is neither satisfaction nor lasting security. What is the way out of this misconception of life? It is to understand life as "infinite Mind and its manifestation," and how to make this idea workable in one's present experience.

What happens when a man does base his existence as one with God, Mind? Knowing that he is one with Mind, he is conscious of the infinite perfection and abundance of that Mind.

"The I will go to the Father when meekness, purity, and love, informed by divine Science, the Comforter, lead to the one God; then the ego is found not in matter but in Mind, for there is but one God, one Mind, and man will then claim no mind apart from God." ⁵²

From this standpoint he realizes that he possesses all riches because he is the manifested riches of Mind, which precludes the belief that he must acquire them. Because God gives, man manifests giving. Effect is like Cause. Because God is a Giver, the manifestation of God could not be a getter. There would be no Principle involved in that — effect must be like Cause. Knowing the affluence of Mind and idea, his mental action is that of manifestation, not accretion.

But someone may say, "I cannot do this, for I have nothing to give." Bereft of all, he still has the "pearl of great price" to give; the understanding that Mind and man is one, and that, therefore, man is the manifestation of all that God is. This knowing is the essence of concrete giving. To the woman who thought she had only a little meal and oil, "Make me therof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after, make for thee and for thy son." ⁵³ The record goes on to state that she did what Elijah told her to do, and that "she and he, and her house, did eat many days," thus bringing home the lesson needed in order to show that the Principle

⁵¹ S&H 468

⁵² Mis 195

⁵³ I Kings 17:13

involved in the demonstration of supply is to begin with having, because the one and only Mind is our Mind, and, then, letting that Mind manifest its riches and abundance.

But as long as the world is divided into two groups, those who give and those who get, our economic structure will be unbalanced. All must give, for "all is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all."

Mrs. Eddy's life exemplified how well she understood Mind and manifestation. The Christian Science Movement came into existence because she gave to the world the Principle which she had discovered through her healing. She gave Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures and her other writings. She gave The Mother Church and branch churches and the activities as outlined in the Manual of The Mother Church. She gave the periodicals and the Christian Science Monitor. None of these things did she do as accretion. To give did not impoverish her; it enriched her in all ways as the history of her life records. It was possible for her to do this because she knew for herself, as she tells us to know for ourselves, that the one and only Mind was her Mind and is our Mind. This Mind which is God is therefore the Giver of all good.

The Mother Church is still giving of that self same infinite substance, giving to the world the Word of God in the Christian Science Movement, which, in turn, is giving employment to many thousands of persons, furthering this Cause. The law of true economy is to give, even the root meaning of the word economy means to distribute. This understanding completely reverses the material mode of living or accretion.

How well Mrs. Eddy understood true economy is found in Pulpit and Press where it tells of the time when she purchased Pleasant View in Concord, New Hampshire.

"She chose the stubby old farm on the road from Concord. She employs a number of men to keep the grounds and farm in perfect order, and it was pleasing to learn that this rich woman is using her money to promote the welfare of industrious workmen, in whom she takes a vital interest. Mrs. Eddy believes that 'the laborer is worth his hire,' and, moreover, that he deserves to have a home and family of his own. Indeed, one of her motives in buying so large an estate was that she might do something for the toiler, and thus add her influence toward the advancement of better home life and citizenship." ⁵⁴

Any worthy accomplishment whose cause we espouse should have this same motive; how will it more abundantly distribute the good which we are, the one Mind. To decide whether this understanding of true economy is the solution to lack and depression, one need only visualize a world wherein each individual manifests the riches of eternal and infinite Mind. In that realm would not all have an abundance? We must be weaned from the belief that a Christian Science demonstration means getting a healing, a position, a better salary, friends or home, to the understanding that we possess all these things because there is but one Mind and that Mind is our Mind; and man and the universe is the manifestation of that Mind. Then, in the words of Jesus, we, too, may say, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." ⁵⁵

⁵⁴ Pul 49

⁵⁵ Sentinel, 1898-9, Vol. 1

MRS. EDDY and the FLAG

Reverend Mary Baker Eddy is more patriotic than many of her students. She keeps the stars and stripes waving over her residence at Concord. The Flag also waves over the Concord Church. It is likely she sees more in the emblem of liberty than do her students.

COMMUNISM vs. CONSTITUTIONALISM

The Fathers of our Constitution understood the lessons of English history which taught in a series of dramatic episodes the possibilities of oppression through the misrule of kings. Throughout the years before 1788, men had failed to construct a government that provided individual security and freedom. Experiment in governing had swept full circles from mob to monarchy, democracy to tyranny, autocracy to feudalism, and back again. Of these, none had guaranteed life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

If one were to visit the British Museum today, he would find there a shriveled parchment upon which to gaze in deep reverence, for it is the Magna Charta, the basis of American liberty. Behind this bit of parchment lies the history of a relentless struggle by people against tyranny of the rulers. The Fathers of the Constitution were not only conversant with the Magna Charta, but they were familiar with the thought of many learned men who had written of mankind's struggle for individual liberty. First among these were two Englishmen — John Locke and Sir William Blackstone — and Baron deMontessquieu. You can see that the Constitution of the United States was not born in 1776 by the Declaration of Independence, but it was the outgrowth of a spiritual idea developing throughout the centuries to free man from the bondage of unjust tyrannical rulers. Really, it was the Christ idea of freedom being interpreted nationally.

When the colonies were working separately before they became a union, history tells us each one used the three branches of government which we find established in the Constitution — legislative, executive, and judicial — and that even then, they gave the judicial branch of government the power of finality in questions of great importance.

Communism, as it is being operated and established today, is far removed from the Christian conception of equality; it is the anti-Christ. It is frankly an expression of class hatred, which is avowedly a dictatorship of the proletariat, or laboring class, and makes no provision for any other groups. Communism and socialism are more serious in this country because they have tickets on our ballots and are well organized. We need to understand these question.

Every fair-minded person agrees that the despotism of the Czar and the conditions before WW I were deplorable, but it is an open question whether the Soviet government has gone much farther toward contributing to the individual freedom of the Russian or his nation. Years of persecution and slavery do not reflect a government based on the brotherhood of man. There is not one thing in the teaching, the proposition, or the aims that has anything in common with principle, justice, the teachings of Jesus, or Christian Science.

⁵⁵ John 10:10

The main expression of socialism and communism today is class hatred, and how can you ever produce a government expressing no love for one's neighbor? There are also certain metaphysical points or facts which simply will not coincide with any material expression of Socialism, Fascism, or Communism. First of all, Christian Science is distinctly individualistic; it teaches the spiritual individuality of man; it declares that every idea of Mind has its own identity. While ideas are cooperative, they do not lose their individuality or right of individual freedom, individual expression, or individual initiative. These spiritual facts absolutely oppose the conception of collectivism, where the individual is given up for the mass.

Since man is self-governed in Science — governed from within his own consciousness because the kingdom of God is within him — he includes the state, he includes government. Governments, therefore, do not include him. This spiritual fact is absolutely at variance with Fascism, where the state is absolutely supreme and individual rights are of no consequence.

Christian Science teaches ideas of Mind are individual because God is individual and that they are forever individually developing and forever individually unfolding the infinity of Mind. The source of this unfoldment is God, and each man achieves or demonstrates according to the degree of his own perception, initiative, and perseverance. Christian Science concedes to each man this illimitable unfoldment.

Socialism, by false human methods, inflicts a leveling process by which all men shall be brought down to a human state of equality in all things. Christian Science teaches exactly the opposite. There all men shall be brought up to an equal state of divine consciousness by individual effort and by thinking spiritually upward. If the present theories of Fascism, Social-ism, and Communism had their way, they would destroy all limited individual initiative and creative impulse. To say, in effect, that man may invent a machine, but shall not enjoy the fruitage of his labor; that he may write a book, but have no returns on it; is this in accord with the promise, "But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid." ⁵⁶

If it took from the time of Adam to Jesus to demonstrate individual being, and if it took nineteen centuries from Jesus to the discovery of Christian Science, which furthers the under-standing of individual being, shall we so lightly consider these collective propositions which are in opposition to individual being?

The fact is that while we are all in the business of helping one another, in the last analysis, every man must work out his own salvation. Everyone must, through his understanding of Christian Science, demonstrate that he is the manifestation of Mind. This can only come about through individual effort.

⁵⁶ Micah 4:4

Why are most of the advocated theories of Socialism and Communism at the present time unworkable? Simply because the race has never demonstrated equality of Mind. Only through equality of Mind, of intelligence, can we have an operative equitable social plan.

There is not one of us who does not most earnestly desire to see any step taken that will make for better conditions for all our brothers. We know that the banking business and certain practices concerning the buying and selling of stocks and bonds, and, in fact, almost all other phases of business, need adjustment and regulation. We desire better laws and more equitable social conditions for all mankind. We welcome every right step that will improve the lot of the farmer and bring about equitable conditions between capital and labor. These changes, however, can only be brought about by the demonstration of the one Mind and not through other isms whose basis is jealousy. If the impulses and methods are studied, it would not be difficult to see that they are, for the most part, envy, hatred, and jealousy. Where does the brotherhood of man show forth in such manifestations?

All that has been said here brings us to this point — that constitutional government more nearly approximates the standard of Christian Science that any other government in the world. The United States of America presents the only government which from its inception has never had a state religion. The Scandinavian countries are Lutheran; the Latins are Roman Catholic; Oriental countries have Buddhism, Confucianism, or Shintoism; Turkey is Mohammedan; Greece, Greek Catholic; and England, the Church of England. The United States, however, offers religious and individual freedom throughout its government, and as long as the Constitution stands, we can never have a state religion. This is why Mrs. Eddy and Christian Science appeared here. In speaking of this fact, she says,

"Religious liberty and individual rights under the Constitution of our nation are rapidly advancing, avowing and consolidating the genius of Christian Science." ⁵⁷

If we study the words of this passage, we must draw the conclusion that the Constitution has proved a bulwark behind which Mrs. Eddy was able to found the Christian Science Movement.

Had Fascism, Socialism, Communism, or Nazism ruled this country when Mrs. Eddy discovered Christian Science, she might have written her book, but she could never have published it. Had these governments still been in operation when she passed away, her money could never have been left to The Mother Church; indeed, there could never have been a Mother Church. Then as thinking Christian Scientists, we must make it our business to see that nothing ever happens to the Constitution of the United States. If it is to be amended, these amendments must be for the greater individual expression of man.

Governments of nations should not be divorced from God, for eventually, God's government must shine through the government of every nation.

"Mankind will be God-governed in proportion as God's government becomes apparent, the Golden Rule utilized, and the rights of man and the liberty 57Mis 200 conscience held sacred." ⁵⁸

When someone asked Mrs. Eddy what her political views were, she said, "I have none other than to help support a righteous government" but she did indicate that she would help support righteous government. None of us should think it unimportant to consider seriously the question of constitutional government, for it is outside of all political issues. Mrs. Eddy had definite views on this subject as we find in the lines just quoted and another quotation, "I believe strictly in the Monroe Doctrine, in our Constitution, and in the laws of God." ⁵⁹ To have come to such a conclusion, Mrs. Eddy must have given consideration to constitutional government.

In as much as the Christian Science Publishing Society and The Mother Church have to carry on business, the laws of the land will effect the demonstration through these avenues. Just as the Committees on Publication watch all legislation of the states, so must we watch the legislation of our nation.

While Jesus talked and demonstrated the principles of Love, which must result in a just socialist state, there is evidence that he included the justice of individual compensation and the rightness of individual effort. The Master's attitude toward these things is strikingly revealed in the parable of the talents.

"Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh. For the kingdom of heaven is as a man traveling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods. And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey. Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents. And likewise he that had received two, he also gained other two. But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord's money. After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them. And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents; behold I have gained beside them five talents more. His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things. I will make thou ruler over many things; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents; behold, I have gained two other talents beside them. his lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.

Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou has not strawed: And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine. His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather were I have not strawed: Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents." ⁶⁰

⁵⁸ Mis 222

⁵⁹ My 282

⁶⁰ Matt 25:13-29

There is no leveling process here, no equality of division, simply the revelation of the law of justice or compensation. The man who is active, alert, and industrious reaps according to his deserving. The demand is ever operative that we shall utilize our talents. Failure to use the talents that are inherently ours is the only reason we fair to reap our reward.

Under constitutional government the three branches of government prevent the misuse of power and when carried out as it is intended, make it impossible for tyranny and the exploitation of the individual to exist. Individual freedom and regimentation are opposites and work in different directions.

Government is as old as God. God and government are not separate. God and government are one. Government is as universal and eternal as God. The more we understand God and man, the more we know about true government, national governments must someday ex-press the government of God and man, and in order for that to come about, individuals must learn more and more what true government is.

The Christian Scientist must be a Christian Scientist first. That must be his first concern. His nationality is secondary to the fact that he is a Christian Scientist. Because man is an infinite idea of Mind, all-inclusive, expressing the allness of Mind, he is not in government, but government is in him. The principle of God and man is the basis of all true government.

Mrs. Eddy says, "God is individual Mind." ⁶¹ As this individual God-being is under-stood, true government is manifest. No one so conscious of himself could ever believe in Communism or Socialism of any kind.

The HUMAN and DIVINE

It has been erroneously said and somewhat widely represented that God uses the human mind to redeem or heal mortal mind. If the divine Mind could use human mind, the human mind would be a reality; then you would have at least two minds instead of one, which would be two gods instead of one. The holding of such doctrines is erroneous, misleading, and sheer animal magnetism.

If we accept it, the healing power of Christian Science is lost. Such doctrines are the errors of modern psychology.

"Let no mortal interfere with God's government by thrusting in the laws of erring, human concepts." ⁶²

The divine and the human coincidence does not involve the human so-called mind. Both the words and the works of Jesus reveal this fact. If he had permitted himself to believe in that which appeared to be himself, none of his works, great or small, would have been accomplished. Nothing less than omnipotence could do these extraordinary works, really natural works, and the same is true today. In a certain sense, Jesus healed himself of the belief that there was a need for food for five thousand people in the realization of what Principle and idea actually is. And this divine understanding of divine being manifested itself in a present expression of wholeness and completeness, as loaves and fishes, but the so-called human mind had nothing to do with it. In fact, when the demonstration took place, there was no human mind.

⁶¹ Mis 101

⁶² S&H 62

Thus divinity embraces humanity, and so it is with all demonstrations, as our Leader tells us,

"John saw the human and divine coincidence, shown in the man Jesus, as divinity embracing humanity in Life and its demonstration, — reducing to human perception and understanding the Life which is God. In divine revelation, material and corporeal selfhood disappear, and the spiritual idea is understood." ⁶³

When Jesus declared, "I can of my own self do nothing," that was spoken of his belief of himself as a human being, [... "my own self"] for at another time, he insisted upon the reality and availability of divine power when he said,

"I and my Father are one."

"I girded thee, though thou hast not known me," ⁶⁴

sang the Psalmist. We are actually demonstrating only in the measure that we are conscious of our divine being, not human being. In overcoming the mesmerism, the belief of lack of health, lack of work, lack of happiness -- which is the belief in an existence separate from God, Mind -- we must persistently claim the fact that God, the only Mind there is, is our Mind. The word man, unless we gain and maintain it in its real and scientific signification, may still serve to convey the erroneous sense of existence, -- wherein it is supposed that we may be helped by divine power while still separate from that power. This error must be recognized and denied. The fact is that our real being, even yourself or myself right here and now, is the divine being, God, in full manifestation.

The passage, "The spiritual monitor understood is coincidence of the divine with the human, the acme of Christian Science," ⁶⁵ gives us further enlightenment on this subject when we realize the word coincidence means to fall in the place of. So, the demonstration of divine power in the healing of sin, disease, and death, has nothing to do with the human, but falls in the place of the human. We cannot find any divine selfhood by seeking our selfhood humanly, separate from God, but we find our divine selfhood only as we find God. When we seek God, we find man, for this manifestation of God appears as man, and, as we know more and more of God, we shall see more and more of man. Here, then, we have the inseparability of Mind and idea, and inseparability of God and man.

THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PERIODICALS

I will say something with regard to the Christian Science periodicals. In First Church of Christ Scientist, and Miscellany, is an extract from the leading editorial of the Monitor (11/25/ 08) entitled Something in a Name. Mrs. Eddy has written,

"I have given the name to all the Christian Science periodicals; the first is the Christian Science Journal, designed to put on record the divine science of Truth; the second, I entitled Sentinel, intended to hold guard over Truth, Life and Love. The third, Der Herold der Christian Science, to proclaim the universal activity and availability of Truth. The next I named Monitor to spread undivided the science that operates unspent."66 In the manual Mrs. Eddy says in one of the by-laws: "It shall be the privilege and duty of every member who can afford it to subscribe for the periodicals which are the organs of this church." ⁶⁷

⁶³ S&H 561:16

⁶⁴ Isaiah 45:5

⁶⁵ Mis 100:20

From the above statements, it is easy to see that there is something more involved in a subscription to our periodicals than just the mere subscribing to them. Two things stand out very strongly: one, that Mrs. Eddy intended each one of them to perform a certain definite function; two, that it was Mrs. Eddy's desire that the periodicals be carried on by the members of the Christian Science Movement. Thus Mrs. Eddy calls the periodicals "the organs of The Mother Church." Evidently they are the activities of The Mother Church, just as seeing or hearing is the activity of the body. It is necessary that we see what the functions are that they are designed to express in regard to The Mother Church and make it our duty to give those functions power and activity by our support of them.

The names which Mrs. Eddy gave to the periodicals all express activities in conscious-ness. She said the Journal is "designed to put on record the divine science of Truth." Each day, as we demonstrate Christian Science, we are putting on record "the divine science of Truth," thereby taking part in the demonstration of the Journal. And because we are doing this, we should carry the demonstration forward to its fullness by subscribing to it and even making an effort to write for it. As that Journal is published and circulated — which takes place because of our metaphysical and practical support of it — there is put on record in the consciousness of the world the "divine science of Truth;" but it cannot be recorded there without the circulation which the Christian Scientist is bound to maintain.

The Sentinel "intended to hold guard over Life, Truth, and Love" is a weekly publication and a frequent reminder to be alert in the handling of erroneous material suggestions with regard to God, man and the universe. Mrs. Eddy saw fit to put on the Sentinel a saying of Jesus, "What I say unto you, I say unto all, WATCH." Are we taking part in this watchfulness and demonstration of the activity of the Sentinel? ... metaphysically and practically?

Der Herold is the first publication to be translated into a foreign language, and as so, as Mrs. Eddy intended, does "proclaim the universal activity of Truth." Likewise, the other publications of The Mother Church which are translated into foreign languages are reaching out in ever-broadening capacity to give the Truth to those who do not as yet speak English.

Last, but not by any means the least, Mrs. Eddy speaks of The Monitor. We know that she waited twenty-five years from the time she first saw that a clean, truthful newspaper was necessary in the world, to the day when it became possible to have it printed. Because of the fact that it is a newspaper instead of just a religious periodical, we might say that The Monitor is the vanguard of the activities by which the Christian Science Movement is to evangelize human consciousness. Think of the completeness of The Monitor! News from all countries in the world, art, music, drama, from all parts of the world, world interest in home, children, education, finance, sciences, and a religious article which appears in other languages as well as English. Through all these departments we know an endeavor is made to place the Truth of the subject in hand before its readers. Really then, a demonstration over evil is made every time an edition of the Monitor is published. When we think of the patience and love with which Mrs. Eddy waited to bring out this great idea of a newspaper, can we do less in supporting her efforts than subscribe to the Christian Science Monitor, in all that subscribing means and which we have here considered.

⁶⁶ My 353

⁶⁷ Man 44

These points under discussion reveal to us that primarily it is not a matter of money alone, which we need in making the demonstration of subscribing to the periodicals, but it is primarily a realization or appreciation of what they stand for with relation to the Christian Science Movement and the world. Does not loyalty to our Leader include loyalty to the demonstration of all that constitutes the activity of the Christian Science Movement?

The Cause of Christian Science was established through inspiration based upon divine Principle. We may just as well face the facts. We are not only intimately associated with the Christian Science Movement, but we are the Movement. Therefore, we must continually allow that inspiration to express itself as our consciousness, in maintaining the proper activity of the Christian Science Movement as Mrs. Eddy did in establishing it. Because this is true, we must be ever alert to any argument of malpractice that would influence us against the periodicals or the Board of Directors of The Mother Church. The Board needs all the support we can give it. They are occupying a position which needs the manifestation of Divine Mind to guide this Movement. As our Cause was established by Divine Mind, nothing but Divine Mind can carry it on. We cannot be loyal supporters unless we hold up their hands, as it were, by knowing this. Again, we must remember, we are not just supporters of The Christian Science organization, we are the organization; as such, we must be alert and interested in all its branches.

CHRIST JESUS and MARY BAKER EDDY

More and more as we demonstrate Christian Science, we are impelled to consider the respective places in history and the world's progress of the two great Revelators of Christianity, Christ Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy. It is significant that Christianity has been revealed to the world through these two — a man and a woman. In the light of Christian Science it could not have been otherwise ... neither two men or two women. It took both a man and a woman to express the full Principle, the Father-Mother God.

Jesus appeared in an age that was dense in materiality, and he revealed to that age all that it was possible to do, all that it could accept. He revealed for the first time, God as Father and man as Son. Jesus proved this understanding of divine relationship, oneness of divine Being, to be scientific in the healing of sin, disease and death. His teaching and works prepared the way for Christian Science, the Science of the Christ. He told his disciples, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." ⁶⁸ Also, he promised his disciples,

"He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do because I go unto my Father." ⁶⁹

⁶⁸ John 16:12

⁶⁹ John 14:12

Could we not say that Jesus knew that his teachings were scientific and that they would be given to the world as a Science, and that this is what he meant when he said, "I will give you another Comforter — even the Spirit of Truth." In this promise did he not foretell the coming of Christian Science? Jesus dated the Christian Era — “for this we owe him endless homage," as Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health. From his prophecy of the Comforter we can see that he himself knew that Christianity would be presented to the world in greater fullness and exactness when more of the mist of mortal thinking had evaporated.

After nineteen centuries came our Beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, a woman, expressing the Motherhood of God. She revealed that God is Mother as well as Father. She brought to mankind therefore, the complete revelation of Mother Father God. Is this not what she meant when she wrote, "Truth is revealed. It needs only to be practiced." ⁷⁰ She planted her teachings and healings on these of the Master, and building from there, her work was to do the even greater works of which Jesus spoke. She has taught us plainly the things which Jesus knew but could not tell his disciples. Thus has the real Comforter come to the world in Christian Science through Mrs. Eddy.

Jesus' work was to reveal God as Father and man as His Son, the oneness of divine Being. Until the time of Jesus, God has been seen more in group demonstration of tribes and families. This may be seen in Bible records from Abraham to Jesus. With the coming of Jesus, came individual demonstration of divine Being. Jesus showed for the first time by proof in healing sin, disease, and death, man's true relationship to God, revealing God and man as one, for Jesus said,

"My father and I are one," and, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." ⁷¹

Mrs. Eddy's work was to reveal God, not only as Father and Son, but as Mother also, and it was to establish a great world movement based upon this understanding. It seems almost unbelievable that nineteen centuries could have elapsed from the time of Jesus to Mary Baker Eddy for the full revelation of God as Mother ... when the very words Father and Son imply Mother. Mrs. Eddy's place in the history of Christianity, as well as in the world, is being better understood and appreciated. The world will sometime fully awake to the fact that her work has revealed Christianity in its completeness.

What is our part in this great work? As followers of the Master, we know we must heal, sin, disease and death. Even so, the works of Mrs. Eddy are to be demonstrated by her followers. It is true that she discovered and founded Christian Science for the whole world, but each one of us must follow in her footsteps and daily discover and found the Truth of Christian Science in our lives and others'.

In her book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, is made plain the science of the Christianity of Jesus. Father, Son and Mother is revealed as divine Mind, the only Mind, and therefore Life and all Being is divinely mental. She has made known the nature of evil as mortally mental and therefore unreal because there is only one Mind and that Mind is God. Thus the destruction of the belief in evil becomes a scientific proposition, the proof of which is given in the healing of sin,

⁷⁰ S&H 174

⁷¹ John 14

disease and death, just as Jesus proved. It is not a personal thing which came to her personally. Everyone may understand this Science of being, in fact, eventually he will have to. Jesus did not claim this Truth for himself, but for all mankind, and Mrs. Eddy knew that every creature could be awakened and blessed by reading Science and Health.

We cannot possibly fail to rejoice when we remember that we live in an age of true science, the greatest age of history, the age of Christian Science. Our lives, because of this, should be filled with joy. This is the redemptive age, and all Christian Scientists are privileged to take part in this redemption. Here, in our time, Christian Science has been given to the world by our Beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, and it is destined to go on throughout all the ages until all mankind if freed.

ABSOLUTE SCIENCE

Absolute Science is demonstrable Science. There cannot be any other Science than that which is demonstrable. Christian Science is an absolute Science, because by means of it, when understood, you can demonstrate divine power, divine law, and divine being. Now, intelligence is an essential fact in Science; in all sciences, for there can be no Science at all without intelligence. Unless the human race learns to think according to actual truths, it is not possible that the human race will ever attain what it so much desires. There cannot be, in the light of reason, any other way in which actual Science can appear except through intelligence that is able to reveal it and make it practical. All Science is Mind-Science. There is no material science, because matter could not evolve Science. The word science implies and requires Mind. The word itself indicates that something has been going on, and is going on in the realm of thought. All science is therefore mental.

If you went in to any kind of a scientific laboratory, there would be no science going on there unless there were present a scientist, thinking in terms of scientific law. Where, then, is the science? In matter, or in mind? When we recognize that, we begin to understand science in some degree. We understand better what the word signifies, and what it requires, and what it demands of us individually, and what it is demanding of the race as a whole.

In the Science of Christianity, that which engages the attention is exclusively mental; whereas, in the science of chemistry, physics, or any other of the natural sciences, the attention is engaged, a great deal of the time, in what is called matter. In the Science of Christianity, Mind is Supreme. It is fundamental. The only principle of Christian Science is the Divine Mind, God. Really, when one uses his intelligence, he can see that God, Cause, must be Mind, for it would be impossible for anything less than Mind to be infinite, eternal, or ever-living. As thought engages itself in such profound facts as that, it takes on something of their character and so one finds that as he thinks of these great facts of Science, he, himself, is becoming Christianly scientific.

He is beginning to understand what the creation really is, in contradistinction to what it seems to be; and he finds himself, by means of thoughts, engaged in a great endeavor, the endeavor to distinguish between the real and the unreal. No Science that has ever been given to mankind has ever taught them to do this except Christian Science. All other so-called sciences have insisted that facts are attainable in the realm of the material senses only, and that the sight, hearing, taste, the touch, the smell, that a human being possesses, are the basis of all that he can possibly learn. All of the sciences that have been given to mankind have been developed by way of conclusions arrived at through the operation or observation of the human senses, so-called.

Now, Christian Science lifts us above that realm, and shows human beings that the realm is not trustworthy. If they want to know actual Truth, they have to find it where it is revealed. And it is revealed where you are thinking, and not where you are looking. Not where you are hearing materially. Not where the other senses indicate. It is found in the realm of thought, above the realm of the senses. You discern certain real facts in that realm. Now, the way, of course, is metaphysical. That does not rob it of anything: it is essential to it. Truth has to be metaphysical because you cannot see Truth, not with your eyes. It takes mental eyes to see Truth — the new kind of eyes — the kind defined in our textbook as spiritual discernment - not material but mental. ⁷²

It takes thought that is enlightened to observe the nature of Truth and to maintain it; and then the law of this Truth sets aside that which is unlike it. In arithmetic we do not think it strange at all. Why should we think it strange in everyday existence? Our existence is clearly much more important to us than arithmetic. Now, God being Mind, thoughts necessarily must have the character of the Mind in which they have their being. If you and I grasp some under-standing of that Mind, by means of the thoughts that express that Mind, we already find that we are not so human. We are more divine than we believed we were — than we perhaps believed it possible to be in our present sense. We find that by means of the fact that God is Mind, one Mind, your Mind, my Mind, our Mind, you and I in this hour are endowed with the privilege of letting that Mind be in us, which was also in Christ Jesus — not by means of matter, but by Scientific understanding.

ONENESS

Jesus said, "I and my Father are one;" and Mrs. Eddy said, "Principle and its idea is one;" and we, today in our time, through the study of the Bible and Science and Health, are demonstrating this oneness of being, demonstrating that there is no life separate from God.

Cause and effect are words which undergo a regenerative meaning in Science. This is clearly seen in Mrs. Eddy's statement in Science and Health, "All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation." Certainly the manifestation of Mind could not be conceived of properly except as Mind in action, substance and evidence. If we seek effects only, and this is what the majority of people are doing, we will not really attain them because in so doing, we separate cause from effect. Such a course could have no permanency because it has no principle. When cause is understood and demonstrated, effects are divine and permanent, even though they appear to be human and material. The reason for this exists in the fact that cause and effect, God and man, Principle and idea, is one in substance and being and could not exist otherwise.

From the standpoint of Cause or Mind thus demonstrated, we see that the beliefs which seem to surround us are due to a false sense of origin, a false education about Cause and effect or God and man, whereby education has hidden the oneness of God and man from our perception. Christian Science elucidates for us the fact that material systems of healing are involved with false views of God and man. Such views are misleading because they begin with an impossible God and a finite and insignificant man. There is nothing more enervating than this misconception of humility, which, however, is sometimes entertained by Christian Scientists.

Someone may say, "When may we know it is right to say that the I Am which is God is the I Am we are?" In answer, shall there forever be an ego claiming existence separate from God? Something besides God? Is it not correct and therefore scientific understanding of humility and meekness to acknowledge no other selfhood than the self which is God? Was not Jesus' understanding of the oneness of being Mrs. Eddy's reason for calling him the meekest and mightiest man? We express genuine humility only as thought, in majesty, grandeur and power, looks out from Mind as Mind and thereby reaches and actually is that genuine and self- respecting individuality expressed in the words, "I and my Father are one." In this way we put off the nature of a human being that the divine Being may appear.

This work entails the relinquishment of erroneous qualities such as personal ambition, pride, love of power, human desires, and such. In substantiation, we find

"When you approach nearer and nearer to this divine Principle, when you eat the divine body of this Principle, — thus partaking of the nature, or primal elements, of Truth and Love, — do not be surprised nor dis-contented because you must share the hemlock cup and eat the bitter herbs; for the Israelites of old at the Paschal meal thus prefigured this perilous passage out of bondage into the El Dorado of faith and hope." ⁷³

It is here that we let go of a false ego which is egotism and not Egoism. Becoming conscious of ourselves and others from the standpoint of the only I or Ego, the only I or Us, the one and only true Being, is sure to evidence itself in visible health, success, and happiness.

When Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt, the voice of God spoke to him as I Am — really his own voice because it was in the first person, thus asserting his identity with Mind or as Mind. It is recorded that Moses said, "Who shall I say hath sent me unto them?" And God said, "Say unto them, I Am hath sent me unto you." Moses must have understood in some measure even as he sojourned with the children of Israel, the availability of the under-standing of this oneness of being to deliver from the depths of material beliefs and egotism.

Mrs. Eddy gives us as the definition of I, or Ego in the Glossary,

"Divine Principle; Spirit; Soul; incorporeal, unerring, immortal, and eternal Mind. There is but one I, or Us, but one divine Principle, or Mind, governing all existence."

The realization on Moses' part that because there is but one I, or Ego, and that therefore this Ego must be himself, gave him power and courage to overcome beliefs of materiality, or an ego separate from God.

If thought approximates something of the Divine, if thought gains something of the nature of Mind that is God, it will be Godlike, even though it appears to be you and I, your thought and my thought, here and now. This accounts for the healing done in Christian Science because it occurs by the power of God in the experience of the human being whose thought is more than human, whose thought no longer lingers in the realm of the senses but whose thought by means of spiritual education has attained something of the power and origin of God right here where we are. What other power is there with which to heal except the understanding that because there is but one Mind, that Mind is our Mind. Because there is but one I, or Ego, that I, or Ego, must be our Ego. There could be no lesser I, or Ego.

How often do we hear, "I am sick, I am tired, I am poor, I am lonesome." If God is the only I, or Ego, who is this I who says I am tired? This cannot be the I Am that is God. Mind says I am Life evermore, I am Spirit for evermore, I am understanding, I am joy, I am power, I am health, I am wisdom, I am complete, I am all. Is not this I, or Ego, available to you and me by our correct understanding of it? Does it not deliver us from the beliefs of the I, or ego, based on matter? The infinite I Am is a state of divine perfection and harmonious being. This Ego does not have to fight, does not have to contend, is not in a struggle. The consciousness which understands and declares I Am is the "unlabored motion of the divine energy." ⁷⁴

Jesus revealed and declared his perfection, his conscious identity when he said, "Before Abraham was, I Am." So too, our spiritual identity as I am existed before any human sense of Abraham or ourselves appeared, and the maintenance of that identity means a continuity of the divine body and its perfection and indestructibility. The knowledge of God is God knowledge, the consciousness of God is God consciousness, the knowing of Mind is Mind knowing, the consciousness of the one I, or Ego, is the I, or Ego, conscious of itself. In actual fact, nothing but Mind could be conscious of itself. If we say, I am conscious of God, I am conscious of Mind, I know God, I know Mind, either we are assuming a consciousness separate from and including God, or it is God conscious of Himself. If we are thinking as Mind and not about Mind, it is Mind expressing Itself. The recognition of this great fact is the power and presence of God, our real selfhood.

It is recorded that Jesus said to his disciples,

"With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer: For I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God." ⁷⁵

This understanding of the oneness of being is being fulfilled in the kingdom of God today because Christian Scientists are understanding what Jesus meant when he said, "I and my Father are one," through the discovery of Mary Baker Eddy that "Principle and its idea is one, and this one is God, and His reflection is man and the universe."

OXYRINCHUS

Jesus said, "Let not him who seeks cease until he find, and when he finds, he shall be astonished, astonished he shall reach the kingdom, and having reached the kingdom he shall rest. The kingdom of heaven is within you, and whosoever shall know himself shall find it. Strive therefore to know yourselves, and ye shall know that ye are the sons of the Father, and that ye are in the city of God, and ye are the city."

⁷⁴ S&H 445:20

⁷⁵ Luke 22:15

Sin, disease and death exist only in the belief of material thinking. There is no substance to them other than belief. They are not either out there or here. As consciousness emerges from a belief of a limited consciousness to divine consciousness, the things which go with a limited consciousness — such as sin, disease, and death — disappear with it. The proof is this: There is no record that Jesus healed any sin, sickness, or death after he ascended. In other words, in his consciousness there were no sick, sinning, or dying beliefs.

Consciousness is fundamental, both in the healing of error and in the unfoldment of divine Being. Crucifixion can appear only in the realm of limited sense where persons believe themselves good or bad. Jesus was crucified by those calling themselves good and him bad, as they also called the thieves who were crucified with him. We overcome the belief in crucifixion for ourselves and others by the understanding of the resurrection, spiritualization of thought, as Mrs. Eddy defines it in the Glossary, the realization that we are all ideas, spiritually mental, instead of material personalities. Our resurrection is also their resurrection, the resurrection of everything of which we are conscious.

There is still further development of consciousness known as the ascension, and this ascension can no longer be attributed alone to Jesus, but Christian Scientists must begin to understand it and demonstrate it for themselves. Mrs. Eddy gives us an enlightening statement on ascension. "The periods of spiritual ascension are the days and seasons of Mind's creation, in which beauty, sublimity, purity, and holiness — yea, the divine nature — appear in man and the universe never to disappear."

The ascension, then, is the revelation of the one and only Mind as the Mind of man; and from this standpoint, man and the universe are seen to be spiritual and eternal, and therefore, as no longer sick, sinning and dying.

In reality, a demonstration in Christian Science is never that of health or supply or success, but it is a demonstration of the divine Mind which includes all these things. If one could say there is a short way into the Kingdom of Heaven, a way with less low-ways and by-ways, it is the understanding of the divine Mind. many centuries ago, Jesus said "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and after that these things will be added unto you." When the Kingdom of Heaven appears on the outside, it is because it is inside.

Addendum Strawberry Festival

C.S. Journal, Vol. IV, Page 94

On the evening of Bunker Hill Day, June 17, the spacious yards and beautiful terraced gardens of Mr. and Mrs. Horace K. Batcheldor, Fort Avenue, Roxbury, were thrown open for the Boston Scientists for a social gathering. "Beautiful for situation," overlooking the neighboring kingdoms of Roxbury, Jamaica Plain, and Dorchestor, a finer spot for such a gathering could hardly be found, and nearly two hundred friends enjoyed the visit.

A slight rain interfered with strolling about the grounds in the earlier part of the evening, but the veranda was thoroughly enjoyed with its beautiful outlook. It is something to be outside a house a century old! And then Mrs. Batcheldor's pictures inside!

After due justice had been done to the ice, berries and cake, Reverend Mary B.G. Eddy made an address from the portico to the effect that some day Christian Science will enable us to enjoy such a treat without raising the fruit, compounding the cake, freezing the cream, or buying the sugar; just as Jesus fed the multitude without procuring the loaves and fishes, through the usual channels of natural production and supply.

She also narrated some incidents about the unusual and seemingly supernatural (but really natural) growth of apple blossoms in icy winter and of fresh shoots from dry stems in summer, — through the power of Mind. She argued that if belief produces disease and its removal leaves health to have its perfect work, then false belief may also prevent the perfect fulfillment of Spirit in all our material surroundings, flowers and fruit not excepted.

Coffee was then served. Year 1886