Lela May Aultman, C.S.B., of
Denver, Colorado
Member of the Board of Lectureship of The Mother
Church,
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston,
Massachusetts
Divine Love is the ever-available source of true freedom, Lela May Aultman, C.S.B., of Denver, told an audience in Boston last night.
Scientific understanding of God as Love brings freedom from loneliness and sickness, from lack, from fear and danger, and from sin, Miss Aultman stated.
In her lecture she described how this understanding healed a severe case of pulmonary tuberculosis and other serious problems.
A member of The Christian Science Board of Lectureship, she spoke in The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, on the subject, "The Liberating Power of Divine Love Revealed in Christian Science."
Miss Aultman was introduced by Arthur P. Wuth, C.S.B., First Reader of The Mother Church.
The lecturer spoke substantially as follows:
How greatly do you value your freedom? Is it important enough for you to give serious thought to the source of this freedom, and how to be sure it will continue?
It is becoming increasingly clear that we cannot win freedom through human warfare. We see convincing evidence that even the so-called victors are impoverished by war. We know, too, that no man ever gains freedom for himself by depriving his brother man of liberty.
Then where do we find true freedom? The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, gives us the answer in her statement: "The history of our country, like all history, illustrates the might of Mind, and shows human power to be proportionate to its embodiment of right thinking." Then, after assuring us that freedom did not come from the cannon's mouth, she tells us, "Love is the liberator" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 225).
To the Christian Scientist Love is a name for God, just as Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Truth, and Life are names for God, indicating the infinite perfection and completeness of His being. Mrs. Eddy thus explains God's nature in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." She gleaned her understanding of God through devout study of the Bible, and through spiritual revelation and the healing it brought to her when her doctor had prophesied that she was at the point of death.
The joy of her newly won freedom she wished all mankind to share, and through years of consecrated prayer and continued study of the Scriptures, she gained an understanding of the law of God which Jesus had applied in his healing and redemptive ministry. It was this divine law, or Science, which she recorded in the Christian Science textbook, with a clear explanation of the scientific application of this law to meet the need of humanity for health, security, and redemption. Her textbook contains the complete and final explanation of Christian Science, which is not a theoretical teaching nor a mystical philosophy, but demonstrable Truth. Before she presented this book to the world, Mrs. Eddy had healed many cases of sickness which were considered incurable, had redeemed sinners, and raised the dying to life and health, through application of this law of God.
Christian Scientists study the Bible each day, and with it Science and Health, which Mrs. Eddy calls the "Key to the Scriptures" because it contains the spiritual interpretation of the Bible, and makes its holy instructions clear, inspiring, and practical to meet the daily needs of mankind. The King James Version of the Bible is also read with Science and Health as the sermon in the Sunday services in the Christian Science church.
Sincere students of Christian Science, as quickly as they gain some understanding of its teaching, find that they are able to apply this law effectively, and that it accomplishes the same healing results which it did when Jesus and Mrs. Eddy applied it. Jesus promised that those who accepted his teaching and followed his example would do the works which he did. Mrs. Eddy's discovery has taught us how to fulfill this promise.
Even in her early childhood Mrs. Eddy had proved that love for God casts out fear and thus heals sickness. She tells us that one day when she was so perturbed by a cruel teaching of theology that she was stricken with a fever, her devout mother urged her to go to God in prayer, and to lean on His love and seek His guidance. She prayed, and the fever was gone. She rose from her bed in normal health (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 13).
The deep love for God which always characterized her life was naturally expressed in great love for God's creation. When, in later years, she found spiritual light and its resultant healing for herself, she was ready to make every necessary sacrifice in order to help in the liberating of mankind through teaching them the Christ, Truth, which had been revealed to her spiritual vision.
Although Mrs. Eddy was a gentle, and in those days a fragile, woman, she had tremendous spiritual courage and strength in standing firmly for whatever she knew God required of her. No anxiety for her own security or comfort could dissuade her. Even before her discovery of Christian Science, when she was left a young widow, and her inheritance from her husband's estate consisted chiefly of slaves, she immediately freed them all. She had always consistently opposed slavery in her conversation and her published writings, and she did not hesitate to free the slaves as soon as it was in her power to do so, even though it erased her only visible means of support. It was natural, then, that in later years when she found a spiritua1 way to free all men from slavery or suffering, sin, and sorrow, she gave her whole heart to accomplishing this desideratum.
Many thousands of persons are ready to bear grateful witness to the immeasurable blessings which have followed her brave steps, for the spiritual enlightenment she gained from her teaching and practice of Christian Science continues on through the years to heal, redeem, and enrich sincere students of her writings.
Mrs. Eddy's place in history, as Discoverer of Christian Science and Founder of the Christian Science church, is unique. All who know of her fidelity to God and her untiring love for humanity feel deep reverence and gratitude for her unspeakable gift; yet students of Christian Science are taught by her own writings to worship God alone, and never to be tempted to express personal adulation of her. She has written a masterly autobiography which she calls "Retrospection and Introspection," and thoughtful study of this book indicates how little emphasis she placed on the human details of her personal life; for it is a book of only ninety-five pages, and the majority of these pages are devoted to the truth she discovered, rather than to the personal experiences of the Discoverer.
It is through faithful study of her writings, and earnest application of their teaching, that Christian Scientists know Mrs. Eddy, and prove their deep appreciation of her revelation. She knew from experience the meaning of the words she wrote in the Preface to her book "Miscellaneous Writings'' (p. ix): "To preserve a long course of years still and uniform, amid the uniform darkness of storm and cloud and tempest, requires strength from above, — deep draughts from the fount of divine Love." She did preserve such a uniform course of service to God and man.
Her discovery has thrown great light on the first chapter of the Bible, which tells us that God is the only creator, and reveals the spiritual and perfect nature of His creation, which His infinite wisdom declared to be "very good" (Gen. 1:31). In this chapter we learn that man was created in God's own image. The image of God, who is Mind, necessarily expresses intelligence. The likeness of God, who is Principle, is erect in righteousness, and governed by divine law which is just and impartial. The image of God, Spirit, is wholly spiritual, and has none of the limitations of materiality.
Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health (p. 510) that "Love alone can impart the limitless idea of infinite Mind." The most glorious expression of man's nature must, therefore, be his reflection of God as Love.
In what way is the understanding of God as Love the liberator for mankind? Since our creator is divine Love, everything He has created expresses the nature of Love. Man, seen as the image, or reflection, of God, has not a single quality or condition unlike his creator. Then man is free to express health, but never sickness; to express joy, but not sorrow; to be useful and progressive, but never idle or crippled; to be loving, but not selfish or unkind. When one understands that his nature is completely identified with God's being, he is free from the most enslaving of all beliefs — bondage to fear.
Just as Jesus proved that the clear, spiritual realization of man's Godlike perfection destroyed the false evidence of sickness and sin, so, today, the understanding of man's likeness to God, as taught in Christian Science, frees mankind from bondage to sickness, poverty, and sorrow.
We learn through Christian Science that the cause of sickness is mental even though the disturbed thought manifests itself outwardly as physical disease. The healing of the mental discord relieves the body of this harmful influence, and permits every function to go on normally.
I know a woman who suffered from extreme loneliness. In her early childhood she had experienced a severe case of St. Vitus's dance, which prevented her from enjoying the companionship of other children. During this experience she was miserably unhappy and felt entirely unwanted. She brooded over this, and also over many other things — the loss of her parents, through separation, loss of her home, and her inability to continue her education. She suffered great resentment and self-pity.
This erroneous mental state brought on a case of pulmonary tuberculosis. The doctors told her one lung was gone and the other one affected, and that she had only a short time to live. In this extremity she turned her thought to God. Christian Science was presented to her by a friend, who told her that a study of this religion would help her to know God. The friend's statement, "You are God's perfect child," aroused the patient's interest. She then began to study daily the Lesson-Sermon which is contained in the Christian Science Quarterly and which is made up of references from the Bible and Science and Health. Soon she began to realize that she belonged to God — the first time in many years that she had felt she "belonged" to anyone, or was loved. She spent hours studying these two books, and her consciousness was purified and her thought released from contemplating the material body, because she was so constantly occupied with thoughts of God's goodness and her oneness with a loving Father and Mother. Soon she realized that she was free of the sickness completely. What had appeared as lost substance of lungs had given place to evidence of health and normalcy. This liberation had gone hand in hand with her freedom from the mental darkness which had brought it on in the first place. Never since that time has she felt alone or unloved, but her useful life has been filled with satisfying companionship and generous evidence of affection. Her physical healing has, of course, been permanent.
John, who was Jesus' beloved disciple, tells us that "there is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear" (I John 4:18). Why does he say "perfect love"? The divine Love which frees from fear and its resultant discords is not the material counterfeit, which binds with jealousy, suspicion, or a feeling of personal possessiveness with its consequent domination and selfish demands. One who insists that every moment of another individual's attention be centered on himself is expressing something in no way related to love. Mrs. Eddy gives an invaluable admonition to guide human relations when she writes in Science and Health (p. 58): "There is moral freedom in Soul. Never contract the horizon of a worthy outlook by the selfish exaction of all another's time and thoughts."
Generosity is a vital quality of divine Love, and what great need there is for us to understand the true meaning of that word! Sometimes we see mortals who believe that they are exceedingly generous, when their sense of giving consists of merely bestowing material things freely, while at the same time feeling that this entitles them to dictate to and dominate the ones to whom they give. Christian Science has a blessing for them in the awakening to the realization that the greatest generosity is that which recognizes each one's freedom to turn directly to God for guidance for every step in his life progress. True giving is always the reflection of God's giving, and one who gives with real generosity realizes that the recipient owes his gratitude to God, and is under no obligation to a person, which might require his subservience to human domination. When we release another from a false sense that we are personally responsible for all his actions and relationships, what a blessed release it also means for us!
Spiritual love is active and fruitful, never dreamy and lethargic. It is man's God-given nature to express Love, and therefore no circumstance, no person, no illusion of misunderstanding or separation can ever rob him of his right to love abundantly, warmly, joyously — sometimes of necessity silently, but always freely.
Many a student of Christian Science has learned that the way to keep affectional ties unbroken is so to measure his love by the divine model that he trusts his friends to God's direction, respects each one's reflection of divine intelligence, and rejoices in every expression of his friends' love for others, feeling enriched by it, not robbed.
We can always trust that God's law, which combines justice with mercy, not only protects men's righteous endeavors, but also corrects their mistaken ways. Paul urges us to have the mind which was in Christ Jesus, but he also comforts us with the assurance. "If in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you" (Phil. 3:15). Through God's gift of spiritual enlightenment, one who has chosen the wrong path will discern that the fruit of wrongdoing is something he does not want; that it does not satisfy; that it brings suffering rather than pleasure; and thereby he will awaken from the dream that evil is "pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise'' (Gen. 3:6).
Divine Love makes man free, expresses in man intelligent self-government, and gives His children generously and unfailingly all good. Therefore man cannot lack.
A Christian Scientist was dismissed from his business position, and immediately applied what he understood of the law of God to solve his problem. The next day he was re-engaged by the same company but given new work with a plan of reorganization. The recommendations were to be made by an efficiency expert, and this man had to put the recommendations into operation, under supervision of the expert. The first recommendation made was to discharge all the senior workers, and get younger men who were thought to be more capable. The Christian Scientist refused to accept the suggestion that man is subject to inaccuracy and declining usefulness. He knew that he must see the nothingness of the lies of limitation, and maintain his clear concept of man as God's likeness, reflecting throughout eternity the inexhaustible strength and unfailing intelligence of the Mind that created him. During this faithful work which he did to maintain his own mental freedom and joy, and his confidence that the whole situation was in God's hands, everything that touched his life was blessed. Not a single man was dismissed from that department — the evil beliefs about age and limitation were dismissed instead. And at the end of three years the department had broken all its previous records for fruitful achievement.
Christian Science teaches the way of salvation from all sin. This means much more than just a profession of faith that Jesus is our Saviour. He worked out his own salvation perfectly, conquering every phase of temptation and discord, even overcoming death and the belief of life in matter. Mrs. Eddy tells us that "Christ is the true idea voicing good, the divine message from God to men speaking to the human consciousness. The Christ is incorporeal, spiritual, — yea, the divine image and likeness, dispelling the illusions of the senses; the Way, the Truth, and the Life, healing the sick and casting out evils, destroying sin, disease, and death" (Science and Health, p. 332). Jesus' life demonstrated the Christ. The spiritual good which he lived and taught is the way of salvation. Christian Science teaches us that we must follow in this path if we are to do the works which he did and accomplish our own redemption. It was Jesus' understanding and living of the Christ, the true idea of God, which enabled him to win his victories. It is our ability to identify ourselves and our works with the Christ which empowers us to follow Jesus' example. The Christ light reveals God's all-power and all-presence, shows us God's nature as infinite Love and immutable good. It also reveals to us man's oneness with God, and his real nature in the likeness of God's perfection. When anyone clearly understands this truth, consistently identifies his real selfhood with the perfection he knows to be true of God, and lives in faithful accord with this spiritual ideal, it is impossible for him to be held in bondage to un-Godlike discords such as sin, sorrow, and suffering.
Divine Love frees us from danger. Do you recall the Bible record of the time when David's increasing popularity during the period of Saul's reign aroused the jealousy of his king? Even when Saul pursued him in an attempt to take his life, Saul's son, Jonathan, remained David's devoted friend. The Scriptures tell us of a time when David and his few followers hid themselves from Saul and his pursuing armies and "Saul sought him every day, but God delivered him not into his hand" (I Sam. 23:14). But we are told that Jonathan, who was with Saul's armies, "arose, and went to David into the wood, and strengthened his hand in God" (I Sam. 23:16). How was it that Saul and all his armies searched fruitlessly for days, while Jonathan, without hindrance, went to David and was able to give him spiritual support and encouragement? We know that Saul was looking for David with the darkness of envy and hatred in his thought. Jonathan came to his friend, guided by the light of love. Hatred has no light with which it can see man or find him. Love brings light.
Not only had Saul's darkened mental attitude made it impossible for him to see David, but David must also have contributed to his own preservation. He had served God with courage and ready obedience, and with confidence in divine power. He had not only been faithful to God, but loyal to his king; therefore his loyalty and fidelity were his protection. The Bible narrative tells us that during those days when Saul was searching for him, David "remained in a mountain in the wilderness" (I Sam, 23:14). He must have been steadfastly dwelling in an exalted consciousness of the presence and power of spiritual good. A part of the definition of "wilderness" given in Science and Health (p. 597) is, "the vestibule in which a material sense of things disappears, and spiritual sense unfolds the great facts of existence." This faithful spiritual knowing is dwelling in light; and only thought enlightened by Love can find us in so holy an abiding place.
Dwelling in the consciousness of good is always safe. It is safe to be innocent, honest, loving, intelligent, and pure, for only spiritual-mindedness can perceive such qualities; and as we consciously identify ourselves with them, we prove that we are living in the light which excludes the darkness of malice, hatred, and envy. Darkness cannot even approach the light without moving toward its own inevitable annihilation. Mrs. Eddy comforts us with her assurance that "clad in the panoply of Love, human hatred cannot reach you" (Science and Health, p. 571).
The Bible also tells us of occasions when Jesus, pursued by enemies who wished to destroy him, was able to hide himself and pass through the midst of them unseen (John 8:59). Only the purity of heart which has the ability to see God is able to see the Godlikeness expressed by man, and to understand and love it.
There is great concern in our world today over a phase of crime called juvenile delinquency. God's power is greater than this evil and can annihilate it. Let us so identify ourselves and our concept of man with God's goodness and omnipotence that we may do our part in liberating not only the victims of these criminal attacks, but also the more tragic victims — the young people who are being used as instruments to commit them. When God's power has been understood and faithfully lived by men, it has been proved adequate to still great storms, halt armies, and heal violent insanity. A wave of crime is just another raging storm of the carnal mind, another phase of insanity, and its instruments are merely mesmerized into believing they are something which they are not, namely, the likeness of evil instead of the likeness of God.
How can we effectively aid in their awakening from this hypnotic spell, and help those who behold them to see the real man as his creator sees him? Divine Love never condemns, but sees in its creation worthiness of blessing, and rejoices in its goodness.
Let us consider first the help that parents can give. What is real love which liberates? Not indulgence nor perpetual petty nagging. It is teaching children a true concept of right, as God's demand on them, not as the imposition of a human parent. It is showing, by example, that there is joy in doing right, and in following the dictates of Principle. When a child sees his parents breaking wise human laws, traffic rules, standards of honesty, and so on, he may not understand that it is wrong for him to break the school rules or standards of right conduct.
The ability to discriminate between what is good in the sight of God, and the temptations to disobey His law, is the normal heritage of everyone, and every family owes its children, as its first obligation, spiritual and moral teaching which will equip them with this discernment. The next important step is requiring obedience to right from the child's earliest days, and making it clear to him that this means obedience to God.
A small Sunday School pupil knew that to be firm and not to tolerate evil was the right way to express true sympathy — the love which heals. A four-year-old who was a faithful little Christian Scientist had seen a dog which belonged to her family poisoned. One day a second dog gave evidence of the same poisoning, but this time the child was ready to do battle with this imposition on their pets. She got up and ran like a streak to the kitchen, where her mother found her, down on her knees, holding the little cocker in her hands and shaking him a little as she insisted: "Do you know who you are? You are God's idea, and you know it." Then she laid him back on the floor and turning to her mother said, "And that is all there is to it, Mommie." She had completely dismissed the error, and the dog came right out of the symptoms of poisoning and was immediately well, with no time needed for recuperation.
No one could ever be deceived by the aggressive suggestion that crime, destruction, and cruelty are an evidence of courage and manly strength, after he has learned from the Bible record of the life of Jesus and of many other spiritually-minded men and women that spirituality and obedience to God have enabled them to surpass in strength and power all the materialists of the ages. Would one who assaults an undefended passer-by have the courage to face a well-armed Goliath, as David did? Or would he have the ability to win a victory over such a giant enemy through spiritual power alone? Would one who sneaks into other persons' homes or stores to rob them of what they have earned through honest work be able to feed a hungering multitude as Jesus did, by his understanding that God was the source of real supply? Has any so-called daring feat of a criminal showed the glorious courage Jesus displayed in going into a desert place alone to meet a lunatic who was so violent that he even broke loose from chains? It was love which gave Jesus complete freedom from fear, and his reflection of divine Love was sufficient to free the man from bondage to his obsession. What human force has ever equaled the God-given power of those who stilled the storm, stopped the Red Sea in its course, healed multitudes of sin and of so-called incurable diseases, and even conquered death itself? There is a demand made upon us in the Bible: "Lift up a standard for the people" (Isa. 62:10). We must hold this standard high by example as well as by precept.
In countries which suffered severe bombing during wartime I heard awe-inspiring reports of the spiritual strength and courage of even many of the smallest children from the Christian Science Sunday School. I was told that they were not afraid during even the most extreme attacks. One evening during heavy bombing three adults and three children were sitting in darkness during the attack. Each time they heard a bomb coming, the father would say tensely, "listen" — in order to tell where it hit. The children went on singing hymns they had learned in Sunday School and declaring the truth of God's presence and power to preserve them. The louder the bombs, the louder the singing. When the father said again "listen" as a bomb fell, a six-year-old answered, "I can hear nothing but the voice of God." Next morning, all who could get through the bombed rubble went faithfully to church. Someone asked the six-year-old what he had done during the blitz, and on the way home he said in surprise to his parents, "I believe Mrs. So-and-so really thinks there was a blitz!" No one could ever fear that a lad with so great a trust in God would ever be in danger of becoming a delinquent.
Condemnation does not heal. Condemn the evil — yes — but not the defrauded people it is using. I remember a Sunday School superintendent remarking one day that she had had a busy morning "separating very good boys from very naughty beliefs." She didn't mistake the evil for the boys. In this way Jesus healed. When Peter's wife's mother was suffering from fever, Jesus rebuked the fever, not the woman. When he healed the epileptic boy, he rebuked, not the boy, but the evil spirit. And these rebukes destroyed the belief in the power and reality of evil, and the patient was free to express his normal perfection.
How does Christian Science enable us to lessen crime? By awakening us to man's Godlike being, teaching us that there is joy and satisfaction in doing good, replacing a feeling of uncertainty and insecurity, which are today blamed for so much crime, with the comfort, peace, assurance, and inner stillness which come from conscious oneness with God and awareness of His government of one's life. It is not these young people who are the enemies to society. We must unite with them to combat the enemy that is victimizing both them and us. This enemy is the carnal mind, suggestions of dissatisfaction, uncertainty of the future, sensitivity to evil environment and companionship.
Christian Science gives us the effective weapon to use in defeating these enemy suggestions, for it reveals God as the only Mind, and this Mind infinite good, even divine Love which impartially blesses all its creation. It reveals God to us as Principle, and His creation therefore as Principle-governed, obedient to divine right throughout eternity.
One day when I was teaching a Sunday School class of high-school boys, one of them asked whether it was right to fight back if some boy hit him. That led to a discussion of what our enemy is, and we saw that the enemy is never a person, but the carnal mind's suggestions of selfishness, cruelty, and thoughtlessness that were trying to use the person as their tool. So it would be useless to fight the boy; what we needed to do was mentally to defeat the real enemy by seeing that these wrong qualities had no presence or power, and no control over a child of God. When we saw their nothingness, the enemy would be overthrown. The next Sunday one boy reported that he had had an opportunity to try out what he had been taught the previous Sunday. This boy would never have been accused of being cowardly or afraid to fight. He was a great, broad-shouldered football hero of the school. When their group entered a classroom for a new period, the boy who sat behind him pulled the chair out from under him when he started to sit down. He, of course, sat on the floor. Just then the class began, so he had forty minutes in which to think. During that time he was busy destroying the enemy we had spoken of in Sunday School, and seeing the other boy as a son of God, free of those unpleasant qualities. When class was over, all his friends rushed to the door excitedly, waiting for the fight. To their great surprise the other boy came up and apologized before the whole group. Some of them were actually disappointed and turned to the Christian Scientist asking: "You aren't going to accept his apology?" He answered that of course he would accept it. And the enmity was over. He could not possibly have denied the effective operation of the Christ, the light he had seen in winning his mental victory over the enemy.
Do you remember reading in the book of Job the description of a man who had sunk to the depths of suffering and mental darkness, and then did you find the note of hope for his release in these verses: "If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to shew unto man his uprightness: then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom" (Job 33:23,24)? Let this be our ministry — both silently and audibly to show unto man his uprightness, and to help him awaken from the nightmare which portrays him to himself and his neighbors as less than the son of God.
Our Master and Way-shower gives us in one of his most impressive healings a model for redeeming the victims of sin. In the eighth chapter of John, we read that Jesus' opponents brought to him an adulterous woman, asking him to pass judgment on her sin. They hoped to trick him into taking some stand which would indicate to the Jews that he was not obedient to Moses' teachings, and they pointed out that Moses had commanded that such a woman should be stoned. We are told that before answering them, Jesus "lifted up himself" (John 8:7). What does this mean? Jesus' healings, like the healings of Christian Science, were accomplished through prayer. We lift up ourselves when our consciousness is so filled with the knowledge of God's goodness and perfection, and of man's spiritual purity and wholeness in the likeness of his Maker, that we see as a false accusation every claim that he is impure, sick, or impoverished. This is prayer. Jesus' spiritual awareness of God's mercy and justice lifted all condemnation from the woman, though it condemned the sin to utter annihilation. Jesus' reply to the scribes and Pharisees was consistent with his teaching, "Judge not, that ye be not judged" (Matt. 7:1), for he said to them, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her" (John 8:7). Each man's conscience knew his own guilt, and one by one they left, and Jesus was alone with the woman. Again we are told that he "lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman" (John 8:10). Beholding true womanhood in the likeness of our Mother God, as the only reality of woman's being; seeing woman as the very evidence of the presence of divine Love with its tender purity and goodness; woman expressing the beauty of holiness, and satisfied with that which is pleasing in God's sight, annuls the cruel lie of sin which may have held a mortal in bondage. This is effectual prayer.
Jesus' prayer so elevated his concept of woman to its native Godlikeness that he was able to send her away healed, free to sin no more. Christian Science teaches us to pray as Jesus prayed; not to plead with God as though He needed us to remind Him to care for His own beloved children. Effective prayer acknowledges the good God has already provided; thanks Him for it, and knows this good to be the only reality. When one's application of the law of God defeats the enemy of mankind, the claim of evil to reality, it leaves the individual free to be himself — the righteous, beloved representative of his good God, approved by his creator, and by those spiritually-minded enough to see as God sees.
May I recall to you briefly some of the points we have considered in this lecture? God is Love, and the love of God expressed in our lives brings freedom. Divine Love frees from loneliness and sickness by awakening each of us to behold himself as God's beloved idea, reflecting His changeless perfection in health, strength, and joy.
Love frees from lack, for it brings to us the realization of God's impartial and generous giving of all good. God expresses in man His own intelligence and fruitful activity, and God utilizes every ability that man reflects.
Love frees from fear and danger. A consciousness of God's ever-presence and His infinite power brings with it a confidence that we, His beloved sons, are safe in His care.
Divine Love frees mankind from sin by revealing man's sinless purity in the likeness of Soul, man's satisfaction with the abundant good which his divine Father gives, and man's native joy in righteous obedience to God's law.
The Christ, Truth, is our Saviour, the Saviour of all mankind, for it reveals the all-presence and all-power of divine Love. Mrs. Eddy shows us the rich blessings which this spiritual light brings to our lives in her beautiful Communion Hymn:
"Saw ye my Saviour? Heard ye the glad sound?
Felt ye the power of the Word?
'T was the Truth that made us free,
And was found by you and me
In the life and the love of our Lord.
"Mourner, it calls you, — 'Come to my bosom,
Love wipes your tears all away,
And will lift the shade of gloom,
And for you make radiant room
Midst the glories of one endless day.'
"Sinner, it calls you, — 'Come to this fountain,
Cleanse the foul senses within;
'T is the Spirit that makes pure,
That exalts thee, and will cure
All thy sorrow and sickness and sin.'
"Strongest deliverer, friend of the friendless,
Life of all being divine:
Thou the Christ, and not the creed;
Thou the Truth in thought and deed;
Thou the water, the bread, and the wine."
(Miscellaneous Writings, pp. 398, 399.)
[Delivered Jan. 18, 1960, in The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, and published in The Christian Science Monitor, Jan. 19, 1960.]