Frank C. Ayres, C.S., of Indianapolis, Indiana
Member of the Board of Lectureship of The
Mother Church,
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in
Boston, Massachusetts
Delivered in Sand Springs Sunday afternoon, December 2, 1951, under auspices of the Christian Science Society in Sand Springs. The lecturer was introduced by Mrs. Kathlyn Lowe Groendycke, who said:
Good Afternoon Friends:
On behalf of the Christian Science Society of this city I extend a most hearty welcome and an expression of gratitude for the acceptance of our invitation to hear this lecture — Entitled: "Christian Science: The Solution of Being" by Frank C. Ayres of Indianapolis, Indiana, who is a member of the Board of Lectureship of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts.
Christian Science is truly a religion of love. It teaches God's love for man and man's relationship to God. Christian Scientists worship One Supreme Infinite God. We acknowledge His Son, One Christ; the Holy Ghost or divine Comforter; and we love our neighbors as ourselves.
By following the teachings of this Science one is able to overcome all types of fear, sickness and sin in his daily life. We are here this afternoon to learn more about this healing Principle. All will be blessed and many will be healed.
It is with much pleasure that I present our lecturer — Mr. Ayres.
The lecturer spoke substantially as follows:
My friend, do you want your problems solved? I say with conviction that Christian Science can solve them. Why? Because it furnishes an answer as to how Christ Jesus met his problems. In her work "Unity of Good," Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes, in part (p. 9): "The talent and genius of the centuries have wrongly reckoned. They have not based upon revelation their arguments and conclusions as to the source and resources of being . . . but have built instead upon the sand of human reason. They have not accepted the simple teaching and life of Jesus as the only true solution of the perplexing problem of human existence."
Christ Jesus was the master Scientist. He reckoned by revelation and not by human reason. When we recall that Jesus' work surpassed those of all other men, it seems strange that "the talent and genius of the centuries [so] wrongly reckoned." It seems strange that they did not conduct a search from the premise that Jesus demonstrated the natural life that mankind must live as it works out its problem of salvation.
Let us start from that premise — from the premise that none of his acts were supernatural; from the premise that in no single instance was he an exhibitionist of an exclusively endowed divine power. It is unreasonable to believe that a good God would be so partial. If Jesus came as mankind's Wayshower, let us assume that he was always a Wayshower. Considering Jesus' life from this premise, we see at once that the works of Jesus denied the testimony of the material senses and clearly indicated that substance and life are something entirely different from that which mankind considers them to be. How otherwise can the blind see, the withered hand be whole, the dead rise? How can man walk on the water and still the storm unless material law is something different from mankind's former conclusions about it?
Looking then to Jesus' words, we find that he discredited matter, for he said (John 6:63), "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing." We find that he never spoke of himself as an exhibitionist, as having any power not available to all. On the contrary, he discounted human ability and pointed to the source of his divine power in the words from John (5:30), "I can of mine own self do nothing," and (14:10), "The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." Jesus showed by his words (John 14:12), "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also," that he expected mankind to do similar works.
Jesus imparted an understanding to his disciples which enabled them to perform similar works. He was disappointed when they failed to heal the epileptic boy and rebuked their lack of faith. If he had bestowed a specially endowed power upon the disciples, they would have displayed an ability equal to his. But he was always compassionate with them and did not demand works beyond their understanding. He did, however, expect them to increase in understanding and in the power of their works. Finally, he commanded (Matt. 10:8): "Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead," and they did so. And the followers of the disciples and the early Christians for three centuries practiced Christian healing.
Peter was impetuous when he asked Jesus if he could come to him on the water, yet Jesus said (Matt. 14:29), "Come," and Peter walked on the water until his faith sank. His few steps on the water indicated that with sufficient understanding such acts are possible to man.
Jesus words clearly supported the premise that he was the Wayshower in all that he did and that his every act was natural to man. "The talent and genius of the centuries have wrongly reckoned" and have failed to find in "the simple teaching and life of Jesus . . . the only true solution of the perplexing problem of human existence," because they have been unwilling to accept the unmistakable indications in his words and works that the testimony of the material senses is untrue.
Jesus knew that his listeners were not ready for a complete understanding of the Christ, Truth, which he demonstrated, for he said: "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth" (John 16:12,13), and, "The Comforter, . . . whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you" (John 14:26).
This Comforter came through the life of a courageous, spiritual searcher, Mary Baker Eddy. From early childhood she had a hunger and thirst for spiritual things and was spiritually-minded even as a little girl. She was familiar with her Bible because of daily family study, and cherished the promise (Mark 16:18), "They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." She early believed in divine healing and had experiences of spiritual healing in her own life. She was convinced that there was an explanation of divine healing and kept up a continuous search for it.
Her ever-increasing dependence on God to meet difficult human experiences made her quite willing to turn from matter to Spirit, and for twenty years she tried to trace all physical effects to a mental cause. But matter still seemed a reality, and not until she was at death's door as the result of an injury which her physicians pronounced fatal did her answer come.
Her minister also despaired of her recovery. But she, as was her custom in time of crisis, asked to be alone with her Bible, which she opened at Matthew 9, where she read the account of Jesus' healing of the palsied man. Suddenly there burst upon her waiting thought a flash of revelation — that spiritual healing is by divine law. This glimpse of divine Truth brought about her immediate healing. Not till then did the thought of this spiritual searcher see that the material senses testified falsely.
Because of his more spiritual origin, Jesus' thought was never darkened by material sense testimony, so that the Christ, Truth, unfolded naturally in his consciousness. In speaking of him in her book "Retrospection and Introspection" (p. 26), Mrs. Eddy said that he was ". . . a natural and divine Scientist," and that he ". . . needed no discovery of the Science of being in order to rebuke the evidence." She continued, "To one 'born of the flesh,' however, divine Science must be a discovery."
Mrs. Eddy had to struggle through and above the dark clouds of false, material sense to catch the light of revelation. With her head above the clouds of material sense, the Christ, Truth, unfolded naturally in her consciousness. She said (ibid., p. 27): "The divine hand led me into a new world of light and Life, a fresh universe — old to God, but new to His 'little one.'"
Now what are some of the truths which unfolded to her? In her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," which records the full revelation, she gives seven prominent names for God, which show different aspects of Him. They are: Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love. The revelation shows that God is infinite Mind, and since He is infinite, He is the only Mind. Being the only Mind, He is the only cause and creator, and His creation is expressed in divine ideas. The creator being Spirit, His creation must be spiritual. So she saw that the man presented by the material senses is only a false conception of man, a counterfeit of the real.
The revelation shows that since God is Principle, He is divine law and is the only law governing man and the universe. And since man is idea, the reflection or expression of God, he reflects divine law and is superior to the false, material sense of law. Mrs. Eddy saw for the first time that Jesus' so-called miracles, which before had seemed to her miraculous, were not super-natural at all, but were according to divine law and were natural to man. The revelation, as it unfolded to her, shows that since God is Truth and Love, He must be infinite and ever-present good; and that since disease and death are not good, they are not of God and are not within His allness. Therefore, in absolute Truth they are unreal. You can see how the spiritual meaning of the Bible began to unfold to Mrs. Eddy from Genesis to Revelation. She now understood why the Hebrew boys were not consumed in the fiery furnace, how Lazarus had never really died, and that Jesus' life could not be destroyed.
Be assured, any of you who are strangers to Christian Science, that genuine Christian Scientists do not worship the personality of Mrs. Eddy. The good public school teacher wins the affection of the pupils because he opens their understanding. He commands respect for the teaching, but does not seek to be worshiped. Mrs. Eddy commands respect for her teachings, but she is as insistent as Christ Jesus in turning her followers away from person to God. Her chief interest is that you and I may glow with a spiritual understanding which can command spiritual works patterning those of the master Christian. The term, "Mrs. Eddy's followers," is really misleading, for Mrs. Eddy said (Message to The Mother Church for 1902, p. 4), "Follow your Leader, only so far as she follows Christ." She claims no slightest addition to Jesus' teaching and practice, but she does claim that God revealed to her a practical understanding of them through a sacred search of the Bible, and that in her textbook she has put this understanding into everyday, usable form. Mrs. Eddy's followers are just the followers of the Christ, Truth, which Jesus so completely exemplified and which Mrs. Eddy has fully revealed.
Christian Science teaches the ever-presence, the ever-nearness of God. He is also a gentle presence, a loving presence. David felt this gentle nearness of God and talked about it beautifully in the twenty-third Psalm, where he said: "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. . . . And I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever."
God is not a magnified man away off in the clouds somewhere. He is Spirit, entirely immaterial, filling all space, with no outsideness. We are ever within His presence. "For in him we live, and move, and have our being" (Acts 17:28). Being ever present and being a loving presence, He is the presence of Love, and we are ever within His love. Being within God's love, we are within peace. Have you ever been in an office-building elevator and watched a little child holding tightly to its mother's hand, and noticed when the elevator began to move upward and the child felt the strange motion, how the child's eyes instantly sought those of the mother? The mother's eyes assured, "It's all right," and the child was at peace.
Nothing in human experience is more nearly right than a true mother's love for her child. Christian Science shows that the Bible brings out the mother love of God, for we read in Isaiah (66:13), "As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you." So Christian Science adds Mother as a name for God, speaking of Him frequently as Father-Mother. Since God is ever this gentle presence of Father-Mother Love, why don't we rest as little children in His care?
God is, as the Bible says, omnipotence, a power not off in the sky, but right at hand where we are. His omnipotence precludes any other power. We are always safe because we are always within that omnipotence. Every hour He occupies and governs any place where we may be or go.
Some of you may feel very close to God, others may feel far away from Him, but it is good to know that each of us reveals at least a spark of divine understanding. This divine spark can be fanned into a blaze, as can the spark which starts the fire of logs in the open fireplace.
Why do we like to watch the open fire? Isn't it because we are ever enchanted with the little spark which, flicker by flicker, lick by lick, gathers finally into an ever-changing blaze of warmth and splendor that intrigues all within its charmed circle? Christian Science reveals that what we have considered as a mere spark is actually a blaze of spiritual understanding, sufficient to destroy the entire false sense of existence which we have mistakenly accepted.
Christ is the Truth that has always been here, the Truth that runs like a golden thread through the Bible, the Truth that Jesus knew clearly and demonstrated completely. Everyone has within his true being the capacity to hear and understand Truth. This Truth is Christ, is mortal man's Saviour, the dispeller of all his mortal darkness. Whenever you really understand Truth, whenever you make it your own, then it dwells within you and will do Christly works. The words of Truth can be repeated time and time again, but until the truth becomes conviction and is accompanied with much love, the words are not clothed with divine power.
All through the Bible we find those who listened for God's voice and gained glimpses of the Christ. Jesus was the perfect listener. He began as a child, and ever after walked and talked with God.
In the Christian Science textbook, its author, Mary Baker Eddy, writes (p. 314), "Our Master gained the solution of being, demonstrating the existence of but one Mind without a second or equal." It is helpful to note that Jesus gained "the solution of being." His was a step-by-step process from lesser to greater demonstrations. He grew in spiritual power as he faced and overcame increasingly difficult problems.
For example, in his overcoming of the evidences of death he proved advancing spiritual understanding. First he restored the receptive child, the little daughter of Jairus. Next he returned the young son alive to the widowed mother of Nain. Third he restored his friend Lazarus after he had lain in the grave four days and after overcoming his own human emotion, for we are told that "Jesus wept" (John 11:35). Again, advancing in spiritual understanding, he overcame many supposedly insurmountable material laws in the glorious restoration of his own body, which, after its attempted destruction, had been sealed in the rock-bound tomb. And lastly, he made his greatest and final demonstration when he ascended out of sight of his disciples.
It will take immense growth in
spiritual understanding, my friends — yes, an equal amount of Christ
understanding — before you and I can perform all the works done by Christ
Jesus, but we can rejoice that it is possible for us to gain that stature as we
master our day-by-day problems, for all his acts are natural to man, and we too
can gain the full solution of being.
As we have said, Christian Science teaches that the Christ reveals the manifestation of God, and that it makes clear that there is only one perfect God and one perfect man and universe. The only problem we have to deal with is the lie about this perfect God and His perfect creation. Evil says: "You were born into a cruel world where you must constantly fight only to die. You were born into a world of hate, of confusion and desperation."
Does it not seem unbelievable that an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God, a God who is Love itself, would make a world of that kind? It certainly does not correspond with the statement in the first chapter of Genesis, "And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good" (Gen. 1:31). This lie is evil, mesmeric suggestion. It is just the whisper of the serpent. The only demand upon mankind, to gain the solution of being, is to disbelieve the whisper. Evil is always outside of man, claiming to be man; claiming that discouragement is our discouragement, sinful thinking is our thinking, heart trouble our heart trouble, anger our anger, intelligence — good or bad — ours.
When we know that discouragement and self-condemnation, for example, are not the way we really think, but are just lying aggressive suggestions, we cease to fear them or to indulge them. We recognize them as evil mental house guests, realize that they can be gotten rid of, and we begin an effort to put them out. When we finally have them outside — see that they are outside — we should put up a sign, "Your kind not welcome."
As mortals, we have consented to a host of evil beliefs, many of which we may not even be aware of. Our education in this respect has been thorough. A tiny tot in a Christian Science Sunday School expressed it pretty well. During the customary audible repetition of the Lord's Prayer, when they reached the phrase, "Deliver us from evil," she always said, "Delerious from evil." Maybe the child had something there!
Christian Science uncovers the entire claim of evil and recognizes that it is not to be ignored, but resolutely disbelieved. As the textbook says (p. 346), "Disbelief in error destroys error, and leads to the discernment of Truth." Christ Jesus proved from start to finish that it is purely mesmeric — just a big bluff, which he disbelieved. He showed up as false its every deceptive claim and unfolded God's perfect creation, God's perfect man. He gained the solution of being. He said (Luke 17:21), "The kingdom of God is within you." The ability to detect, disbelieve, and destroy the lying voice is within you. You too can reach out to God and have the Christ-understanding unfold in your consciousness. You too can thoroughly disbelieve the entire claim of evil and gain the full solution of being.
As a young lad I enjoyed reading the life of Christ Jesus and was thrilled with his words and works. I thought, "That's the kind of life to live." But it was a letdown to realize that such a life was not thought to be possible. Later, while attending a university, the Christian Science textbook was presented to me. From the start I liked its teaching, because it indicated that living as Jesus did was a present possibility. But I was unable to reconcile its teaching with my course in philosophy, and for the life of me I could not complete a required philosophy thesis. Worry and overwork resulted in a severe case of nervous exhaustion which material remedies and methods failed to heal. My own earnest prayers and those of my mother were of no avail.
Finally, in desperation, I turned to a Christian Science practitioner and was completely healed in one treatment. Every symptom of a severe struggle of several months' standing instantly vanished. At once I began an earnest study of Christian Science, because I wanted to know why this practitioner's single prayer had been so effective when the continued prayers of my mother and myself had been so futile. The study soon disclosed that this practitioner had prayed with understanding and expectancy, whereas we had prayed with only a blind and doubting faith.
The practitioner talked to me only a short while before she prayed silently. But I recall that she spoke of God being Mind and the only Mind. One of the greatest blessings that unfolded immediately was the understanding that God is Mind and the source of all intelligence. I had been struggling along, having a hard time depending upon what I called my own intelligence, thinking that the only way it could be increased was by human effort. Now I was joyously relieved to learn that I was hooked up with an unlimited powerhouse of intelligence, the divine Mind, and I ceased human pushing.
The realization that I reflected divine intelligence began at once to take away fear. I realized that intelligence is ever available, cannot be lost, and that it is unlimited. As a result, I learned my study assignments more readily, began to reason and think more clearly, to remember with more ease, and I was no longer afraid of examinations. I did better in all my activities, often exceeding expectation.
I later learned that my instantaneous healing resulted because the practitioner stoutly refused the evidence of the material senses, which argued that man was dependent upon a material brain for his intelligence, that this brain could be overtaxed and result, according to material law, in a case of mental exhaustion. But with conviction born of previous proofs, she reversed material sense testimony with the spiritual facts of being, discerning, through spiritual sense, the presence of God's perfect, spiritual man, unlimited in intelligence and capacity because at one with divine intelligence. She saw a man untouched by world mesmerism or self-mesmerism; a man as incapable of being sick as God Himself. During those few minutes of silent prayer she clung steadfastly to the spiritual facts about man, confident that the Christ, Truth, dispels false belief.
Christian Science does not ignore what the material senses claim as human experience. It agrees that all phases of matter and the entire belief of evil are very much in evidence to human sense. But it also shows clearly that this entire claim of evil can be disbelieved by gaining an understanding of God and the truth of His creation, so clearly explained in Christian Science.
Some people have a struggle over the use of the words "real" and "unreal" as used in Christian Science. Now, immediately before I was healed, I was in mental anguish. To my material senses the suffering was very real. Then, through the practitioner's prayer, the anguish vanished. Similarly, I saw a member of my family quickly healed of a severe case of quinsy. To the material senses the sickness was very real. Large swelling on the neck, intense soreness, inability to swallow were quite apparent. A practitioner in a distant city was called on the telephone, and in less than thirty minutes following the call I watched those physical symptoms disappear. The sore did not break nor drain. It simply disappeared. The loved one was perfectly normal and immediately ate a hearty meal with no evidence of any discomfort.
Christian Science shows that anything that is subject to change is not real, because it does not present a divine fact or truth. Truth is that which is unchangeable, existing eternally according to divine law.
Christian Science shows that there is only the one divine Mind and that what we have thought of as our separate, material mind is only a false sense of mind. It calls this false sense of mind, mortal mind. It shows that all sin, disease, and death are the product of this false, mortal mind; that our problem is always mental and never physical, and that it can never be healed or solved correctly except by the divine Mind; that our sickness or trouble is always a wrong way of thinking, and that this thinking can be corrected by turning to the divine Mind, where divine ideas displace mistaken beliefs.
Prayer in Christian Science results in a change of consciousness. Prayer is going into the mental closet and shutting the door tight against mesmeric suggestion and listening for the Christ, Truth. The difference between the prayer of the student of Christian Science and his prayer before he became a student is that he now prays with the understanding of the divine facts as recorded in his textbooks, the Bible and Science and Health. He prays now, knowing that he is an individual, perfect, spiritual reflection of God. He prays now, realizing to some degree the unreality of matter, the unreality of disease and of all discord, because he understands the reality of God's spiritual creation.
Consider Jesus' healing of the leper (Mark 1:40-42): "And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean, And as soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed."
What is the most significant part of that picture? Isn't it, "And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him"? Visualize the leper's countenance as he watched Jesus. "Oh, he's not afraid of me. He touched me." Jesus' great love led him to do the kindest possible human thing — just to touch him!
There is a perfect example of a Christian Science treatment: deep compassion for the patient's fear, an absolute certainty of the unreality of the error, and a complete expectancy that spiritual understanding will dispel the mesmeric belief. The Christian Science practitioner, moved with compassion, discerns the kindest human thing to do and say, and reaches the thought of his patient to bring about his healing.
The leper's healing illustrates that there is something for the patient to do. He must put himself within reach of the treatment. As the prodigal son was willing to forsake material husks and turn toward home before the father came out to meet him, so the leper must have suffered enough to cause him to turn and walk toward the home of his heavenly Father, or he would not have been within reach of the healing touch of the Christ.
Often there is much self-will, pride, or sinful reservations, some crust of self that keeps us outside the reach of the Father. The patient may not be awake to his family's deep-rooted conviction that he is this way or that and always will be. He may not be awake to the belief that he is unconsciously justifying undestroyed errors that darken his thought. His trouble may be latent fear or pictures of disease.
Yearning quietly and sincerely, minutes on end, for the truth to unfold in human consciousness and dispel all undestroyed error is a great help, and God is so good that the errors may not even need to be uncovered — they can just dissolve in the presence of the Christ, Truth.
Remember, discouragement is not the way you think. It is just outside, evil suggestion. Mesmeric, erroneous belief, no matter what its seeming character, can never be true. The victory is always at hand. To turn your trust to anything less than Truth and attempt to gain healing by adulterating spiritual means with material remedies is to prolong the problem. Mrs. Eddy says in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 260): "[Jesus'] faith partook not of drugs, matter, nor of the travesties of mortal mind. The divine Mind was his only instrumentality and potency, in religion or medicine."
Your life may seem like a difficult picture puzzle, but if you keep listening for the divine Mind to guide you, the pieces will begin to fit. Perhaps you will see a little healing here, there a little more, until all the pieces finally fit together. The Christ, Truth, will unfold to you as you stand resolutely within its reach, as you stand with your thought facing and reaching out to God. A true Christian soldier never lowers his flag or ceases fighting.
One time we had a sweet little three-year-old Shirley Anne living in our home. Her mother was interested in Christian Science, and the child had begun to attend a Christian Science Sunday School. Mother and child had not yet fully learned how to rely on Christian Science for healing. Little Shirley Anne had perhaps more than her share of self-will.
One evening when I came home, she had a heavy cold with cough and fever. I tried to help her by reading to her from the Christian Science textbook and, as sweetly as I knew how, tried to explain that she was God's child and that she didn't need to cough. She replied, "But I'm doin' it, ain't I?" and vigorously pushed the textbook out of my hand.
Another member of the family, discerning the need, suggested that I remain in another room while she talked to Shirley Anne. First they talked about Love, then she tried to read to Shirley Anne out of her textbook. Again the child pushed the book out of her hands. This member picked up the book and laid it beside them on the bed, but continued to talk about Love. Finally she touched the book and asked Shirley Anne if she had ever seen the word "Love." At once there was an interest. Shirley Anne voluntarily reached out for one side of the textbook, and they held it together to look at the word "Love." The cough began to abate at once as Shirley became interested in her own search for the word "Love." Soon she jumped down. Holding the book in one hand and raising three fingers of the other, she came running to me, completely healed, and with eyes sparkling called out, "Look, dis must be a Love-book. I find dese many Loves."
Shirley Anne did not understand the phase of mortal mind that was keeping her outside the reach of the treatment, but the compassion of her helper directed her to do and say the kindest human thing to bring the child's thought where it would listen to the truth and accept healing.
Love — that is the thing that makes a Christian Science treatment effective. No book, it is believed, was ever written that mentions love, the genuine spiritual love, as many times and in as many different ways as does the Christian Science textbook. Throughout, the textbook is an expression of Father-Mother, Love, the Love which is God. In demanding the giving up of sinful beliefs, it is as stern with its readers as a father. In patiently bearing with them as they take their faltering footsteps out of mesmeric beliefs into demonstrable understanding, it is as gentle as a mother. It has no patience with love talked and not lived. It says (Science and Health, p. 365), "If the Scientist reaches his patient through divine Love, the healing work will be accomplished at one visit, and the disease will vanish into its native nothingness like dew before the morning sunshine."
In time of need this "Love-book" comforts the adult as well as the child, and its truths have healed thousands. Get it and read it, my friends. It can be your "Love-book," for it can heal you, and with it as your key to the Scriptures you can gain an understanding of man's true being.
Today's world struggle is not with people, but with the one mesmeric evil, with the boast that evil can overpower good, and that darkness can envelop and smother light. Only through Christ can this boast be understood as nothing, and only the activity of Christ can puncture it and render it powerless.
The understanding of Christ enabled Jesus to pray for his tormentors (Luke 23:34): "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." Jesus was stern with evil, but he was ever divinely compassionate with mankind. He knew that his persecutors were the dupes of evil. Not so much the oppressed peoples, as their oppressors, are the dupes. Now error, although scornful of Truth, finally destroys itself, and its dupes, in blissful ignorance, ride with it to certain downfall. Only the activity of the Christ will destroy hate and greed and release oppressed and oppressor.
Only by the activity of the Christ, Truth, will true brotherhood be established, will the nations of the world be guided to a solution of today's problems, and will peace be permanently established. An encouraging sign is the provision of the United Nations Assembly for a retreat where each member can pray to God. In Psalms (86:9) we read, "All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord; and shall glorify thy name."
The presence of Christ, Truth, is needed to know how to feed hungry nations and at the same time help them to build up their own resources. Turning to God for Christ-understanding is needed to solve capital and labor relations, to know how to assist the needy and the aged without weakening initiative and self-reliance.
I hope, my friends, that you see that the Christ, Truth, alone is your Wayshower. Without the Christ, Jesus' human life would have been unimportant. It was the understanding of the Christ that enabled Jesus to perform his works, that enabled Mary Baker Eddy to perform similar works. And this same understanding produces the healing works of Christian Science today and distinguishes its healing from all other healing methods. Universal salvation will come only as the Christ unfolds to all mankind.
Christian Science has revealed the Science of Jesus' simple teaching and life. It is divinely natural for you to practice this Science and do works similar to his. You can have no sickness or sin that cannot be healed; you can have no problem that cannot be solved. I trust that you will remember some of the simple truths from this lecture, and that you will begin now to put them into practice. Remember, there is only the one perfect creation. Your real being is perfect and harmonious, and you can disbelieve any mesmeric evil suggestion to the contrary.
Let us close with this loving command and promise from page 495 of the Christian Science textbook: "When the illusion of sickness or sin tempts you, cling steadfastly to God and His idea. Allow nothing but His likeness to abide in your thought. Let neither fear nor doubt overshadow your clear sense and calm trust, that the recognition of life harmonious — as Life eternally is — can destroy any painful sense of, or belief in, that which Life is not. Let Christian Science, instead of corporeal sense, support your understanding of being, and this understanding will supplant error with Truth, replace mortality with immortality, and silence discord with harmony."
[Delivered in Sand Springs, Oklahoma, on Dec. 2, 1951, under auspices of the Christian Science Society in Sand Springs, and published in The West Tulsa News.]