Herbert W. Beck, C.S., of Boston, Massachusetts
Member of the Board of Lectureship of The
Mother Church,
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts
Herbert W. Beck, C.S., of Boston, Mass., lectured on "Christian Science: Its Simplicity," Tuesday night in the Murat Theatre. Mr. Beck is a member of the Board of Lectureship of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass. The lecture was given under auspices of Third Church of Christ, Scientist. The lecturer was introduced by Wilbur A. Zobbe. The lecture follows substantially as it was given:
Christian Science has come to the world with its kindly, healing message to reassure us that the attainment of heaven now is not a vain hope but a present, demonstrable possibility. It lifts our gaze from the despair of material living to Life divine, to the realization of God's love for us and all that this love holds. This love of God is tender, thoughtful, ever capable of supplying our needs, always at hand to help when that help is prayerfully and honestly sought. True prayer is not sent forth in vain; it does not disappoint, but it brings to bear a fruitage that is most satisfying and sustaining.
Are you trying hard to understand Christian Science? Are you finding it difficult to know and to love God? Are some of you finding it impossible to be rid of sin, sickness, discouragement, lack, or loneliness? If so, you can turn with assurance to Christian Science, for it heals the sick, binds up the brokenhearted, brings peace in place of discord — truly it gives us a practical concept of what heaven really is.
Christian Science is not hard to understand. You will find it is simple, provided you are willing to give up preconceived ideas or opinions based upon an experience in evil, in disappointments, which come in hours of sickness, or in frustration of your attempts to have and to know good. It is necessary to be willing to give up the old for a keen desire to accept the new concept. When the steam engine was invented and applied to what we now know as railroads, it met with much opposition.
It was believed to carry evil spirits; that it would bring disaster upon the people, to the animals on the farms, and to the birds of the air; that sustained travel at ten miles an hour would bring death. But it is very plain that the new method could not be fitted into the old way of transportation, and people had to change over to the new way.
Therefore, the first step towards finding the simplicity of Christian Science is to have the mental pliability to approach the subject with an open thought, willing to accept its simple yet profound reasoning even if at first it appears contradictory to much which was formerly believed.
To approach the subject it is well to know how Christian Science is defined. In "Rudimental Divine Science" (p. 1), Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, defines it as "the law of God, the law of good, interpreting and demonstrating the divine Principle and rule of universal harmony."
Here we have the statement that the "law of good" is demonstrating universal harmony. And because harmony is universal, you are included within the blessing. It is not an extravagant statement to assert that you already know some of the results of the law of good; but to understand it, you do need the teaching of Christian Science, which makes the rough places plain to the honest inquirer.
The Christian world accepts the fact that God is the Giver of all good. At this moment He is giving you good so that you may awaken to what is true about yourself. The very fact that you are here is an indication that you desire to know more about God, more about yourself, so that you may turn from mortality and express your natural spiritual intelligence, wisdom, joy, energy, health. Christian Science reveals the almighty power of good to anyone who will accept and practice its teachings.
All spiritual healing is based upon the understanding and acceptance of a perfect God and a perfect man. We know logically and from experience that like produces like. Jesus referred to this truth when he said: "Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" The vegetable is not produced from the animal, nor the animal from the mineral. Whether you accept the fact or not, God is absolutely perfect and is the only creator in the universe.
If we start with God as the only creator, entirely good in every way, and remember that like produces like, we have, consequently, a perfect God and perfect creation. Thus we accept the statement of Mrs. Eddy in the textbook which she has given to the world, entitled "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," which reads (p. 259), "The Christlike understanding of scientific being and divine healing includes a perfect Principle and idea, — perfect God and perfect man, — as the basis of thought and demonstration."
The investigator of Christian Science might almost wonder at this statement. What — a perfect man! And he makes this exclamation because he believes man to be mortal, basing his concept upon what he thinks he is and what his neighbor seems to be. Right here he may be assured that the man he has in thought is not the image and likeness of God.
The Bible records in the first chapter of Genesis that God made man in His image and likeness. This is more than an idle statement or just a poetic one. It is a fixed, scientific fact, and this man has remained perfect as he was created. This is natural, for if God's man could fall from perfection, then there must be something weak or defective about man. And if the real man, the likeness of God, is defective or possible of imperfection, then God must be defective, which, of course, is untenable.
Speaking of man, God's image, it is well to realize how wonderful man is. Think what it means to be the likeness of God. As you do so, you will realize that evil is not involved within that wonder; that the only thing man can have is good; that he is far above the reach of ignorance, of sin, sickness, or death, for he is one with his Father. As we see man as the reflection of God, we realize God's goodness and love to His creation, and we honor God's allness and man's perfection. In doing so, we find that man is fully equipped with spiritual qualities.
There is nothing lacking in this equipment. But mortal mind or the carnal mind, to use St. Paul's statement, tries to convince us that we are failures; that we cannot succeed, or even if we do, it will not bring happiness. From a mortal standpoint, man is as transient as the grass of the field; but as God's likeness, he is wonderful, lacking in no good thing.
Hold firmly to the truth that God made you perfect and keeps you so — know it is true and deny the evidence that the sickness is real, and so be blessed by a healing.
In accepting Christian Science one gives up no good thing, but one is finally relieved of all that is not good. Christian Science takes us where it finds us, whether upon a sickbed, in poverty, in riches, or in the despair of a wasted and sinful life. It reaches our present status, heals and leads us to the truth of being, the recognition of the kingdom of heaven, which the Master declared is in man.
But to understand Christian Science in its entirety is the work of eternity. To suppose that one can consider this subject for a few minutes and then dismiss it, believing he fully understands it, would be like a person claiming that he knows all about nature because he has enjoyed for a moment the perfume of a single violet. But it is for you to know that Christian Science is God's law of being applied to human problems. It is the Comforter promised by the Master, and it is blessing thousands today through its practical ministration.
Christian Science is practical, because it heals, reforms, blesses. This is a practical age, and the value of anything is usually given a careful test. Christian Science welcomes such a test. Its teachings are not only beautiful but are possible of proof. The results of the practice of Christian Science are on every hand for you to investigate if you will only do so. Diseases frequently classified as incurable are healed, and those persons healed are soon able through the study of scientific Christianity to help themselves and others.
That this healing is for all is proved when through a prayerful reading of Science and Health an understanding of the Bible is obtained which enables a student to follow the Master's instruction to reform the sinner and heal the sick. Please be assured that the ability to heal is not for a certain class; neither is there any inside knowledge for the initiated. Christian Science is divine law understandingly applied in destroying sin, healing disease, wiping away the tears from our eyes, and giving us protection from evil. It comes to the world's assistance to lift consciousness from a false sense of reality to a right, practical understanding of that which is truly real and eternal.
The question naturally arises as to how Christian Science is applied. The question is one of great importance, for one experiencing or seeing the results may well ask how it is done. Perhaps if we turn to arithmetic, we can find an illustration. As a child you were taught simple laws or rules, and you have been using these rules of arithmetic ever since. When, however you are convinced of a mistake in arithmetic, you do not start with the mistake to find the right answer; but you turn back to the rule through which the correction is made possible. Likewise, any evil, any distress, may be considered as a mistake in living, for the rules of divine Principle, which Christian Science reveals as God, have not been correctly applied.
If you will understandingly affirm with confident assurance that you are God's likeness, that you are spiritually perfect and that sickness has no power, no life, no reality, you will experience a Christian Science healing. This healing is accomplished through an intelligent application of the truth about God and man. Truth is omnipotent, and as you establish a connection with this power, there follows what the Master said would happen, "the truth shall make you free."
If after using this simple rule of affirmation regarding God's allness and man's perfection and the consequent denial of error as having any reality, the sickness disappears, what are you going to think about it? Will you not begin to investigate and use over and over again the divine rule which works, which heals? Do not scoff at this method of healing, for it has been applied and proved practical by many thousands of persons. Why not honestly test this simple method?
I was once experiencing a heavy head cold, and I reasoned something like this: Christian Science is teaching me that my real self is God's likeness. Therefore, if I am just like Him, I cannot have a cold unless God has the cold first, which is impossible. I was instantaneously healed of the cold. Naturally I was grateful and immediately began to use again and again this simple application of the law of perfection which destroys evil. Emphatically declaring what is spiritually true, and with as much conviction denying that which is false, you will find that the law of God does operate, and that Christian Science, which gives us an understanding of that law, is eminently practical, as well as simple, in healing disease and destroying all types of evil.
To many persons Christian Science is simply a corrective agency. That it is applied Christianity does not seem to have occurred to them. But those who have been healed have later, through an awakened thought, found that spiritual healing dominated their experience. It is well to understand that in Christian Science healing we do not primarily seek to heal the body but to change or spiritualize the thought. Truly it is the sick mentality which is corrected rather than a sick body.
It is well to realize that we are thinking all the time, either good or evil; we are constantly thinking. We think our living; we think our business; we think our friends; we think our health, and, of course, there is nothing so far as we are concerned that is outside of that of which we are conscious. So it is well to control our thought; to control our reactions.
If we make much of evil, we will in all likelihood have much of evil; if we make much of good and demonstrate its law, we will find much of good. Our conclusions — our reactions — control us unless there is a cross-current of another conclusion which would offset the effects of the first one. In Science and Health (p. 392) we find this statement, "Your decisions will master you, whichever direction they take."
To control our thoughts we need the consciousness of good, the "mind . . . which was also in Christ Jesus." As we conform our thinking so that we become Christlike, the threats of evil and of dire forebodings reach us less and less, and our living becomes happier. The lack of health, of supply, of good, begins to fade away, for we are making our demonstration that good is the only real power.
Treatment in Christian Science is truly an awakening process. It awakens one to that which is true about man, to that which is true of his real self, and as he becomes conscious of what he is, naturally he makes use of it. This may be illustrated as follows:
Suppose you are on the street and a man approaches, asking for alms. He stands before you in rags, expressing extreme poverty. He tells you something of his story but while he is doing so you recognize him as an old acquaintance. Thereupon you tell him that a certain bank has been searching for him for years, because they hold in trust for him an enormous fortune. He goes to the bank with you and finds that the information is true.
Now the first point: Did you make him rich? Did you even give him a nickel? Or did you tell him of what he already had, and he found it true? Even so Christian Science approaches the poverty-stricken condition of the human mind, tells it of the riches which belong to the image of God; thought is awakened, and this statement is found to be true, and the law of abundance of good is demonstrated for the benefit of that individual.
But you may say: That all sounds interesting, but how about my troubles? Let us return to the individual when he spoke to you, standing before you in rags which testified to the world that he was poverty-stricken. Were the rags telling the truth? Did the man's ignorance in any way change his inheritance? The answer, of course, must be "No." And so regarding any sickness or trouble, be assured that these troubles are so many mental rags falsifying as to your real spiritual status.
Why not go to the bank of Spirit and see what you have as God's image and likeness! And as you find some of the truth about God and yourself, make use of it and see evil destroyed. The Apostle Paul said: "Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."
As to the band of lawless suggestions seen as sin, sickness, discouragement, and the like, know that each one is destroyed by the persistent and intelligent declaration and proof of the spiritual facts about the real man, as to what he is and what he can do. Man can express only infinite God, good; he can only magnify good. And with this recognition, the student of Christian Science is awake to the subtle suggestions of evil and is capable of destroying his wrong concept of power.
This is done by scientifically knowing what constitutes power. Realize that you are God's man. Never forget it; never doubt it. Rejoice many times a day that you know God and love Him; that you represent Him, and so express the needed intelligence and power to overcome evil. And above all, know that God is aware of you, loves you, and keeps you safe.
In the practice of Christian Science, we handle error. What is meant by handling error? It is to challenge, to expose and discard the claims of evil that it possesses reality, power, or life. If evil were eternal, it would necessarily come from God, the only creator, but this we know to be impossible, for God is Love and gives only good.
Each erroneous condition presenting itself should be exposed and proved unreal, or it will handle us. Mortal mind intellectuality will never scientifically uncover or properly destroy error. Spiritual understanding alone can do it successfully. Error should be handled quickly, decisively, and cast out of consciousness by God's law of good.
The healing which comes through the ministrations of Christian Science is the result of the mothering love which God has for us. This love covers us with the best robe of protection, and there is the ring of sonship for our finger and the prepared feast of His bounty for us to enjoy.
The nature of sin, its unreality, must be known before its effects may be scientifically destroyed. All wrong desire is based upon sin, which would insist that man is physical.
Sin is only a supposition, though it claims to be real, as real as an expression or emanation of divine Mind. That it is a supposition may be proved when God's allness and ever-presence is understood and demonstrated as infinite good with no place for its opposite. Evil having no place, no reality, the truth may be realized that sin has no control or power over man, God's man. Also, the real man can have no sinful desires because of his perfection, because of his likeness to God.
Sin is mesmeric. By it the sinner believes he receives good, if only temporal; he is convinced that it pays to sin; that one becomes more of a man for wrongdoing. All of us know how we have been cheated through listening to these deceptive suggestions.
There is no real necessity for man to sin; no law of God makes it compulsory. In fact, God's man is not capable of sin, for man reflects or expresses his perfect creator. The real man's natural desires are for the good of God's giving. When the human is convinced of this truth, his gaze is turned away from the "Dead Sea apples" of ashes, bitterness and disappointment to the ever-satisfying, never-failing fruitage of rightful living.
Recently a man walked unsteadily into a Christian Science practitioner's office and remarked that he was intoxicated. Following a short conversation, a treatment was given as we are taught in Christian Science. Several weeks later the man returned healed to express his gratitude and asked how his healing had been brought about. The practitioner replied "You told me you were drunk, intoxicated, but I knew it was not true; that it was impossible for man as God's image to be drunk or intoxicated, because of man's present perfection and love of good." "Well," exclaimed the former patient, "your declaration was certainly proved true, for I am free from my desire for strong drink.''
Was not this reasoning simple, practical, effective? Was not the sinner purified when he was awakened to his true being?
Christian Science is not a Pollyanna teaching, simply mouthing the words that everything is good and that there is no evil. We are not taught to ignore evil but to destroy it by proving its complete impotency. It is true that good is the only power in the universe, but as long as any of us are controlled by ignorance there will be evil to uncover, to deny, to reject, to destroy.
It is stated in Science and Health (p. 542): "Let Truth uncover and destroy error in God's own way, and let human justice pattern the divine." Mind you, it says let Truth do the uncovering, not human endeavor. Much anguish has been experienced by the attempt to find error in someone instead of endeavoring to find good. Through the application of Christian Science we are able to uncover error, but the real task is to prove its unreality, and this calls for wisdom and spiritual understanding on the part of the Christian Scientist, whether he is working for himself or for someone else.
It may be asked, Where did evil come from? One could answer that question if he could tell where ignorance comes from. We again refer to the Christian Science textbook (p. 390), which declares: "It is our ignorance of God, the divine Principle, which produces apparent discord, and the right understanding of Him restores harmony." Ignorance, then, is the only thing to be rid of, and this you are doing every day.
You are constantly finding out things you did not know a short time before, and what happens to the ignorance on the subject? Is anything destroyed? Assuredly not. You simply accept a fact which destroys ignorance about that fact. So in working out the problem of life, you are shown the way through Christian Science to a definite understanding of divine Principle and to discover the ease with which you may make use of that Principle in destroying the ignorance which is holding mankind in the depths of darkness.
There is only one way to heaven, and that is the way the Master showed us and which Christian Science enables us to demonstrate. The straight and narrow way is the one approved of God. This way appears limited and narrow to mortal mind, because it does not permit indulgence in sin, sickness and death; yet while it appears narrow, it is as broad as infinity itself, as wide as a boundless sea. It is truly straight, because it is the accurate, scientific demonstration of divine Principle. The so-called broad way is a mesmeric and uncertain path, the way of mortal mind's choosing. To selfishness, the straight and narrow way seems to be one of hardships, of turmoil and evil — all that is contrary to the luring pleasures which tempt one to abide in the so-called broad way which the Master told us leads to disaster.
Within the Christ-way bud and blossom the realities of happiness, peace, and plenty. There is, there can be, no evil within the straight way of spirituality. Because this way is the demonstration of God's allness, harmony can be the only experience within this path. Mankind, however, has vexing troubles, but these very troubles should and ultimately will drive everyone out of the broad way into the realization that there is only one way of life, one way of demonstrating and living that life, and it is given in Christian Science. Our demonstration or use of Christian Science is to know that the real man, our real selfhood, is within the realm of good; that his capacity is infinite, his scope and activity boundless in expressing God. The path to heaven is demonstration that man is in heaven now. The real man need not enter the straight and narrow way; he is within it now.
Several years ago a young man called upon a Christian Science practitioner and told of his difficulties. He had been educated as an engineer in one of the best colleges in the country. He had been in The Mother Church Sunday School until he was twenty, but he had drifted away from Christian Science because of his idea of its seeming narrowness. Christian Scientists do not believe in using tobacco, and to him this was very narrow.
There were other similar things, too, about which he complained. After he had expressed his views, the practitioner said to him: "You have told me that as an engineer you worked upon one of the largest bridges in the world and that it is a marvelous engineering achievement. Now suppose one day the engineers had said, We are tired and weary of building this bridge according to plans and specifications; let us be broad engineers and build the bridge accordingly.'" The young man exclaimed, "Why the bridge would have fallen." Then his attention was called to the fact that his bridge of life had nearly fallen.
He was penniless, out of work, had a wife and children to support. He did not know what to do. He had endeavored to live Christian Science in a broad way, and it had led him towards destruction. He evidently saw the point, because some months later he met the practitioner and told him that he had not used tobacco since leaving his office; that he had a temporary position before the day was over, and that in two weeks he had a permanent one as an engineer. He further stated, "I am living my life as an engineer in Christian Science, for I am learning 'precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little.'" He is today an earnest Christian Scientist.
The Christian Scientist has two textbooks — the Bible and "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. The latter opens the hidden truths of the Scriptures so that one understands the divine Principle back of all reality, and the earnest student finds health, happiness, and well-being for himself and others.
The Bible is revealed as a new book. It becomes, as it were, a book which had never been studied before. Instead of accepting some of its truths as applicable to another age, he finds all of them usable here and now. The Christian Science textbook is overturning and will continue to overturn the erroneous thinking of the world. Since the publication of Science and Health, many changes have come to popular religious thought, and the immortality of man is more generally accepted.
The Bible gives us the assurance that God "healeth all thy diseases." Do you believe this? If you do, why not let Him heal you of sickness as well as of sin? God, divine Love, will and can do so if you put your full trust in Him and not divide your allegiance between Spirit and matter. However, you may believe that the day of miracles is past. Did God say so, or can you find such a statement in the Bible?
The Master instructed his disciples of any age or clime to do the work which he did. Remember he said, "These signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; . . . they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." The ages have lost this power to heal by spiritual means, because the right hand lost its hold on the divine understanding of God's allness, and perhaps the left hand of effort has become indifferent to the way our Master healed and uplifted mankind. What tremendous loss to humanity!
The very same Christ that destroys sin heals sickness. Just the same method, though an increased understanding of the Christ-truth is needed. Think of what awaits us! Freedom from sickness as well as from sin; freedom from every type of evil, if we will only abide in the truth which our Master gave us.
How natural to Christ Jesus was his healing work! For the sick to be instantaneously healed, the sinner reformed, even the dead brought back to life was the natural result of his understanding that God's law supersedes all so-called physical law and phenomena.
To the uninformed, spiritual healing is unknown, and when it occurs, it may seem miraculous. But to the informed or to those understanding divine law, the result is a natural occurrence. It is easily seen, then, that understanding is needed, the spiritual understanding of God's law. Does all this sound ridiculous or possibly too good to be true?
Why not give it a trial? If you do not succeed the first time, then take it as a challenge and try again. When you do succeed in making what is called a demonstration of the power of good over evil, there will come into your experience a new vision of life, something which will grow and bless you always.
It must be admitted that Christ Jesus knew what he was doing and the manner in which he did it. To suppose that he did his wondrous work from any other basis than one of understanding of God and His law would be to stultify Christianity. He did not work blindly from instinct, but he saw clearly the beneficent effect following the application of divine Principle. Naturally, he endeavored to teach his apostles the truth back of his life-work, and his success in so doing was evidenced by the spread of the gospel of healing throughout the then civilized world. In time the ability to use the divine law of healing was lost and had to be refound or restored.
Nearly eighty years ago a woman was lying stricken by an injury, supposedly with but a few hours to live. Calling for her Bible and asking to be left alone, she read of one of the healings recorded of the Master. In so doing she reached out and touched for herself the hem of Christ's garment. The result was so efficacious that she rose from her deathbed and showed herself to her friends healed of the injury. This woman was Mary Baker Eddy, and it was quite natural that she should feel she must know how she was healed. The Bible became more than ever her only guide.
The fact of her healing was always a reassurance. The path between what she then knew of God, and the understanding of this healing Principle, she felt must be found and the way charted for others. She was successful in finding the reason for her healing, and her discovery was given to the world through her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." Following her discovery, she fully tested its practical application in healing the sick and the sinful and in giving them an understanding of the Comforter. Seeing that her students could also heal by this divine method, proving the universality of Christian Science, she proceeded to found her church. During the years following her discovery she advanced from a locally known woman to one known all over the civilized world; from a woman loved only by her intimates to a woman loved and respected by millions.
Christian Scientists do not idolize Mrs. Eddy, but they are grateful with overflowing hearts for her wonderful revelation. Her place in history is secure. Much has been written for and against this good woman. Many false statements have been made concerning her and her works, but she has come into her own, and the false statements are falling away from the consciousness of her former critics.
It is well to study Mrs. Eddy's writings carefully and prayerfully. Her vision, unadulterated by human hypotheses, should be with us daily. We should strive to keep in touch with it, to have it always before us as a beacon light; and as we keep in touch with her thought, we shall succeed as a church body and as Christian Scientists. Her leadership continues, and her counsel is vital to our growth and protection.
In this present time of world war and internal unrest, dissatisfaction with things as they are, one sometimes hears it said that Christianity has failed, that the world has had nineteen hundred years of it, and it is worse off than when the Master trod the hills of Judea. This statement is superficial, and it is based upon lack of understanding of what Christianity is.
The world today is not suffering from the application of Christianity but from lack of it. Can it be said that the lust for power and dominion is the outcome of the Sermon on the Mount; that through living the divine precepts in this Sermon, the world has been swept into a volcano of hate and mass murder? When each inhabitant of this globe finds that Christianity may be lived and applied through the use of the understanding which Christian Science gives, there will be no need for armaments; there will be no desire to take from others what is rightfully theirs.
War comes of ignorance; surely not from the understanding of divine Love. It all comes from the belief that material and not spiritual things are of true and lasting value. Has there ever been a quarrel over the possession of qualities that make for uprightness of character — the qualities that make an individual or a nation worthy of honor? How ridiculous it would appear for nations or individuals to fight for the possession of spirituality, generosity, or brotherly love! Here Christian Science comes to the world's assistance to lift consciousness from a false sense of reality, from a low visibility of values, to a right, practical vision of that which is truly real and desirable.
We hear much these days about defeatism. Cannot evil be stopped? is a frequent question. Of course evil can be stopped, because Truth is always the victor; and the more we realize that God does not support this attempt to dominate peoples and races and bring them into slavery, the quicker the effort must fail. Alertness must be our watchword — alertness to good; alertness to the presence of God; alertness to the fact that His love does destroy hate; as well as alertness to the approach, the cunningness, the mesmerism of evil to bring about a state of mental and physical lethargy.
No Christian Scientist wants war, for he knows that war is evil, to be fought only in defense of country and human rights because mankind has found no better way to check aggression. The attitude of ignoring evil, of pacifism, or appeasement has brought civilization to the brink of disaster. It is not correct to take the attitude that because of God's allness there is no war and put up no defense. This condition of thought is helpful to the aggressor.
The practice of Christian Science is reasonable and practical. We need a vision of God's allness. In fact, the Bible tells us, "Where there is no vision, the people perish." So we need vision, spiritual vision, but we must not become visionary about our vision.
We face a choice of evils, and Christian Science teaches us to take the one nearest right. In this case it is surely better to stop the inroads of evil and save what the world has struggled to attain through the centuries than to let it slip away. Democracy with its blessings is worth fighting for. To keep America free is a worthy attainment. Mrs. Eddy in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" writes (p. 277), "But if our nation's rights or honor were seized, every citizen would be a soldier and woman would be armed with power girt for the hour."
Christian Science is the "pearl of great price" spoken of by our Master. It has untold blessings for mankind. It is easily understood and can be definitely applied to human problems with good results, if you approach God with clean hands and an honest endeavor. Divine Love is calling to each of us to awaken to his real self and leave behind the dream of wrong living and suffering. No one can present a legitimate reason for not opening the door to the Christ which is now knocking at the portals of human consciousness for the recognition of God's allness — the omnipotence of good.
A Christian Scientist is fully aware that he has much work to do before he arrives at his goal. He is just becoming conscious of the first glow, the first tinge of the dawning of spiritual light against the darkness of mortal mind. This new light is a continuous unfoldment, an endless acceptance of the law of spiritual freedom, bringing the risen day of the Christ and leading to the noonday effulgence of being.
"Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in."
[Delivered Feb. 2, 1943, in the Murat Theatre in Indianapolis, Indiana, under the auspices of Third Church of Christ, Scientist, Indianapolis, and published in The Marion County Mail of Indianapolis, Feb. 5, 1943.]