Neil H. Bowles, C.S.B., of Atlanta, Georgia
Member of the Board of Lectureship of The
Mother Church,
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts
The lecturer spoke substantially as follows:
Suppose someone should say to you, "What do you want more than anything else in the world?" What would you say? Well, the answer for everyone here could be given in just one word — security. There is an old saying that the only certainties in life are taxes and death. Perhaps the world generally believes that. This shows how little people think that security is the natural state of life. It shows how little they believe in the certainty and permanence of good. Why is this so? Because the world has generally believed that our lives are something apart from God; that they are governed by influences beyond the control of God. So what we are going to talk about tonight is how our lives are governed and controlled by the unchanging law of God.
Now certainly everyone who thinks deeply must recognize that there is a law governing the physical universe. The sun, the moon, the stars, all have their scheduled courses and appearings. Each one is held in its own position by an unchanging power. It is a power unseen by human eye. Yet that power exists. Who would be so foolish as to say that it does not? For centuries people have known of the existence of the principle of astronomy. They have relied on it to regulate many things in their lives. Each day the sun rises at a different time, yet the astronomer can foretell the exact time of its appearing. Here again, no one doubts this. This unseen power governs the entire stellar universe. It governs it with unfailing accuracy. If this was not so, there would be perpetual chaos in the heavens. Well, people's greatest need is to learn to reason on the things of life, and on the law governing them.
Before I go further I want to point out to those just becoming acquainted with Christian Science that this religion is not based on human theorizing. You should start the study of Christian Science from the premise that it is a discovery. It is a discovery of the true nature of God, man and the universe. It is a discovery of the creative and governing law controlling man and the universe. Mary Baker Eddy discovered it in 1866. Then she proved it. She proved it by applying it to the healing of the sick just the way Jesus did. Unnumbered people have proved it since she published her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," in 1875. This remarkable book is based solely on the inspired Word of the Bible. Its spiritual and scientific interpretation of the Scriptures has had a profound transforming and healing influence on the lives and on the thinking of people in every part of the world.
Here I want to show you an inconsistency in the way most people think. It is an inconsistency that Christian Science corrects. In spite of the fact that we see the sun, the moon, the stars, et cetera, controlled by an unseen law, people still believe that they themselves are outside this law — that they are subject to chance and uncertainty. Nothing could be farther from the fact, and Christian Science proves it. It is not intelligent to conclude that an absolute law exists to govern parts of creation, and that other parts were abandoned to chance or uncertainty. Now because Christian Science is based on the Bible, that does not mean that it does not scientifically interpret the law of Life. On the contrary, Christian Science is Science because it is based on the demonstrable scientific facts Mrs. Eddy discovered in the Bible. That is just another way of saying that Mrs. Eddy discovered the real truths of the Bible. The word "science" means truth. The word is frequently misused because it is so often used in connection with speculative theories that are not science at all, but just human guesswork.
The world is full of religious theories and religious persuasions, but Christian Science is the only religion that proves there is a law of God available to govern man harmoniously — govern him harmoniously in every aspect of his life. The discovery of Christian Science shows what God actually is and how He governs man and the universe in perfect order and harmony. Anyone who is willing to think and to reason — who is unafraid to give up erroneous views of God, views that have been ignorantly handed down for centuries — can learn and prove that there is a law of God governing his life and destiny.
In the physical world every effort is being made to take the mystery out of things. Why should not the mystery be taken out of God and out of the law of Life? Why should not that law be utilized, used for our protection and everlasting well-being? The world has always wanted an explanation of what life is and how it is governed. It now has this explanation in Christian Science.
The prophet Isaiah tells us, "The Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver" (33:22). When he prophesied the coming of the Christ, he told the Hebrew people that the Messiah would come and bring them joy and gladness, that they would have great thanksgiving. Then he said this to them (51:4): "Hearken unto me, my people; and give ear unto me, O my nation: for a law shall proceed from me, and I will make my judgment to rest for a light of the people."
Well, Christ Jesus, of course, was the Messiah. His God-inspired teachings were indeed a light of the people. He advanced beyond the Hebrew concept of God as a changeable, tribal Lord or a judge and knew God as the loving, protecting Father of all mankind. Perhaps you remember the occasion when Jesus' disciples were questioning him about his teachings, and Phillip, one of his disciples, said to him (John 14:8,9), "Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us." Jesus said to him, "Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?" Of course, God did not and could not dwell in the material physical body of Jesus. Why? Because God is Spirit. Jesus said so. No, infinite Spirit could not dwell in a physical body. In his statement to Philip, Jesus was not referring to himself as the Father. Certainly not! This would be a scientific impossibility. The "I" and "me" that Jesus referred to was the spirit of Truth, the Christ, man's real consciousness. To put it another way, the Christ was Jesus' spiritual understanding of Life, the spiritual facts of God, man, and the universe.
When we understand the spiritual facts of life Jesus taught, they save us from the mortal or carnal sense of life and mind. Because he taught the Truth, Jesus was given the title of Messiah or Christ. This does not mean that anyone else could have been the Christ. Because of his singular birth, he was more spiritually minded than all other men and women. This enabled him to perceive the divine facts of God and man — to use his spiritual understanding to demonstrate divine power by healing the sick and raising the dead.
Well, Jesus went on to say to Philip (John 14:10), "Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." Jesus' understanding of God and His law did the works. So Jesus had already showed God to his disciples. He had showed them the law of God in operation. He showed it to them by healing and by overcoming the so-called laws of nature.
Because the world is still largely in ignorance of the divine law — the exact law that governs the universe and the lives of men — does not change the fact that that law has always been available. It was here before Jesus. We have to learn of it. That exact law is the exact fact of Life. The discovery of Christian Science — and I repeat discovery — is in perfect accord with the Bible and shows that real Life is God. Jesus said this too. He said (John 17:3); "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."
Then since knowing God is necessary to an understanding of Life and its laws, could anything be of greater importance than to gain that understanding of God? In explaining the many elements or aspects of God, Mrs. Eddy saw that just one single word or term is not adequate to describe His nature, essence, and wholeness. Through her devout study of the Bible and her great spiritual insight, she discovered that certain synonymous terms, used together and interchangeably, are necessary to bring out the various aspects and hues of His nature and substance. These terms describe the elements of Life itself. She saw that God as divine Mind is true intelligence. She saw that God as Spirit is the source of all true substance. She saw that God as Soul is the source of all true consciousness and identity; that God as divine Principle is the source of all true law; that as infinite Life, God is the only Life there is; that as indestructible Truth, He is the source of all true ideas — man and the universe; and that as divine Love, He is the only source of harmony and good. Through study of these terms or names for God, we come to see His omnipresent, omniscient, omniactive, and omnipotent nature. Thus we can see that He is all and that He includes all.
Now while the subject of our lecture deals particularly with God's healing and protecting law, it was important to touch on the nature of God and His various aspects in order to understand the all-power and substance of His law. We have to understand that His law is all-intelligent; that it is spiritual, yet substantive; that it is pure, indestructible, and good. And not the least important point to understand of God and His law is the scientific fact that His all-pervading nature precludes the existence of any other power, presence, or law.
Human salvation is dependent on an understanding of the law of Life, on its Science, and on our ability to demonstrate it. What does salvation mean? It means being saved from mortality and being everlastingly preserved. But there is no such thing as vicarious salvation — someone else doing the saving for us. That is one of the points where Christian Science differs from other theological teachings. But that is where Christian Science offers one of its richest blessings. It takes the mystery out of salvation. It offers you an understanding of God and His law and shows you how it saves from mortality.
Let us do some reasoning now on the subject of your life and how it is governed. Have you ever stopped to think about your life — that is, about what it includes? Think with me now, and you will see what I mean. Your life, your present human sense of life, the life you live day by day, includes intelligence and the ability to think, does it not? It also includes consciousness, awareness of what is going on around you. You are aware of being alive. Well, your life also appears to be a reality, does it not? It also includes substance. What would your life be if it was not substantive? Then it appears to be governed or controlled, regulated by law. It also includes conditions in which you live. Now to the mortal sense of Life these elements and conditions are destructible and subject to discord. But Christian Science teaches that there are not two lives, one mortal and the other immortal. There is just one, and it is immortal. It is God; it is good.
So Christian Science interprets immortal Life to the human consciousness. It lifts human consciousness above the finite and destructible, the discordant and inharmonious, and shows it the immortal or spiritual, the perfect and good. It reveals Spirit, God, as the only source of the elements of Life. It reveals God as the supreme power of man and the universe. It shows, as we have seen, that God includes within Himself all the elements of Life. Indeed, it reveals the scientific fact that God is the All-in-all, or the sum total of Life. So the elements of your life are really divine, not human; they are spiritual, not material; they belong to God.
We have seen now that God is the all-inclusive, everlasting One. We have seen that He contains within Himself all law or government, all substance, all consciousness, all intelligence, all reality, and all good. Well, then, you can now see that it is also scientific to conclude that because God is all, and contains all, what He governs must be contained within Himself. Jesus expressed it this way. He said, "I and my Father are one" (John 10:30). Of course, Jesus was not God and God was not Jesus. But they were inseparable; that is, Jesus' spiritual selfhood was and is included in the one Life that is God. So is our true selfhood. Jesus saw this scientific fact, and, because he saw it, he was able to heal by God's law.
Let me illustrate with the principle of music. The tones of music are inseparable from the principle of music, are they not? The principle is not the tone and the tone is not the principle, but they are one in expression. And that is the scientific fact about God and man. Christian Science teaches that man is the expression of God. Since God is all, He includes within Himself all He created. He includes, indeed He is, the law that governs His creation. So man is included in God and is governed by God, divine Principle. That is logical reasoning, and it is scientific too. Let us say it another way. The great creative power that made all things includes all things within its comprehension and in its governing law. Would it not be unintelligent to believe that God could not govern what He created? So God or Spirit is the only substance and law of the universe, and man lives in the oneness and allness of God and His law.
Mrs. Eddy startled the world when she first made the declaration that God, infinite Spirit, is the only substance and law of the universe. She said that matter is unreal and devoid of law. Her teachings are still startling the materialists. She saw deeply into divine reality. She wrote over eighty years ago, with prophetic insight, about atomic energy, a subject uppermost in the minds of thinking people today. This is what she wrote about its real meaning and significance (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 190): "Atomic action is Mind, not matter. It is neither the energy of matter, the result of organization, nor the outcome of life infused into matter: it is infinite Spirit, Truth, Life, defiant of error or matter. Divine Science demonstrates Mind as dispelling a false sense and giving the true sense of itself, God, and the universe; wherein the mortal evolves not the immortal, nor does the material ultimate in the spiritual; wherein man is coexistent with Mind, and is the recognized reflection of infinite Life and Love."
Time Magazine recently discussed the question, how did the physical universe begin; where did the atom or matter come from? One school of thought thinks it was created by a divine act outside of scientific knowledge or investigation. A second school believes it was mysteriously made out of hydrogen gas. Attempts are being made to find the answer by peering into the past. This is done by looking outward into space by means of radio telescopes, but according to Dr. Lovell, Radio Astronomer of the University of Manchester, England, any cosmology must eventually move over into metaphysics. The word "cosmology" means the science of the world.
The unreality of matter is a basic point in the teachings of Christian Science, and its unreality can be understood. But we have to think and reason spiritually in order to understand it. We can never understand it on the basis of human reasoning or physical research. We have seen that in the language of Christian Science, the word "Spirit" designates God. We have seen that it also designates substance and Truth — substance that cannot be destroyed. In the language of Christian Science the word "matter" designates error — that which is perishable and destructible. Mrs. Eddy has called matter mortal error — morta1 mind, animal magnetism, hypnotism, and mesmerism. Think with me now about these terms and see how logical they are. The term "mortal mind" as opposed to omniscient, divine Mind implies a mind that errs, does it not? The term "animal magnetism" implies a state of consciousness that can be attracted to the animal or mortal and away from the spiritual. Hypnotism and mesmerism imply a state of consciousness that can become befogged, dispossessed of its true state. Well, all these states of consciousness are a denial of divine Mind's all substance and presence. Have you ever seen people under the direct influence of hypnotism? I have, and they act pretty silly too. But what they have been induced to believe is very real to them, while they are believing it.
We have learned now that Christian Science reveals real Life as wholly spiritual, not part spiritual and part material. Well, the counterpart of that revelation was that mortal or material so-called life is not another life separate and apart from Spirit. It is just a false belief about Spirit, a false belief without foundation. It is hypnotically induced. Who or what did the hypnotizing? Why, ignorance of spiritual reality. Now, when someone comes out of a state of hypnosis, what becomes of the beliefs he entertained when he was hypnotized? Why these beliefs were only as real as the believer thought they were. But they certainly were not substantive, were they? What awakens us from that hypnotic spell? Spiritual education based on the teachings and example of Christ Jesus. To put it another way, what awakens us is our conscious effort to bring our thinking into accord with the true idea that man and the universe are wholly spiritual — the way they are revealed in Christian Science. This gradually breaks the mortal mesmeric spell and reveals God and His law as the only Life and government of all creation.
Since Christ Jesus is the Wayshower, let us compare his human life with the commonly accepted sense of what a mortal life is like. First of all, Jesus loved. He loved in the face of the bitterest hatred and affliction. But he loved. Mortals believe in hatred. Jesus forgave. Mortals often seek revenge. Jesus was unselfish. Mortals are self-seeking. Jesus was honest and straightforward. Mortals are often dishonest and deceitful. Jesus was pure. Mortals are impure. Jesus preached the reality of Spirit. Mortals are lovers of the material.
Now adopting the Godlike pattern of man, the pattern Jesus showed us, does not rob us of the joys of life. Far from it. In fact, it is only as we progress in this adopting process that we come to find the real meaning of joy and happiness.
In this adopting process we begin to understand the Christ. We come to feel its comforting and redeeming influence. We come to feel its tender guidance and protecting care. This ever-present Comforter and Saviour is instantly available to everyone who is willing to conform his thoughts and acts to the Christly standard.
Let me illustrate this point by telling you about a physical healing. It came about when someone realized the necessity of exchanging the mortal qualities for the Christlike. A woman I know went to a Christian Science practitioner's office in such great pain it was difficult for her to move. She said this pain was in her abdomen. She had had it for some time. This woman was a Christian Scientist.
Knowing this, the practitioner said, "What is troubling you?"
She said, "Why, the pain."
"No, that is not what I mean," the practitioner said. "What is going on in your consciousness? What is disturbing you and causing this physical difficulty?"
She replied: "Nothing is disturbing me. It is just the pain that is bothering me."
Well, the practitioner turned to Science and Health, to page 462. It is a good page for everyone to frequently study. This is what he read to her: "Anatomy, when conceived of spiritually, is mental self-knowledge, and consists in the dissection of thoughts to discover their quality, quantity, and origin. Are thoughts divine or human? That is the important question. This branch of study is indispensable to the excision of error. The anatomy of Christian Science teaches when and how to probe the self-inflicted wounds of selfishness, malice, envy, and hate. It teaches the control of mad ambition." That was as far as he got.
"If you are accusing me of any such thinking, you can just stop. And as far as mad ambition is concerned, I do not have a bit of it." This from the patient.
The practitioner said, "Mrs. Eddy wrote that page for every student of Christian Science. It applies to all of us."
"Well, it does not apply to me," the patient replied; "but perhaps I do have my worries like anyone else."
"Well, what are your worries?" she was asked.
Then came a story that was a marvel to hear. This dear woman had two sons. She said she was unhappy about them because neither of them had turned out as she had planned. She had selected their colleges for them, planned the courses they should take, and the professions they should follow. Now neither son was engaged in a profession. What was even worse, they had not married the young women she had selected for them, and she did not care for their wives.
"Are your sons profitably employed?" she was asked.
"Yes."
"Are they happy with their wives?"
"Yes."
"Do they have nice families?"
"Yes."
"Well, why are you unhappy?" "Because things did not turn out the way I planned them."
You can imagine what followed next in the discussion. This patient was led to realize that perhaps she had been guilty of hatred, malice, envy, revenge, and mad ambition — all of them. She could see that she had not been trusting God at all, either for herself or for her sons. She saw that her whole physical system had been affected by the kind of thinking she had been doing and that she had not been aware of it. She recognized too that she had not been doing the Christlike thinking that would conform her thoughts and acts to God's law. She had wanted to do good, but had become bitter and resentful when her wishes were ignored. This was erring human will resenting opposition, and she saw it.
Suddenly she exclaimed, "Why, I am completely free from pain; I am well!"
Of course! When self-will gives way to God's will or law, and Christlike thinking replaces mortal, material thinking, we witness the harmonizing influence of divine law. Then healing naturally follows.
Let us do some thinking about the mortal qualities of thought we just contrasted with the Christlike qualities expressed by Jesus. How much harmony have you seen hatred produce? How much good does revenge produce? What about fear, selfishness, deceit, and dishonesty? How much good does impurity or materialism produce? You see, thinking has everything to do with the kind of life you live. If you are a Christlike thinker, a spiritual thinker, you are a straight thinker. Your thoughts are not cluttered with fearful or poisonous thinking that makes the body ill, causes you to make mistakes, or leads you into accidents.
Yes, I know Christian Scientists have to combat illness, accidents, and all sorts of trouble, but they are learning to bring their thinking into accord with the will or law of God, and they are solving their problems that way.
Let me give you another example of how trusting God's omnipotent law brought about a healing of a baby who was born with deformed feet. The doctors attending the birth agreed that unless an operation was performed before it was six weeks old, it could not be expected to walk normally. The first few days were a battle for the parents. The doctors' verdict was awesome to them. But they were greatly helped by this passage from Science and Health (p. 62): "The divine Mind, which forms the bud and blossom, will care for the human body, even as it clothes the lily; but let no mortal interfere with God's government by thrusting in the laws of erring, human concepts."
The parents were tempted to follow the common tendency and ask why this experience had come to them. But they quickly saw that this mortal tendency would accomplish nothing. Yet, tempted by doubt, the mother remarked to the practitioner, "How wonderful it would be if only Christian Science could bring this healing." The practitioner assured her that healings were not wonderful, but natural; that as God's child, it was natural for it to be normal and perfect in every way. He showed her Mind's ideas could not be imperfectly identified, because they actually express God. So, in Truth, the child's identity was unmarred, already complete and perfect in God. He explained that since God is the only creative power and law, no deforming influence exists. With practitioner and parents all holding steadfastly to these spiritual truths, the feet were soon straight. A week after its first birthday the child walked naturally. Today, at the age of six, the legs and feet are strong and normal. The belief in mortal law had been conquered by the realization that God's law is indeed omnipotent, supreme.
You recall I spoke earlier about a method of spiritual education. What is that method? For the Christian Scientist it is study and prayer, but of course, it is enlightening prayer. It is not a prayer of imploring God as someone would do to a human person. In Science and Health (p. 7), Mrs. Eddy says: "God is not influenced by man. The 'divine ear' is not an auditory nerve. It is the all-hearing and all-knowing Mind, to whom each need of man is always known and by whom it will be supplied." So we don't pray to God — we understand God. If that sounds startling, it need not. We have already learned that He is ever-operative divine Principle, eternal Life. How would you pray to divine Principle? You can pray the prayer of spiritual knowing. How? By affirming and declaring the revealed truths about God, about His ever-present goodness and all-power, then denying the reality of anything that is unlike good, or that opposes good.
The Psalmist sang (Ps. 34:3), "O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together." To magnify anything means to enlarge it. To exalt means to lift above all else. So we enlarge and exalt our understanding of God by affirming and declaring what He is, and denying the reality of any other power or substance. Why do we deny the reality of evil or disease? Because so long as we believe in their reality, we are not seeing God as all.
This prayer or treatment, as Christian Science explains it, is a spiritual reasoning process, a spiritual awakening and enlightening process. The nature of the human mentality is such that it needs to be spiritually awakened and enlightened. So prayer or treatment in Christian Science is precept upon precept of argued truth against error. There is Bible authority for such prayer. The prophet Isaiah taught by this method. He said (Isa. 28:10), "For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little." By this method of prayer the errors and discords of material sense are displaced in human consciousness and truth and harmony become established there.
This kind of prayer is glorious. It opens the windows of spiritual understanding. It brings us to the point of divine revelation. It brings human consciousness into accord with the law of God. Then we are governed and healed by that law.
The teaching about the oneness of God and man is a fact we must constantly strive to understand. It is important because, as I said at the start, all our human problems come from the belief that man's life is something apart from God, the only Life. If man were outside of or separate from the Life that is God, he would be outside the law of God and could not be governed by God. That too is logical and scientific reasoning. So remember that whatever is governed must be included in the law that governs it.
Let us talk about the law of music again. It is always in operation, is it not? In order to use it, we do not have to put it into operation. We bring our thinking into accord with it. Then harmony results. If we do not use it, there is no effect from it. That is the way with the law of God. We have to be in accord with it if we are to be governed or protected by it.
Someone may be saying: "You just said that man is included in the Life that is God. You also said that Life includes its own law. So why are we not just naturally governed by the law of God without our having to do anything about it?" That is a logical question, and here is the answer.
Spiritual man, the true likeness of God, is always harmoniously governed. He is always in accord with God, the only real Life or law. It is the mortal or human sense of man that seems to get out from under God's law and is in need of finding his way back. Remember, Jesus came on earth to meet this human need. He came teaching people how to bring their lives into accord with the divine Life or law. That is the whole purpose of the Christ, the true idea of God which Jesus taught.
In describing her revelation of man's true nature and substance, Mrs. Eddy has used a number of terms for man. As you think about them you will realize how perfectly, how logically they explain man's relationship to God. Some of these names are idea, image, likeness, expression, reflection, representative, manifestation. There are other terms too. Let us take the term idea. Think with me about it now. An idea is one in being with the Mind it expresses, is it not? So we see that it must partake of the nature and substance of Mind. This is true of each of the other names for man I mentioned. Each one reveals man as being like God in nature and substance. Just like Him. Not partly like Him, nor to become like Him, but just like Him now and forever. That is the basis on which Mrs. Eddy declares that man — the only man there is — the son of God, is spiritual, not material.
So man is right now the very expression of divine Principle. It is his substance, his intelligence, his life, and the source of his eternal identity. How will the mortal, material sense of man dissolve? How shall we find ourselves to be spiritual, governed wholly by divine law? Here is one step. This is from Science and Health (p. 242): "In patient obedience to a patient God, let us labor to dissolve with the universal solvent of Love the adamant of error, — self-will, self-justification, and self-love, — which wars against spirituality and is the law of sin and death." Through this spiritualization of thought, the mortal, material qualities will give way to the divine. Then what seems to be the solidness of matter, the realness of physical life, will give way to the substantiality of man in the likeness of Spirit.
In his search to find the law of life, mankind generally has looked everywhere but in the realm of God. Why is this so? Because mankind has never truly understood the meaning of God and His all-inclusive substance and power. It remained for Mrs. Eddy, a cultured New England woman, who was able because of her uncommon purity of thought and spiritual perception, to look beyond the veil of materiality and discern the true nature of God and existence. Mrs. Eddy was well prepared for her life's work as Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science because her entire human history was marked by deepest devotion to spiritual things. She has translated the language of Spirit for the comprehension of mortals. She has revealed God as the source of all life and the governor of it. She had the God-appointed task of convincing the world of her discovery that mortal, material existence, with its false sense of law, is not the true fact of Life. She had the task of proving to the world that divine law is the only law, and she did. And her followers are doing it too.
Naturally Mrs. Eddy wanted to share her discovery that the Bible contained the Science of Life and that it is possible for anyone to demonstrate it. But strangely enough she met with the severest rebuffs and cruel attacks when she offered her discovery to the world. But human resistance to her revelation that the things of the Spirit are the only realities of being has greatly lessened since the early days of Christian Science. The unquestionable proofs of her teachings are convincing thinking people in all parts of the world that she has discovered the law of Life. Is it any wonder then that her followers, who have demonstrated her teachings, and all who have been healed through the study of her writings, love her with an enduring devotion, and call her Leader? She not only is a great spiritual Leader, she is indeed the Leader of all those who would look to God to find the law of Life and its harmonious government of man and the universe. The depth of her spiritual insight into the Science of Life must, will eventually gain for her a position of preeminent stature among the scientific thinkers of the world.
So you see that Christian Science is far more than just another religion competing for power and numbers with the other religions of the world. Every activity of the Church of Christ, Scientist, is designed to spiritually educate its members, to take all mystery out of Life. In addition to the study of the Bible and Science and Health, the two textbooks of Christian Science, the Sunday services and Wednesday evening testimony meetings breathe spiritual enlightenment and comfort. No plea for blind faith in God is heard in them. They satisfy the heart's deep yearning for peace and health through spiritually enlightened reasoning. They aid in the attainment of a demonstrable understanding of God, of Life itself.
Many times I have gone to a Wednesday evening testimony meeting — these meetings are held weekly in Christian Science churches — and I have come away knowing God's law better. Perhaps I had heard some inspiring testimony of healing, or I had heard an account of a life transformed, an account by some grateful person who had been protected, healed, and blessed through an understanding of God's law.
Let us talk briefly now about what we have seen tonight. We saw how little the world believes in the certainty of good. We saw that this was so because people believe their lives are something separate and apart from God. We saw that God Himself is Life; and that man is included in that Life and that law, and that this is a scientific fact. We saw that by adopting the pattern of Life presented by Christ Jesus, we can bring our human sense of life into accord with the law of God. And we saw further that we are saved from suffering and disaster by this healing and protecting law of God. That is what we have seen this evening.