Harry E. Browne, C.S., of Boston, Massachusetts
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:
Of the many blessings which a free people enjoys, one of the greatest is the freedom to worship God as they see fit, and the right to convince and persuade others to do the same. And so when Mary Baker Eddy discovered Christian Science, the law of God which contradicts the material evidences of disease, sin, and death, she was free to share her discovery with all those who were willing to listen.
As with all discoveries which appear radical, there were those who, misinformed regarding it, or misunderstanding its teachings, ridiculed it. The same was true in Jesus' time. You may remember the occasion when a certain ruler came to Jesus saying, "My daughter is even now dead: but come and lay thy hand upon her, and she shall live" (Matt. 9:18). As Jesus entered the house he sought to reassure those gathered there by telling them that the maid was not dead, but sleeping. And the Bible records, "They laughed him to scorn" (Matt. 9:24). There may have been those who laughed when he said to the palsied man, "Thy sins be forgiven thee" (Matt. 9:2). But others stayed to witness these healings in awe. Instead of our ridiculing or being startled by the assertion of Christian Science that there is no sin, disease, or death, shouldn't we rather remain to learn more of the allness of God, the basis on which this statement is made, and witness the healings an acknowledgment of this Truth makes possible?
Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, was aware of the divergences in human thought, and once wrote (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 237): "this is a period of doubt, inquiry, speculation, selfishness; of divided interests, marvelous good, and mysterious evil. But sin can only work out its own destruction; and reform does and must push on the growth of mankind."
How often have we asked ourselves the questions: What am I? Where did I come from? What am I here for? What's to become of me? These questions will never be answered satisfactorily until we accept as our basis for thought the spiritual record of creation, or to use the Psalmist's words, "I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness" (Ps. 17:15). Yes, awaken from this earthly dream experience of unsatisfied longings and false desires to the conscious realization of the spiritual qualities which God gives to each one of us.
Like Job in the Bible, a perplexed and hungry world cries out in desperation, "Oh that I knew where I might find him!" (Job 23.3) One answer is in the Christian Science Hymnal (No. 114):
Holy Bible, book divine,
Precious treasure, thou art mine:
Mine to tell me whence I came;
Mine to tell me what I am;
Mine to chide me when I rove,
Mine to show a Saviour's love;
Mine thou art to
guide and guard;
Mine to give a rich reward;
Mine to comfort in distress,
With a Saviour's tenderness;
Mine to show, by living faith,
Man can triumph over death."
Friends, we can be guided to the
right answers by the Bible. But it must be spiritually interpreted to catch its
inspired meaning. The purpose of Christian Science is to give that meaning.
Bible authorities agree that there are often two meanings to Scriptural passages, a literal meaning and an inspired or figurative one. No one can understand more of the Bible than he is spiritually prepared to grasp. Jesus recognized the inability of material thought to interpret his sayings and said to his disciples, "Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables" (Mark 4:11). The Bible is a veritable treasure house of beautiful figures of speech and impressive metaphorical phrases which, when explained in the light of Christian Science, help the reader to grasp their true meaning. The following passage from Science and Health clarifies this correct approach to the study of the Bible (p. 547): "The Scriptures are very sacred. Our aim must be to have them understood spiritually, for only by this understanding can truth be gained. The true theory of the universe, including man, is not in material history but in spiritual development. Inspired thought relinquishes a material, sensual, and mortal theory of the universe, and adopts the spiritual and immortal. It is this spiritual perception of Scripture, which lifts humanity out of disease and death and inspires faith."
When Jesus was tempted to turn the stones into bread to satisfy his earthly hunger, the tempter was urging him to use his divine power, independently of God. But Jesus broke the mesmerism of the evil by asserting, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God" (Matt. 4:4). Every word which comes out of the mouth of God reveals His spiritual nature. The wholeness of God must eventually be revealed, or there would be no witness to God's allness. God's revelation of Himself, according to the teachings of Christian Science (Science and Health, p. 537), "is coordinate with the Science of creation."
Here is the grand point. We do not discover God, but God must reveal Himself to us, because all causation and the activity of all ideas must originate in God. Moses, Abraham, Elisha, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the other prophets heard and repeated the voice of God in warnings, laws, promises, commands, predictions, and prophecies that men might know of God's gifts of peace and plenty, health and immortality. According to the words of Solomon, "There hath not failed one word of all his good promise, which he promised by the hand of Moses his servant" (I Kings 8:56). And we know, through the teachings of Christian Science, that God's promises are kept in our time by the proofs of healing and reformation we have seen.
The Psalmist wrote, "He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions" (Ps. 107:20). Mrs. Eddy's instantaneous healing from what were considered the fatal effects of a fall on the ice in 1866 is known to most of us. What is not so generally known, however, is that her many years of suffering were caused by the misinterpretation of the Scriptures in her early training. (See Miscellaneous Writings, p. 169).
Mrs. Eddy apparently needed that trying experience to awaken her to a higher demonstration of life in God, that the world might know of Mind's supremacy over matter. For over twenty years she had been trying to trace all physical effects to a mental cause, but it was not until this healing that she fully realized that "all causation was Mind, and every effect a mental phenomenon" (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 24).
With this basic discovery she set to work to gain the scientific meaning of the Bible's teachings. As the ideas of God unfolded, ideas which were to rock the very foundations of material philosophy, science, and medicine, she wrote them down, and when her three years' search was ended, she had found the divine laws of Life, Truth and Love, and then she was led by God to name her discovery "Christian Science."
Realizing that statements of her discovery should be proved before they were given to the public in printed form, she spent the greater part of the next six years testing her theory of Mind's control over the body. She was most successful in this, showing, she said, "that Truth had lost none of its divine and healing efficacy" (Science and Health, p. 147). So nine years were consecrated to the sacred work of discovering and demonstrating for the sake of humanity the Science of Christianity.
All Science must be Christian, and Christianity must be scientific. Without Christianity or love, Science would be dead. And without Science or truth, Christianity would be chaotic, that is, without Principle or basis for reasoning. Christian Science is as truly the revealed Word of God as the inspired writings of the Old and New Testaments.
Referring to Christ Jesus' healing works, our Leader states, "He was inspired by God, by Truth and Love, in all that he said and did" (Science and Health, p. 51). And we may be as inspired as he, for Jesus told his followers, "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also" (John 14:12).
To "believe on" Jesus, would be to believe on the truth of God and the love of God which inspired him, for he definitely asserted, "The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works" (John 14:10). And if we accept our Leader's counsel and "follow" her "only so far as she follows Christ" (Message for 1901, p. 34), the teachings of these two witnesses will inspire us to do the works of healing they did.
The act of breathing includes two processes: inspiration and expiration. Spiritually speaking, inspiration means the breathing or taking in of God's ideas, and expiration, breathing or giving them out in daily living. This is the basis of true prayer. Since breathing seems a necessary function for the preservation of health, so understanding its spiritual significance will be helpful in treating lung troubles. Common colds are one of the most prevalent of human maladies. Their cause can usually be traced to the conscious and unconscious fear that climate, atmosphere, or disease germs can interfere with breathing.
Christian Science teaches that germs or microbes are thoughts, not things. It calls them "mental microbes of sin" and "diseased thought-germs" (Science and Health, p. 164). Thoughts of fear, dread, resentment, suspicion indulged in, not destroyed, seem to lower our natural powers of resistance to diseased thoughts and we become victims of whatever mortal belief thinks is prevalent or catching, whether it be colds, mumps, hay fever, influenza, or any other form of contagious disease. Keeping before us the fact of Science that there is nothing contagious but good, we shall expel and exclude unhealthy thoughts and fears.
The danger lies in our belief that the diseased symptoms are real and beyond God's help. For example: One evening a mother, fearful for her little boy, telephoned a Christian Science practitioner for help. She explained that the boy was suffering from a bad attack of asthma, making it difficult for him to breathe. Sensing the mother's fear of death, the practitioner asked her to leave the child in God's care, and told her that she could help the situation by thanking God for His past goodness to her and the boy. The mother promised to try, and hung up the phone.
The practitioner realized that the congestion interfering with the child's breathing was the physical effect of a mental cause; it was but the manifestation of the mother's fear and had nothing to do with God, who was the life of the child. Consequently there was no cause for alarm, since the effects of the fear were powerless to affect God or the child. The reason for this assurance is found in the words of the Apostle John, "Perfect love casteth out fear" (I John 4:18).
Mrs. Eddy says, "A mother's affection cannot be weaned from her child, because the mother-love includes purity and constancy, both of which are immortal" (Science and Health, p. 60). So the practitioner had to prayerfully grasp the full import of the fact that this mother had been endowed by God with "purity and constancy," which are qualities of true womanhood, As Paul wrote to Timothy, "God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind" (II Tim. 1:7). So this mother could know no other love but the one perfect remedy for fear.
Presently the mother telephoned to say that the child had stopped his violent coughing and was asleep, breathing normally. She said further that, shortly after her call for help, she was impelled to sing Mrs. Eddy's hymn, "O gentle presence" (Hymnal, No. 207), from which so many mothers have received inspiration. When she came to the words,
"O make me glad for every scalding tear,
For hope deferred, ingratitude, disdain!"
a great light seemed to come to her. She continued to sing softly to herself, and when she next turned to the child he was fast asleep.
Her more perfect expression of love had expelled the clogging, mental condition caused by fear, false responsibility, human sympathy, and with the atmosphere of evil beliefs cleared away from her thought there was room for the natural expression of all that constitutes the "atmosphere of Love divine" where we truly "live, and move, and breathe" (Hymnal, No. 144), and her child was healed.
Probably the least understood of God's gifts is eternal life or immortality. The evidence of death is so compelling that the world accepts it as inevitable. We feel instinctively and hopefully that God is our Life, though we may not understand it. In Christian Science we learn that our Life which is God is entirely separate from this mortal existence which seems to begin with birth and end with death.
A material sense of life involves so much that is disappointing and disastrous that many pray to be taken out of it, while others, satisfied completely with worldly pleasures in spite of accompanying pains, fear what is to come when the material sense of life vanishes. Let me earnestly urge any of you that may be tempted by the unwholesome fear of death or morbid desire to die, to resist them with all your mental might and confidence in God.
Life, your life, is hid with God, where it can never be reached by any mortal thought calling itself disease or sin, the supposed causes of death. Because God is immortal, you are immortal. Evil thoughts opposing the immortality of God are called mortal beliefs. Mors, from which the word "mortal" is derived, is a Latin word meaning death.
Now we gain the sense of immortality only as we lose the sense of mortality, and this sense is lost by scientifically knowing its nothingness, its illusory nature. Man does not have two lives, one to continue and the other to cease. Here are two of many helpful statements of truth regarding life and immortality, found in Science and Health (p. 246): "Life is eternal. We should find this out, and begin the demonstration thereof. Life and goodness are immortal. Let us then shape our views of existence into loveliness, freshness, and continuity, rather than into age and blight."
Don't become fearful or doleful as to what the future holds for you. It will help a lot, too, if you stop believing that you are growing old. Don't keep looking for wrinkles or graying hair, or no hair; after all, what has age to do with Life which is ageless and deathless? We are developing character, not aging in matter. Moses caught this idea when he saw the bush that burned without being consumed. He glimpsed the deathless life that has no element of discord or decay.
Christian Science will reveal new and refreshing views of Life that you have never dreamed of. Open your thought and receive the ideas of God's boundless, endless, and continuing creation, for these spiritual ideas will form you anew. Who says that man shall die? Since God created all, it is only evil beliefs that die. Evil, sin, sickness, and death are the supposed opposites of God or good. They can never know God nor would they ever want to. God knows only good, and we express that knowing, the knowing of good. This moment we are knowing Life and immortality. And we can know that we know it.
Evil does not know; it only supposes. Now, are we going to identify ourselves with a supposer? Shall we choose mortality which supposes that we sin, suffer, and die, or shall we choose immortality and begin to live? The choice is ours; it can be made now, at this moment.
To truly live one must love. Not to express Love is not to live but to die. Selfishness, indifference, resentment, unjust criticism, self-will, hide man's natural tendency to love. Overcoming these unlovely traits of character by expressing unselfishness, thoughtfulness, forgiveness, and meekness, we bring to light the loveliness of our being.
Mrs. Eddy revealed to her students the necessity for living the Word and the wisdom of not forcing the letter of Christian Science upon those not prepared for its teachings. But nowhere in her writings does she ever ask her students or patients to stop being Christlike in their behavior towards their fellows. Because a neighbor or a friend, discouraged or suffering from some ailment, is not a Christian Scientist, is no reason for not giving him a helpful word of Christian encouragement. Instead of avoiding such a one, say something like this to him: "Jim, you've pulled through these dark times before, and there's no reason why you can't do it again." He will love you for your compassion and consideration. Suppose Mrs. Jones, your neighbor, has lost a dear one. Is there anything in Jesus' teachings or Christian Science to hinder you from knocking at her door, even though she is not a church member, and saying you've heard the sad news, and asking her to call upon you if there is anything you can do, assuring her that God will sustain her during her sorrow?
When Christ Jesus gave his parable of the good Samaritan he plainly pointed out the duty of every one of us toward those of differing faiths. We should go where the suffering one is and not, like the priest and the Levite, pass him by with the thought, "Oh, if he would only ask about Christian Science, how I'd love to help him!" Help him with the letter of Christian Science? No! It's the spirit, the right motive, behind your kindly intentioned words that God recognizes and blesses with healing. Let the world see by our good deeds that Christian Scientists are not unmindful of human frailties and problems, and our compassionate action and tender advice and encouragement will find a loving response in their consciousness. Then leave them in God's care.
Christian Scientists, having
enjoyed for so long the blessings which The Mother Church provides, sometimes
forget to let their non-Science friends know what they are missing. One of the
institutional activities of The Mother Church in Boston is The Christian
Science Publishing Society, which helps to make practical the definition of
"Church" found in the textbook. For the information of our guests let
me read it (p. 583):
"church. The structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle.
"The Church is that institution, which affords proof of its utility and is found elevating the race, rousing the dormant understanding from material beliefs to the apprehension of spiritual ideas and the demonstration of divine Science, thereby casting out devils, or error, and healing the sick."
Proof of the usefulness of The Mother Church is being shown in the literature provided, not only for members of branch churches and societies of The Mother Church, but also for countless other readers of its many publications, which includes the Journal, Heralds, Sentinel, and The Christian Science Monitor.
The Christian Science Quarterly (Bible Lessons) is another of our publications, about which I wish to speak in some detail. It is issued four times yearly, as its name implies, and it gives the student of Christian Science, whether beginner or seasoned worker, real assistance in gaining a fuller understanding of God.
Twenty-six different Lesson subjects are studied twice yearly with an extra Lesson for Thanksgiving Day. Each Lesson consists of a Golden Text and a short Scriptural selection from the Bible, pertaining to the subject, followed by six sections or groups of references selected from the Bible and from Science and Health. According to the "Explanatory Note," the selections from Science and Health are correlative to those selected from the Bible, and are intended to explain the Bible texts like a regular sermon. These citations which comprise the Sermon are read to the congregation by the First and Second Readers at the Sunday services, and are studied by the members and others, during the preceding week. Each Lesson is newly compiled and forwards the spiritual growth of those who study it.
Our first Lesson-Sermon is on God, and naturally our understanding of Him will be immeasurably broadened by a study of that Lesson. Sacrament is spiritually explained, and the Lord's Supper and his crucifixion are seen in their true significance.
There are six Lessons in the next group, which have as their subjects six synonyms of God. These synonyms are Life, Truth, Love, Mind, Soul, and Spirit. According to Mrs. Eddy, they are "the same in essence, though multiform in office" (Science and Health, p. 331). Consequently, that which makes one Lesson distinctive from another is its office. Life is understood to be eternal and deathless. The office of Truth is to express the law which communicates God's healing message to humanity. (See Science and Health, 482:27-29). Love is the fulfilling of that law, destroying all fear and supplying all needs. "Spirit is symbolized by strength, presence, and power, and also by holy thoughts winged with Love" (Science and Health, p. 512). Soul is revealed as divine consciousness — never in the body. Soul includes the spiritual senses and is the healer of the so-called material senses. Since Mind is God, there can be but one Mind. "The primal and eternal quality of infinite Mind" is intelligence or understanding (Science and Health, p. 469).
The next two Lessons are on Christ Jesus and Man. The study of these Lessons enables one to mark the distinction between Christ Jesus and generic man. Jesus is explained as the son of Mary, who more nearly expressed the Christ or Son of God than any other human being. "Man is the family name for all ideas, — the sons and daughters of God" (Science and Health, p. 515).
Certain contrasting pairs of terms are the Lessons next considered. Substance is found to be spiritual, consequently never liable to loss or depletion. Matter is exposed as an illusion of sense, formed by a delusion of belief. Reality is found to be only in that which expresses God. Unreality is the term applied to all that would oppose God. Sin, disease, and death are next proved unreal. The doctrine of atonement unfolds man's at-one-ment with God. What happens after the mortal experience called death is explained in the Lesson "Probation after Death." Everlasting punishment is denied, for punishment ceases with the ceasing of sin. The allegory of Adam and fallen man is shown to be a myth. Mortals are found to be the counterfeits of immortals, who express the eternal nature of God. Soul and body are explained as opposites. Soul being God, while material body is the fleshly sense of self to be laid aside for the spiritual. Ancient and modern necromancy, alias mesmerism and hypnotism, are denounced as subtle, unseen influences of evil embracing false theology, astrology, spiritualism, hypnotism, and other human philosophies.
The Lesson "God the Only Cause and Creator" explains clearly that Principle, including all law, causes and creates nothing unlike itself. God is also revealed as the preserver of man. The universe, including man, is seen to be evolved by Mind and not by atomic force. And then follows the final Lesson, "Christian Science," which usually includes some Scriptural prophecy of Christian Science and a brief history of Mrs. Eddy's discovery of this Science and the steps leading thereto.
This God-inspired method for learning the spiritual, scientific meanings of Bible texts was introduced by our Leader and constitutes, she says, "a sermon undivorced from truth, uncontaminated and unfettered by human hypotheses, and divinely authorized" (Quarterly, Explanatory Note). The Lesson-Sermons were instituted by Mary Baker Eddy and serve as an impersonal Pastor to give the Word of God to unprejudiced minds throughout the whole world.
The benefits of early Christian Science teaching in the home and in the Sunday school are evident today in the experiences of many of our service men and women. They have been able to prove for themselves and others that "the word of God is quick, and powerful" to heal and save under any circumstances.
And could there be a nobler life-work for us than the saving of our boys and girls from disease, sin, and death?
No normal parent thinks of denying his child food, clothing, or shelter. And yet millions of fathers and mothers are failing to provide for their children what is most important, a practical understanding of God.
These are indeed trying times for the youngsters. If they knew how to be better they would be better. It is our moral duty to teach and train them. Mrs. Eddy saw the children as "the bulwarks of freedom, the cement of society, the hope of our race!" (Pulpit and Press, p. 9.) She also recognized the need for right preparation and guidance of the child thought, and she states on page 236 of the textbook: "Children should obey their parents; insubordination is an evil, blighting the buddings of self-government. Parents should teach their children at the earliest possible period the truths of health and holiness."
Note that the author says, "Parents should teach their children," and that does not mean just one parent. The responsibility for the children does not rest primarily upon the public school, the playground, or the Sunday school. There is no substitute for religious instruction in the home and loving, just parental control. Some parents shift this responsibility by saying, "I believe in allowing my children every opportunity for self-expression." Self-expression is apt to foster a false sense of liberty. The centuries have proved that no child is capable of knowing what is best for himself. Constant watchfulness on the part of the parents is necessary gently but firmly to correct any evil tendencies towards self-will, disobedience, overindulgence, and dishonesty. And we can best teach the children by our example of self-control, discipline, fair play, justice, and compassion.
If you or your friends are worried about this problem look into Christian Science and you will find the Principle, and rules for living which, if followed honestly and regularly, will enable you to work intelligently with the young folks and help them to overcome their difficulties.
Christian Science understood, even in a small degree, will help elevate and form their character, unfold their spiritual nature, and bring out hidden talent. We can also help them discover the spiritual qualities of intelligence, health, and goodness, which they reflect from their Father-Mother God. When we stop trying to lift up the child, and lift up our thought of him, wonderful things will come to pass. In fact, we shall bring out in the child our own beautiful concept, as Mary did with Jesus.
No greater crime against youth can be committed than the neglect of moral and spiritual teaching and training. It takes years to develop such qualities as moral courage and integrity and to educate a nation in world brotherhood.
The best-loved men and women in
history have sacrificed much for the preservation of the Word of God. Each
generation has been called upon to carry the torch of the gospel of Christ, and
the work which you and I do today for our boys and girls will help greatly to
insure to them and their children Christ's blessings of "on earth peace,
good will toward men."
When Christ Jesus quieted the violent storm on the Sea of Galilee he proved the powerlessness of the so-called forces of nature.
Let me refresh your thoughts with the details found in the Gospel of Matthew (8:23-27): "And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him. And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep." (And, according to the Gospel of Mark, he was asleep in the hind part of the vessel.) "And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish. And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm. But the men marvelled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!"
This story of Jesus quieting the tempest carries a powerful lesson for us today, for we, too, are sailing the sea of life, looking for the promised harbor of world peace and plenty. Like the disciples, we have a precious Saviour with us, the Christ. The pleasantness of material existence with its fancied joys and triumphs may have dulled our concern about the realities of spiritual life and our duty to God and to our fellowman.
If so, suddenly, without warning, clouds appear in the sky; they grow dark and menacing. The sea becomes choppy, and the fancied calm of our material joys and the destructive mesmerism of the world's impure thinking and dishonest living resolve themselves into threatening winds and angry seas. As these increase in intensity, we, the professed disciples of Christ, become panicky. Our ship or consciousness tosses and flounders in the trough of the sea of mortal mind, for we have seemingly lost our rudder, the guiding hand of Christ.
Our faith in Christ, Truth, is asleep in the hind part of the vessel, a remote part of our consciousness. Yes, almost forgotten is the spiritual idea of God or Christ in our material-mindedness, fear, and confusion. And as a last resort, in helpless desperation, we remember him and we rouse our faith in his goodness and cry, "Lord, save us: we perish." Our cry is never unheard, for one needs only to reach out to Christ, Truth, to find God's outstretched arm waiting to save. Though we have rejected the Word of God and turned away from good to evil, God will not let us forget that He is Love, impartial and universal in His bestowals.
Love reaches out its helping hand of compassion and forgiveness, tenderly entreating us to return to our faith in God's Word, the Science of our being, and find salvation from every ill, and safe guidance into the quiet harbor of Christian Science.
One day while Jesus was talking with his disciples about "wars and rumours of wars," he prophetically, declared, "Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away" (Luke 21:33). And here we are, nearly two thousand years later, talking about him and finding safety in what he said and did. His words live because they came from God. God's Word cannot be debated or argued. It must be accepted or left alone. Whatever God says, must endure, for His words are endowed with the life-giving qualities of wisdom, love, power, and immortality.
And Mrs. Eddy acknowledged humbly, "No human pen nor tongue taught me the Science contained in this book, Science and Health; and neither tongue nor pen can overthrow it. This book may be distorted by shallow criticism or by careless or malicious students, and its ideas may be temporarily abused and misrepresented; but the Science and truth therein will forever remain to be discerned and demonstrated" (Science and Health, p. 110).
Then why not gratefully accept these two gifts of God, the Bible and Science and Health, satisfied in our minds that their holy origin and purpose to show us the "river of life," is "our sufficient guide to eternal Life" (Science and Health, p. 497)? And though from time to time designing men set themselves up as humanity's saviors and attempt by force to regiment the thinking of the world to their human ologies and isms, we may rest, assured they cannot succeed. As our discerning Leader expressed it; "From lack of moral strength empires fall. Right alone is irresistible, permanent, eternal. Remember that human pride forfeits spiritual power, and either vacillating good or self-assertive error dies of its own elements" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 268).
These clear statements show the utter impossibility of any man or nations of men permanently opposing and destroying the basic truths of the fatherhood and motherhood of God and the brotherhood and sisterhood of man. "Let us," in the inspiring words of Mrs. Eddy, "feel the divine energy of Spirit, bringing us into newness of life and recognizing no mortal nor material power as able to destroy. Let us rejoice that we are subject to the divine 'powers that be.' Such is the true Science of being" (Science and Health, p. 249).
[Published in The Milwaukee County (Wisconsin) News, Aug. 19, 1954.]