Gordon F. Campbell, C.S.B., of Santa Monica,
California
Member of the Board of Lectureship of The Mother
Church,
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts
To think of Christianity as a Science is still a revolutionary concept, said a lecturer recently.
Mankind has yet to fully realize that "law" and "Principle" are basically religious words, according to Gordon H. Campbell, C.S.B., a Christian Science teacher and practitioner who spoke to a public audience here.
"We need to explore the nature of God as divine Principle," he said, indicating this as the key to a deeper trust in God and to the supremacy of good over evil.
Mr. Campbell is from Santa Monica, Calif., and is currently on tour as a member of the Christian Science Board of Lectureship. His lecture was titled, "What Do You Trust?"
"Inevitably," he observed, "we all trust in something besides ourselves."
We can hardly make a move in today’s complex world without putting some degree of trust in the work of other people — regardless of their social status, race or political views, he said.
"It's really not material objects, or even people, that we trust. It's intelligence . . . We simply trust that they express intelligence and integrity," the speaker added.
The persistence of such trust points to a "divine law" of intelligence that operates, universally, stated the lecturer. "This law is an instrument of God, the governing divine Principle of all things."
The better we understand this divine law, he said, the more our lives will be governed by it — and the more we’ll be able to trust it.
"Above all else, we must understand God to be the divine Principle of the universe, of all that truly exists . . . the one infinite divine Mind, in which originates and abides all that’s intelligent."
It's not the same as what we associate with a material brain, Mr. Campbell continued. "True intelligence is spiritual. It includes the highest qualities of wisdom, goodness, love. These are the natural attributes of God — Who is not only the infinite Spirit, the creative Principle of all law and the creator of man, but Who is also divine Love.
"We come to know God in this way as we begin to grasp the scope and depth of His nature."
"Furthermore," he said, "we begin to see that God's nature must be expressed — and man is this expression. This is the whole purpose and function of man, in his actual spiritual state as God’s image and likeness."
He related a few cases in which physical healings had resulted from prayer — including one of a young boy with asthma.
The lecturer stated that the "boy was completely and permanently healed during a severe attack one night when his parents mentally rebelled against the condition as some law over their child, and prayed earnestly to understand better the power of spiritual law. They began to see more clearly the child's real being as God’s image and likeness, and soon their fear vanished. They felt a profound and understanding trust in God. They put the child back to bed, he dropped off to sleep normally and the condition never recurred again."
In explanation of how such experiences take place, he quoted from the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,’’ by Mary Baker Eddy: "To divest thought of false trusts and material evidences in order that the spiritual facts of being may appear, — this is the great attainment by means of which we shall sweep away the false and give place to the true."
Mr. Campbell noted that the discovery of Christian Science came to Mrs. Eddy a century ago.
"Almost every material support failed Mrs. Eddy. This made her even more ready to give up faith in false laws and to trust God completely. At a time of great physical need, she turned to God and was healed. In this moment of spiritual illumination she caught her first real glimpse of the spiritual nature of existence. It was a moment of utter trust in spiritual law," he explained.
[1972.]