Dr. Hendrik Jan de Lange, C.S., of The Hague, Holland
Member
of the Board of Lectureship of The Mother Church,
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts
Dr. Hendrik Jan de Lange, C.S., of The Hague, Holland, a member of The Christian Science Board of Lectureship delivered a lecture entitled "Christian Science: The Science of Divine Dominion," last evening, under the auspices of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, in the church edifice, Falmouth, Norway and St. Paul Streets.
The lecturer was introduced by Mrs. Elisabeth F. Norwood, C.S.B., Second Reader in The Mother Church, who said:
Friends:
Many of you have come here this evening out of gratitude for having been healed in Christian Science.
Perhaps some have come seeking healing or in quest of the perfect God, whose creation is good, and whose control is divine. Both the perfect God and true spiritual healing as demonstrated by our Master are to be found in Christian Science.
In "Miscellaneous Writings," Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science, asks this question: "Brother, sister, beloved in the Lord, knowest thou thyself, and art thou acquainted with God?" Then she adds, "If not, I pray thee as a Christian Scientist, delay not to make Him thy first acquaintance" (p. 151).
When one finds, as he does in Christian Science, a God who heals mankind, a God so good that an understanding of Him destroys all fear, one realizes that to know God better is his most important work.
The lecturer this evening will acquaint us with the perfect God of Christian Science and the healing Christ.
I have the privilege of
introducing to you a member of the Board of Lectureship of The Mother Church, Dr. Hendrik Jan de Lange, of The
Hague, Holland.
The lecturer spoke substantially as follows:
The problem of achieving power and dominion confronts every phase of human existence now as it has done in the past. It convulses the world of today. The necessity for a conclusive solution to this problem is beyond cavil, a solution that will not only satisfy the present need, but also be able to meet future requirements. Christian Science claims to be divinely authorized to give the solution.
This Science is understood in the measure that the individual comprehends the omnipotence, ever-presence, and omniscience of a perfect God, or First Cause, and man in His image and likeness, possessing no other qualities and power than those derived from Deity.
The purpose of this lecture is to present some aspects of Christian Science, and thereby to show each and all of you how, step by step, dominion derived from Deity, may be practically exercised, right here and now.
Christian Science was discovered by one whose clear spiritual insight was original enough and pure enough to seek and find the way for lifting human thought out of the finite and material into the realm of infinite and spiritual reality. The Discoverer found this spiritual understanding a present possibility. What is more, her great discovery was given to the world as a Science. This implies that every one of us may practice it, here and now, in present human experience. To educate human thought and to find the true source of power in God, the divine Mind, was the inspired purpose of this loving and noble New England woman, Mary Baker Eddy.
The revelation received by Mary Baker Eddy is embodied in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." Her life-work included also the founding of the Christian Science movement upon such a spiritual basis that it could not be disintegrated by any form of malicious aggression.
She gained the scientific certainty that all causation is vested in God, divine Mind, and that all effect is therefore Mind's mental phenomenon. Searching the Scriptures she found the Science of Mind that should take the things of God and show them to the creature, thus revealing the great curative Principle, Love. In this prayerful search the Bible was her only textbook. The spiritual meaning of the Scriptures appeared to her. Thus it became clear that the mighty works of the prophets and of Christ Jesus had been accomplished in accordance with divine Principle by applying the rules of spiritual science and metaphysical healing.
While theoretically most religious systems concur in ascribing omnipotence — all power and dominion — to God, Christian Science alone adheres to the conclusion inevitably deduced from this fundamental truth. Christian Science presents it to every one of us, man, woman, child, as a workable basis for our everyday lives and problems.
This Science of Christianity starts out from the truism that since God is the only Cause, all true creation, including our perfect selfhood, exists from the standpoint of effect. Our identity, our ability to think, to exercise power and discernment, are not self-created, but spiritually derived. It recognizes that we and our world owe our true existence to this First or primal Cause which, in the words of the Christian Science textbook (p. 587), is understood to be "god. The great I am; the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting, all-wise, all-loving, and eternal, Principle; Mind; Soul; Spirit; Life; Truth; Love; all substance; intelligence."
What we behold as mortals and a material world is strangely contrasted with the omnipotent majesty, infinity, and eternality of Deity. On every side we experience failure and impotence, sin and sickness, death and destruction, although we are endowed with that inalienable capacity to conceive of a flawless First Cause.
How do we account for the fact of a perfect, all-powerful, ever-present God and of a world so conspicuous by a distressing lack of power and perfection? This question comes to most of us at some stage of our existence. Let us not be perplexed by it, or discouraged. It is just as futile as the question how to account for the lie two plus two equals five. The question which really is pertinent and all-important is how to get rid of that falsity, in mathematics as well as in daily life; how to be freed from the world's imperfections and limitations, and how to acquire divine characteristics. Supreme wisdom and dominion, satisfaction, rest, peace, joy, happiness, spontaneity, must be naturally attributes of the primal Cause which we adoringly and reverentially call God. Why are they not more ours? Why do we not more consciously recognize these spiritual qualities as our true selfhood? The answer lies with the individual realization of the truth.
In mathematics, the understanding of the truth that two plus two equals four takes away all temporary influence and confusion of the lie two plus two equals five. Christian Science assures us that, in the same manner, the right understanding of God will take away all temporary influence and confusion of everything unlike the perfect Principle.
Christian Science, as has been stated, reveals and adheres to this inevitable conclusion from the fact that God is omnipotent. Christian Science declares that because God, Spirit, has all power, material phenomena being the opposite of Spirit, have no real power. It declares that because God is omniscient, all-knowing, there is no real knowledge or other mentality than that forthcoming from infinite and perfect Deity. It declares that because God is Love, there is no real Love outside the One "altogether lovely." It declares that because God is Life, there is no real Life outside the everlasting Father.
Here someone may remark, "This is all very well, and I am willing to accept it, because it sounds clear and logical, but how does it concern me with all my problems and difficulties?" In every respect, my friend, because upon the right understanding of God depend the health and happiness of all mankind, and therefore, incidentally, of yourself. Christian Science teaches how to use that understanding, increase it, complete it, live it, and thus gradually get rid of our unsatisfactory and helpless conditions. It points to the inspired word of Genesis 1:27,28: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."
Christian Science informs us that we will find our true selfhood as God's image and likeness with all its ensuing dominion, abundance, bliss, in the measure that we understand our divine birthright, and correct the mortal evidence of a finite, imperfect man and universe. Where are the sons and daughters of God whom Christian Science declares to be both Father and Mother, if they are not right here where we are conscious; where we are beginning to entertain a correct and Godlike view of ourselves and others; right here in this audience and in the world at large where we are awakening through Christian Science to the present possibility of this divine dominion? My friends, what are we going to do with this divinely inspired Biblical record, if not to use it, to live it in our daily lives, actually to realize it in our right thinking?
In order for our thinking to "be fruitful," as the Scriptures admonish, we must think the thoughts which are Godlike. These thoughts are divine ideas, wholly good, without an element of discord or destruction; thoughts which are fruitful and fraught with dominion and power. In order to consciously "multiply, and replenish the earth," we must entertain thoughts which are showing forth the presence and renewing impetus of divine Principle, God. In the powerful presence of such realization, false, finite concepts and beliefs gradually lose their temporary influence and authority until ultimately divine dominion over the whole earth will be demonstrated.
This kind of thinking is the very image of God; it is so like God that it is God manifested. Such a state of consciousness is heaven on earth. And this state must be understood not as one of procrastination but as one of realization. It is a condition of thought to be experienced here and now where we are beginning to know ourselves as we are known by our omnipotent Father-Mother God.
Then, whatever mistaken sense of
being mortal belief may try to outline, nothing can prevent us from declaring
the truth that the man of God's creating is expressing his spiritual
substantiality, regardless of the finite forms which a material concept
depicts.
On every hand we are beholding and hearing of great and new achievements in the world. They are displayed in the air, on the land, on the seas. We cannot scan a newspaper or magazine without reading of some notable feat or remarkable invention contributing to the overcoming of time and space. Humanity is constantly urged to widen its outlook and free itself from limiting, cramping concepts.
It need not be wondered at that the amount of discoveries and inventions has been ever on the increase since, some 60 years ago, there was made the greatest and most fundamental discovery of all, the discovery of Christian Science. This Science of sciences is encouraging mankind to think evermore beyond and above its present limitations. A liberating thought has always to precede the appearance of any discovery or invention. The vision of the Wright brothers, the genius of Marconi had to free these men from the limitations of material concepts and conventional thinking in order to enable the airplane to climb the clouds and the radio waves to encircle the globe. In the light of Christian Science, inventions and discoveries are not the appearing of something new, but the evidence of the gradual disappearing in the human consciousness of its own beliefs in material limitations.
Although our present state of consciousness is to a great extent still hampered by the customary material ways of thinking, a remarkable liberation is going on in many a field of knowledge. In the field of physics, in the past the very stronghold of materiality, a conspicuous change is coming about since Albert Einstein propounded his theory of relativity. One of my friends, a professor of physics in Holland's foremost university, lately formulated the new aim of physics. While it had formerly been the purpose of physicists to find the nature of matter, the modern tendency, he stated, was to dematerialize matter. He also declared that the smallest elements of which matter consists are rather events or occurrences than material things.
At some time, sooner or later, this friend and every other
physicist will come to the inevitable conclusion that for the dematerialization
of matter one cannot look into matter, but must go above and beyond matter into
the realm of metaphysics, into the realm of spiritual ideas — the solution of a
problem being never in the problem itself. Then they will understand what the
Discoverer of Christian Science, by her pure and original spiritual-mindedness,
understood more than half a century before when she wrote that "matter disappears
under the microscope of Spirit" (Science and Health, p. 264).
The solution of a problem is never in the problem itself. This is particularly true of the problem which every day confronts every one of us; the problem of how to consider and how to treat that which we call our bodies. No one will contend that they are not problems, these bodies of ours! The great majority of people in our world have to work and toil six days a week with those very bodies in order to be able to feed and clothe them properly. While many suffer because they cannot feed them sufficiently, others have no end of difficulties by giving them too much food! This is but one phase of the problem. There are many more! We are able to make the most lovely trips to remote and interesting countries in thought without any delay, expense, or trouble, but what is it again that often hampers the ease and possibility of the actual journey? Our bodies! Why? Because we assume that we are in that which we call our bodies. Ought not the infinite possibilities of thought awaken us to the conclusion that this is impossible? How could an infinite thought be contained in a material, finite body? There is one other reason, at least, which is equally final: we include our bodies in thought, and not the other way around. We are not really inside that which we call our bodies; inside the water, salts, and other chemicals, of which physiology says the human body consists.
It is of primal importance to overcome this body-limitation and affliction, and to reach ultimately the same freedom for our bodies which we now already enjoy for our thoughts. Christian Science teaches it. On page 475 of the Christian Science textbook we find: "Man is not matter; he is not made up of brain, blood, bones, and other material elements. . . . Man is idea, the image, of Love; he is not physique. He is the compound idea of God, including all right ideas." Thus it is seen that the human body neither constitutes nor contains man's life, because God is the Life of man, which man has by reflection. This Life cannot be inside of a human body. When, even partly, we shall be freed from the fear that our life and happiness are in those human bodies, the moment will have arrived when we shall claim much more mastery over them and the exacting beliefs associated with them. We shall, then, come nearer to exercising our God-given power.
How are we going to improve our bodies? In the first place, by understanding that the belief of living in a material body is contrary to the Scriptural assurance that in God "we live, and move, and have our being." Understanding that we are having our being in God means a much better concept of body. In order to improve the human, material concept, we must reflect something which has the power to improve it. And this great something is God, Mind, perfect and infinite intelligence. The Christian Science textbook declares on page 208: "You embrace your body in your thought, and you should delineate upon it thoughts of health, not of sickness." To see and admit this fact is to gain a step forward in our rightful inheritance of dominion.
A fact is true whether you admit it or not. The fact that two plus two equals four stands the same regardless of pros and cons. The admission of a fact, however, helps us along the line of liberation and enlightenment. To even begin to think of a situation in the right way leads to ultimate improvement of that situation and mastery over its imperfect phases. The fact that we can comprehend the body in thought leads to the conclusion that we can exercise some control over it. Then, to set thought right in the first place is followed by the body conforming to the thought. The conclusion, therefore, is that in Christian Science we must exchange a finite, imperfect, material concept of body for the right concept, or idea, of body in order to obtain healing and improvement. The understanding of the truth of being disposes of the false beliefs which have been heaped upon humanity by its thoughtless acceptance of a perverted record of creation, of a man made of dust and a woman made of a rib.
Christian Science has made the final distinction between divine ideas and material or mortal concepts. In defining "idea" in the Christian Science textbook (p. 115) Mrs. Eddy cites Webster's definition as "an image in Mind; the immediate object of understanding." Then, an idea, being an image in Mind, exists in Mind, and remains there forever. In fact, it is through its idea that Mind is understood.
Material, mortal concepts are a part of that which claims to be the opposite of God, named by the Discoverer of Christian Science mortal mind. She declares this so-called mind to be a solecism, "Nothing claiming to be something" (Science and Health, p. 591), "a product of nothing as the mimicry of something" (ibid., p. 580).
Entertaining mortal concepts, that is, thinking in the ordinary ways of the world, accomplishes very little of a constructive character and lots of harm. On the other hand, entertaining in thought divine ideas opens the way for perfect and lasting achievements. Why? Because the presence of a divine idea is actually Immanuel, or "God with us." Think how wonderful it is that man in his real being is "God's spiritual idea, individual, perfect, eternal" (Science and Health, p. 115)! Can we go on believing man to be something of which a wholly perfect creator never could conceive? To accept a material concept as an heir of God is renouncing the true image and likeness. The image and likeness of God, Spirit, is wholly spiritual: the pure and perfect male and female idea. This idea is now existing in full possession of all its God-bestowed faculties, qualities, abilities. Let us live and love to be what we really are in the light of divine Truth! Then in the measure that we understand God and His creation, we are embodying the divine selfhood by reflection. In this measure we are our true selves, indeed, with all the bliss, bounty, dominion, and fullness God's presence implies.
The embodying of right ideas necessarily accomplishes something else as well. Wherever these ideas are being realized, the law of God, the law of Love, the law of divine dominion, comes spontaneously into operation to eliminate, destroy, annihilate mortal concepts. At the same time this divine law acts as a law of adjustment in human affairs. That is the logical and natural outcome of the divine fact that God is All-in-all, and that inevitably God must express Himself infinitely, eternally, omnipresently. The law of God, evidencing God's omnipotent, ever-present, everlasting dominion, does away with all the influences and suggestions which, according to mortal views parade in the vestment of laws, but virtually are false beliefs, since they lack the permanency, perfection, and loving power of the only real law, the law of God.
This explanation invalidates the assertion that Christian Science teaches human will-power and suggestion, and that the sick are healed by means of these spurious mortal agencies. The realization of God's omnipresence, omnipotence, omniactivity, and omniscience has nothing material or finite. Its influence is purely spiritual. It is revelation, not thought transference; it is the revelation of God's divine idea, man and the universe, which is inevitably as infinite as the originator, God. One cannot transfer that which is infinite! If we wished to do so we could not, because it is already there where our mistaken sense would have it transmitted!
Thus the dominion revealed by Christian Science realization or treatment does not in any manner stand for a personal domination or oppression; neither does it mean the pursuing of unworthy ambitions. It cannot be confused with the mere exercise of the human will; nor may it be associated with hypnotism or mesmerism.
The Christian Scientist declares with fullest conviction in the words of the Lord's Prayer, "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." He understands that this is a divine fact, a divine idea which, by the almighty power of its very nature and presence, asserts itself and disposes of any material, personal influence. By such realization he exercises God's primary dominion in any specific case with resistless power and unlimited scope.
God's dominion and power have always been the main and real object of searching humanity. That, partly, explains why the Bible has exercised such preponderant influence upon mankind. Instinctively humanity has felt that a more accurate and intimate understanding of God must be a source of strength and a protection against evil.
Hence the importance of understanding the Bible aright. The Bible is in many respects a God-inspired record. Therefore it needs inspiration to be understood. The understanding of Christian Science gives this spiritual inspiration. Hereby the beauty and consistency of the Holy Scriptures are enhanced. For the one endowed with this discriminative understanding, they become more than ever inspiring, instructive literature pregnant with practical value for his daily life.
From Genesis to Revelation we read of the dominion of Deity. All through the Scriptures runs the golden thread of the supremacy of divine enlightenment. In the Old Testament we find recorded the great triumphs of spiritually-minded, monotheistic Israel over materially-minded Egypt and its paganistic Pharaohs. The same power was evidenced by the walls of Jericho, in the fiery furnace, and in the lions' den.
Less widely known than these instances is an account in the tenth chapter of the book of Daniel. It offers a fine example of the inspiration and power of spiritual-mindedness whereby we also may be benefited. Here it is related that Daniel was desirous of having a more spiritual understanding. To this end, he abstained from gratifying the material senses, or, as the Bible puts it, he "was mourning." As a result of the longing for understanding his oneness with God, and of his denial of materiality, he found himself "by the side of the great river, which is Hiddekel." What does this mean? The Christian Science textbook gives the explanation in its Glossary, furnishing the spiritual interpretation of some Bible terms. Hiddekel stands for "Divine Science understood and acknowledged" (p. 588). Daniel, evidently, had come to this mental state. Thus spiritually enlightened, he received a higher concept of what man really is, more glowing and glorious in beauty and light. The fifth and sixth verses poetically describe it. This vision of man was, for spiritually-minded Daniel, natural and full of meaning. For those around him who had not yet reached this spiritual consciousness, it was fearful and troublesome. In the words of the Bible, "And I Daniel alone saw the vision: for the men that were with me saw not the vision; but a great quaking fell upon them, so that they fled to hide themselves." The remainder of the chapter tells of Daniel's struggle in order to become so firmly established in spiritual understanding that he would be protected against evil suggestions and forces. It tells how the voice of God came to him during this struggle, and declared, "Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words." It finally shows that this spiritual understanding of God, and not the personal Daniel, was the power that would overcome evil and material influences.
This spiritual understanding is the Christ, which according to the explanation in Science and Health, "comes to the flesh to destroy incarnate error" (p. 583). Gleams of the Christ-understanding all down through the ages have come to those realizing the divine power and sincerely seeking a higher selfhood.
While we learn in the Old Testament of the power of the prophets and other spiritually-minded persons, the New Testament has Jesus of Nazareth as its central figure, endowed with unprecedented authority. According to human standards, he possessed no riches, no high office in state or church, no influential friends. Yet he was mightier than Solomon or Caesar, and his influence is still on the increase. He healed those who were pronounced incurable by current medical thought, he fed the multitudes, he raised the dead, and was master over every situation which confronted him. Finally, he himself exercised in the resurrection such victory over the sting of death as to prove its utter futility.
Why was his power so superior over the mighty works recorded in the Old Testament? Because he ushered in a more spiritual sense of law by a new commandment, "That ye love one another; as I have loved you." By this revelation the whole concept of the Commandments of the Old Testament became more spiritual, and consequently the Commandments themselves more illumined.
Jesus' thoughts were so spiritual that they constituted his lawful authority and power. Although he spoke in the Aramaic tongue, a decaying language, he was fully aware of the permanent nature of the divine ideas he expressed. He declared that heaven and earth would pass away, but not his words. This is the reason why, in true meekness and might, he could speak with authority and not as the scribes. Their viewpoint was material and sensual; his was spiritual and substantial. They were centered in selfishness; he was centered in divine Love. That is why Jesus said: "The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth [that is, understandeth] the Father do." Jesus was in part human, but that which he knew was divine. His knowledge was wholly of God. This endowed him with the Christ-power to heal and save. His God-given ability was of such a nature that he knew enough to let his immortal selfhood show forth the practical proofs of divine law and dominion. He knew that his Christ-idea antedated Abraham and was everlastingly one with the Father.
This Christ-idea or Christ-understanding is the Comforter, the "Spirit of truth," in the wording of the Bible; the Christ Science or Christian Science, in the wording of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." This Christ-understanding is available for the world of today, as it was nineteen hundred years ago, and as it always will be, for those who understand how to avail themselves of it.
The Christian Science textbook tells us that "God will heal the sick through man, whenever man is governed by God" (p. 495). Then let us be governed by this God who is Love; let us express this Love so lovingly, so purely, so powerfully that sickness will vanish away and sin will be forsaken. Let us love so tenderly that hatred will melt into nothingness, and condemnation will have no abiding place. Thus we will show forth this healing and redeeming Christ-power. It will take care of the human needs of ourselves and of those who come to be healed and comforted. The human need is for something apart from its own fears and limitations and condemnations; it is always ultimately for divine, infinite Love.
To understand that the answer exists before the petition, is true prayer, the prayer of understanding, as taught in Christian Science. Why is this so? Because everything which is divinely real and worth while to be desired and possessed is already existing in divine Mind. Jesus knew this when he prayed with all humility and meekness before Lazarus came forth, "Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always." His divinely scientific affirmation brought forth the humanly practical demonstration.
We, my friends, can thank God in the same manner, when being conscious of God's allness. To this end we must have an all-embracing sense of divine Love's infinite presence; a tender assurance that divine Love is meeting every human need. This Love can do wonders for every one of us. It can make us every whit whole, by casting out the fear and mortality which unlawfully beset human existence. It can remove mountains of misunderstanding. Infinite Love, which is loving all of its ideas all the time, is powerful enough and compassionate enough to heal any condition contrary to those ideas. We must reflect this Love so consciously and feel its power so mightily that the human sense yields to the everlasting dominion of this infinite, all-pervading presence.
In the proportion that our prayers affirm this divine dominion and deny any other influence, everything that is humanly essential for everyday demands will be added unto us. These essentials, by simplifying human existence, help us to take less concern of it. Hereby thought is given more freedom for the sacred pursuit of silent communion. We need not hesitate to encourage the needed calm and poise of this true activity. The rush of the age requires it and the Science of Christ demands it more than ever before.
The scope of prayer must not be limited. Let us not confine it to ourselves and those in whom we are immediately interested. Our affections must be world-wide. This attitude will further world salvation, together with promoting our own well-being. We cannot be saved individually when holding to the finite concept of a material and imperfect world. Christ Jesus' vision and compassion were universal. This accounts for his influence beyond place and time. He declared himself, that is, the Christ, Truth, to be "the light of the world." In accordance with the Master's admonition, Christian Science exhorts us to let this light shine. Let all mankind be included in our prayer, that its divine force may be humanly evidenced by a purer and more unselfish dominion in national and international affairs. Let divine Love so permeate our prayers that love is felt wherever we come.
The presence of the Mind "which was also in Christ Jesus" will solve problems of every kind and description, because this Mind has no problems. This is the very reason why problems are being solved, will be solved. The problem is not a fact, Mind being the actual reality. It is only a false, finite concept about some fact which in all eternity is all right. To reform any situation, we have to correct our own concept. This is the true scientific reformation which always begins with one's self, goes on with one's self, and ends with one's self. In this way of self-reformation we are also helping to save all mankind, for we are doing our part in exchanging false concepts for true ideas. Universal salvation is forwarded by the power and presence of the divine ideas we are individually manifesting. As the nature of a divine idea is infinite, our consciousness will be more receptive for these ideas, in the measure that we think more universally. The salvation of all mankind rests upon the basis of reasoning out from Mind, and not from within the world's problems.
Thus, being the light of the world and the salt of the earth, we may pause occasionally and declare as the seventy did: "Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name," that is, through the Christ-understanding. Then we may receive the same answer of comfort and exhortation given to these disciples: "Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven." These words of the Master show that healing sickness and overcoming sin are but a stepping-stone for a higher demonstration. To rejoice that our names are written in heaven is to be ever conscious of the perfection and spirituality of true being. It means to know ourselves and every other individual as the infinite idea of God, already free, already loving, pure, perfect, already saved. This is our normal, natural state, to be maintained in this very hour.
It is our divine privilege to go forth, now and forever,
rejoicing in the healing power and presence, the meekness and might, the love
and satisfaction, the purity and purpose of Christian Science, the Science of
divine dominion.
[Delivered April 16,
1931, in The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston,
Massachusetts, and published in The
Christian Science Monitor, April 17, 1931.]