John J. Flinn, C.S.B., of Evanston, Illinois
Member
of the Board of Lectureship of The Mother Church,
The
First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts
A lecture on Christian Science was given under the auspices of Sixteenth Church of Christ, Scientist, of Chicago, in the church edifice, 7201 North Ashland Boulevard, Tuesday evening, February 5, by John J. Flinn, C.S.B., of Evanston, Illinois, member of the Board of Lectureship of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts.
The speaker was introduced by Miss Minnie C. Ginther, Second Reader, as follows:
As Christian Science is the greatest blessing which has come to humanity since Jesus Christ, our Way-shower, walked among men, demonstrating the power of God to heal the sick, cast out devils, and raise the dead, Sixteenth Church of Christ, Scientist, bids you a most loving welcome to this lecture on Christian Science, which has been prepared for you by a member of the Board of Lectureship of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, who comes as God's messenger of good to tell you how you can apply Christian Science in your individual experience.
"It is my privilege to introduce to you this messenger of good, our friend and neighbor, Mr. John J. Flinn, of Evanston, Illinois.
The subject of the lecture was "Christian Science: The All-Sufficiency of God." Mr. Flinn spoke substantially as follows:
When Mary Baker Eddy, Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, declared in our textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," a little more than fifty years ago, that "divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need" (p. 494) she struck the highest note of spiritual assurance and human comfort that had come to mankind since the days of the Galilean Prophet.
This crystallized epitome of her
entire philosophy embodies the greatest fact, the greatest truth, discoverable
in ancient or modern theology. Into twelve short and simple words is here
condensed all that is revealed in the Old and New Testaments; all that is
preached, promised, and taught by God's prophets, by Christ Jesus, by the
disciples and apostles of the Master, by all the spiritually-inspired men and
women of all the ages. Those of us who have long studied and practiced
Christian Science, who have time and again benefited by its teachings and
demonstrated its truths, are so convinced of its unfailing efficacy as to hold,
without limitation or reservation, that every question of human concern can be
solved and rightly solved by the scientific application of the Principle upon
which our faith is established.
It has always been, and is today, a professed fundamental of monotheistic religious creeds, sects, and denominations that there is but one God and that He is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent — all presence, all-intelligence, all-power. It is basic to Jewish, Mohammedan, and Christian theology alike that God is the primal and governing Cause; that He, and He alone, holds in hand the destinies of men, of peoples, and of nations; that with Him and in Him rests the final and definite settlement of every question that affects the welfare of humanity; that His wisdom is sufficiently ample, His power sufficiently far-reaching, and His love sufficiently broad and deep to meet every demand that may be made upon Him looking to the protection, comfort, and happiness of His obedient children. While holding to all this or theoretically holding to all this, those of every faith, ancient and modern, speaking generally, with the single exception of Christian Science, stop short at mere belief in or assertion of these truths, and go outside of God for help when faced by difficulty or threatened with danger. Relying as it does upon His infinite allness, no one can reasonably question the logic of the Christian Science position, that God's children require no other help, no other aid, than He is able and willing to render them at all times and in all their troubles.
Christian Science casts aside the theoretical and adopts and clings steadfastly to the practical and the proved in its entire attitude toward the omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence of God. It finds no place and no excuse for modifications, exceptions, or compromises in its estimate of God's divine nature: it accepts Him without question; it takes Him at His word; and it has proved and is proving, through this attitude toward the creator, and through the understanding and demonstration which accompany it, that His boundless love not only can but actually does meet every human need, when faithfully sought, scientifically found, and unconditionally accepted.
People of every class, of every age, of every previous belief, in every enlightened land have borne and are ready to bear testimony to this. No state of mental or moral consciousness can be so deeply immersed in error as to long or successfully resist the truth with which Christian Science opposes and corrects every abnormal condition. The spiritual law which Mrs. Eddy discovered, and in understanding of which her students are instructed, has proved so invariably and so widely successful in the elimination of sin, discord, and disease that it is now tacitly accepted by a large number of careful and critical investigators of other shades of religious thought, who, however, unfairly withhold from Christian Science and its Discoverer and Founder, for reasons which have no other ground than narrow prejudice, the honest recognition and credit to which both are justly entitled.
It is provable that human needs are fully expressed in the terms health, prosperity, and happiness, each and all of which are essentially spiritual in quality — all of which are necessary to that perfection which Christ Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount counseled his followers to seek as a prerequisite to their at-one-ment with the Father.
The objection is often raised by
our critics that Christian Science places too much importance upon health,
prosperity, and happiness, because, it is alleged, these are conditions
altogether too worldly to be incorporated in one's religion. It is held by
those who find fault with us in this particular that religion should be less
concerned about the present than about the future state of existence. It is the
mission of religion, they say, to look out for the hereafter. In reply,
Christian Science holds it to be the mission of true religion to look out for
the present, that the hereafter may be made secure. The past is gone, it has
vanished, it is irretrievable; the future is with God where it must always
remain, but if we take care of the present — the fleeting moment, the ephemeral
now — the only share in the eternities over which we can claim the slightest
control, the mistakes of the past will be corrected and wiped out and the
future will be brightened and blest.
Christ Jesus, early in the first century of the era which his coming inaugurated, and in the first year of his active ministry, set out upon his Father's business, that of bringing healing to the sick, voice to the dumb, feet to the lame, hearing to the deaf, sight to the blind, food to the hungry, hope to the desolate, consolation to the sorrowing, life to the dead — salvation to all. He did not say to the sufferers whom he encountered along the way, and who sought his ministrations, "Bear with your afflictions now; doubtless everything will be better for you in the hereafter." On the contrary, he healed those in need of healing then and there. He thought health so good a thing that he went about everywhere healing the sick. He thought prosperity so good a thing that he went about everywhere supplying the needs of the lowly. He thought happiness so good a thing that he went about everywhere comforting and cheering the disconsolate. He was as kindly in his attitude toward the despised woman of Samaria as he was toward the fair and favored daughter in Israel. He healed the friendless, hopeless, helpless man by the well of Bethesda as cheerfully and as promptly as he healed the servant of the proud Roman centurion. If he had any counsel to offer the afflicted, he relieved their suffering first and advised them afterward. "Go, and sin no more," was the substance and often the extent of his preaching. When people about him were hungry, he did not refer them to some organized charity: he fed them — fed them abundantly, fed them until they had had enough and to spare. When people were sorrowing he did not offer them mere sympathy and cheap platitudes — he soothed their hearts and wiped away their tears. When they came to him in doubt, perplexity, and great trouble, he did not repel them with cold indifference — he gave them direction, restored their confidence and their courage, and dismissed them, rejoicing in the conviction that at length they had found a way out of their difficulties. He sent his disciples among the lost children of Israel, equipped, not with promises of better things in the distant, dim, and vague hereafter, but with proof of the certainty of better things here and now.
He saw to it that those who gave up all that they might follow him lost nothing but gained everything by taking this course: he recognized the value of supply, showed how lack might be overcome, and to illustrate at once the power of faith and the Father's ready store, he found tribute-money in the fish's mouth and food for multitudes in the naked desert.
Jesus taught his followers the glory of action, the blessedness of accomplishment, the worthiness of prosperity, as the crown of intelligent and faithful striving. He had little consideration for the fruitless tree and less for the feeble human effort. His parable of the talents should be a sufficiently satisfying answer to those who excuse thriftlessness and idleness. What could be more to the point than the promise and the warning, "For whosoever hath, to him shall be given; and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have."
He comforted the mourner; raised to a true sense of the joy of living those who were cast down, and while he rebuked and reprimanded the wrongdoer in terms strong and unmistakable, he welcomed with open arms and encouraging words those who were earnestly trying to do right. His great desire, indeed, was that those near him and about him should know the truth, that they might be free, successful, and happy. In his wonderful talk to his disciples toward the close of the last supper, after prophesying all that should befall him and them, not with a long face and a gloomy aspect, but, we may take it, with a smile of confident assurance, he inspired them with fresh courage and new hope by declaring, "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full."
In Christian Science, a sickly, a gloomy, a hopeless person — a human failure, a mortal wreck — falls far below what is meant by the divinely inspired Scriptural and scientific declaration that "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." One who accepts the dictation of error without protest, and without assertion of his right to share in all the comforts and joys of life, must have forfeited in consciousness something of the image and likeness of God, something of the fullness of the Christ stature, something of the spiritual inheritance which is man's inalienable birthright.
In reality, of course, there can be no such forfeiture; for man's spiritual inheritance is not forfeitable. Since he was created in the image and likeness of God, the real man's perfection must be Godlike. Let us consider this well. If we believe that God made man in His image and likeness, we are necessarily bound to believe that the real man is the reflection of God, and, therefore, that, unless God changes, the reflection must be unchanging and unchangeable. Jesus knew this; and it was because he knew this that he went about everywhere healing the sick, the suffering, the needy, and the unhappy, — tirelessly impressing upon his lowly followers the great fact that they were all God's children, — teaching them to throw off the shackles of want, fear, and sin, and to claim and assume the dignity and the freedom rightly belonging to them.
To the observant world today, one of the most marvelous achievements of Christian Science is found in the alteration that soon takes place in the mental, physical, moral, and general well-being of those who receive its teachings with sincerity, and who strive to live up to its requirements. One does not need to be scholarly, to be highly intellectual, to be an advanced student of metaphysics, in order to receive the benefits of these teachings; but one does need to be receptive, and above all things, honest. The sharp turn from wrong to right thinking, which is the first and most important change wrought by Christian Science in the consciousness of the beginner, soon works a complete transformation in his character and makes him a new man. No one can accept Christian Science faithfully and fail to obtain at the same time a spiritual impulse toward everything that is elevating, progressive, and good. The sole, or, at least, the principal purpose of many in coming into Christian Science may be the desire to overcome ill health, adversity, sorrow, discord, or lack, but with advanced understanding, all quickly realize that these are but external effects of underlying causes, — causes which have been hidden until uncovered through the operation of divine Principle, — and that only the removal of these causes is required in order to bring about a satisfactory sense of health, harmony, and supply.
Christian Science has its anchorage in the immutable, indestructible, and eternal. It accepts nothing blindly; on the contrary, it demands demonstration at every step, and proves through demonstration its right to the attention, respect, and recognition of all intelligent people. Through its ability to destroy error, it demonstrates — brings into action — all the natural and normal attributes of being — clearness of vision and thought, health, wholeness, harmony. It holds all these to be God-made and God-given. Its mission is to reveal truths that have always existed, although long concealed by ignorance from the sight of men. Christian Science is true knowledge of the Father-Mother God, the All-in-all, the positive, the ultimate, the absolute, and yet it is so simple that little children in its Sunday school grasp its Principle intuitively and quickly. If understanding of it sometimes appears difficult or impossible to their elders, this is due to the reluctance of the latter to accept the counsel which Christ Jesus gave those seeking spiritual wisdom when he said, "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven."
What Christian Science is can be expressed to the enlightenment or the common understanding in innumerable ways, because its scope is as illimitable as Mind. It is knowing that there is but one God, that He is good, that He is all, that to be in rapport with Him is to be in harmony with the infinite. It is trusting Him, not merely in word or profession, or pretension, not now and then, but with all our hearts, all the time. It is accepting the many invitations of the Christ to come unto Him, in the spirit of surrender, and to lay our burdens submissively and confidently at His feet.
Christian Science means abandoning the material, which is temporal, for the spiritual, which is eternal. It is stepping from the uncertain ground of speculation to the solid footing of ascertained and demonstrable fact. It is turning our backs upon belief and placing our whole reliance upon understanding. It is casting aside the frail reed of human conjecture and leaning upon the unbending staff of spiritual knowledge. It is the infusion of positive assurance, and all the strength and confidence that go with it, into the weak and trembling consciousness and character. Christian Science is knowing, not merely believing, and the progress of a Christian Scientist is measured not by what he says about it, or how he speaks for it, but by the extent to which he has learned to live it and to demonstrate it. Many agree with the doctrines of Christian Science who go no farther; but Christian Science is no more understood by these than is mathematical science by those who simply believe in it or think kindly of it. Christian Science is rising to the Christ standard; it is loyal adhesion to the Golden Rule; it is loving one's neighbor as one's self: it is keeping the commandments. It is thinking rightly, seeing clearly, living cleanly.
Because it is never administered in this form of a drug, a plaster, or a pill, and because its practitioners never pursue their vocation under the authority or diploma of a medical college, there are people — people who wish to be regarded as Christians — who doubt and question not only its ability but its right to heal, in utter forgetfulness of the example set by the Founder of Christianity, the greatest healer the world has ever known — in utter forgetfulness even of the fact that the religious organizations to which they, as a rule, belong, insist that their members, after vainly exhausting all other means, shall turn for help in the last extremity to the Great Physician — to the all-knowing, ever-present, all-powerful Father — to whom they should have turned in the first place.
A large and growing percentage of medical doctors in our time are departing from the old-school methods, abandoning drugs, and recognizing and conceding the fact that the use of material medicine during the four thousand years of its history has resulted rather in an enormous increase than in a decrease of human ailments. But by far the greater number are still shutting their eyes to cause and concentrating their attention upon the treatment of effect — a course which leads to a steady and appalling growth in the use of stimulants, soporifics, anesthetics, opiates, and other pernicious means of temporarily quieting pain at the cost of permanently wrecking men, women, and children, physically, mentally, morally, and spiritually. Christian Science, on the other hand, penetrates to the root of every inharmony, and by removing cause renders effect impossible.
Materia medica traces, or strives to trace, all disease to a material source; Christian Science unerringly finds in mortal or the human mind the source of every form of disease and discord. Materia medica believes and contends that there is sensation in matter, and, therefore, that pain is felt in the flesh; Christian Science holds that there is no sensation in matter, and that flesh, therefore, is not susceptible to pain. The soundness of this position has been demonstrated over and over again. Strictly speaking, the human body is as incapable as the trunk of a tree of experiencing sensation of any kind. It is the human or mortal mind alone which is sensible to aches or pains, and it is the human or mortal mind alone which must be dealt with in every instance where there is a claim of discomfort, discord, or disease.
This attitude toward matter, in Christian Science, let me say, is positive and uncompromising. It is based upon the "scientific statement of being," found on page 468 of our textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. Let me read to you this fundamental and immortal declaration, asking you to hold in thought that it is an effectual treatment in Christian Science for those who sincerely accept it: "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual."
Through intelligent and faithful application of the Principle laid down here — apprehension of which is not denied those who prayerfully and earnestly seek an understanding of the mighty truth which is set forth — may anyone prove to himself and to others, beyond the possibility of doubt, that the spiritual is the only real.
It is the certainty and conviction of this central and foundational fact that impels Christian Scientists to abandon all so-called material thoughts and things as rapidly as their growth in spiritual understanding permits. Not to go too deeply into the metaphysical at this time, it may be said that success in Christian Science healing is in proportion to one's realization of the nothingness of matter and the allness of Spirit; for through such realization is brought into action the absolute dominion and power of Life, Truth, and Love — the absolute power of God — over every erroneous manifestation. This statement holds good whether one be treating one's self or another. It is especially applicable to those who study "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." Thousands have been healed through reading our textbook, simply by putting self in the background and realizing in thought the truth expressed through that marvelous work.
Nothing of the mysterious or the miraculous occurs in connection with Christian Science treatment, or in Christian Science healing. No one sees anything of the mysterious or the miraculous in the revolution of the earth, in the rotation of the seasons, in the ebbing and flowing of the tides, in the calm that follows a tempest, in the sunshine that follows rain, in the day that follows night. The normal never surprises us. We take it for granted. Health, peace, comfort, prosperity, happiness, are normal because natural conditions. The opposite of any of them — the opposite of harmony — is abnormal and unnatural. Sin, sickness, discord, poverty, disease, distress, and death are in violation of the divinely natural law, not in accordance with it. In its demonstration of the unreality of all things material and the reality of all things spiritual, Christian Science proves that only the good is true and enduring.
God does not make any special provision for those who seek help in Christian Science. Provision was made in divine law at the beginning. The Christian Science practitioner does not ask God to change His plan, or to go out of His way in any particular in order that a patient shall be healed. His efforts are directed toward realization of the divine plan. To those who seek them rightly, help and healing are ever present. Where God is there must be harmony — the peace that passeth human understanding. It is only necessary, then, that the practitioner shall do his work intelligently, faithfully, prayerfully, scientifically, and that the patient shall be receptive and submissive. The rest is with divine Love, which meets every human need, now, always and forever.
One hears such expressions as "strange," "extraordinary," "phenomenal," "almost unbelievable," even "uncanny," used by professed believers in God, in connection with healing in Christian Science. Coming from the lips of persons born and bred in an orthodox faith, is not this really the strange thing? Does not practically every faith, every religious creed, recognize the existence of a First Cause — of a maker of everything that was made? Does not practically every faith hold that the creator, no matter by what name He may be called, made man? Why, then, should it be thought strange that He who made the universe, including man, should, when properly understood, intelligently approached, and unwaveringly trusted, protect and guide and heal the greatest of His creations, the creature for whom He made heaven and earth, and all that they contain?
Why should it be thought, especially by Christians or by Jews, a "strange" or "almost unbelievable" thing that the Being to whom in their faith they attribute all power — to whom they attribute the wonders performed in the time of Moses and in the time of Jesus — should in our time help and heal those of His children who come to him in humility and in all confidence for succor and for strength? They cannot, surely, entertain the thought that the God of the present is less powerful, less mindful of His children, than the God of the past, or that He is less loving, or that He is less regardful of His promises now than He was when He assured the Israelites of their certain redemption from Egyptian bondage — than He was when He enabled Christ Jesus to heal all manner of sin, sickness, disease, and discord, to still the tempest, to walk upon the wave, to turn water into wine, and to raise the dead. It is not credible that they believe God to be changed, or that they believe Him to be deaf to those of these later generations who appeal to Him in spirit and in truth.
Christian Science, despite all wavering belief, all doubt, all skepticism, holds firmly to the conviction that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever — immutable, ever-present and everlasting Life, Truth, Love — and it is through holding to this conviction that its people are protected, assured, and happy beyond all others. Through the supporting, energizing, and inspiring influence of this faith, its adherents, its practitioners, and its messengers to the field, in all parts of the globe, are enabled to dispense spiritual healing in God's name to those who rightly seek and faithfully accept it.
Intelligent and profitable study of the Bible and of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" imperatively demands constant recourse to prayer — that is, a constant yearning for or expression of desire that the eye and the heart — the consciousness, — of the petitioner be opened to understanding. "The prayer that reforms the sinner and heals the sick," Mrs. Eddy tells us (Science and Health, p. 1), "is an absolute faith that all things are possible to God, — a spiritual understanding of Him, an unselfed love." Prayer in Christian Science is reasonable, practical, and logical, and because it is so, it brings results. In other faiths, believers pray fervently and devotedly, no doubt, but Christian Scientists are taught to pray understandingly and confidently; and proportionate to their understanding and their confidence is their demonstration.
Behind all human discord, failure, misery, lack — behind all human sorrowing and suffering of every kind — are spiritual ignorance, fear, and sin; and Christian Science never loses sight of the fact that those who come to it for help must become better morally and spiritually before they can be permanently better mentally and physically. It regards physical healing as a means, not as an end — as a way to spiritual awakening, as a step through demonstration to spiritual understanding — to everything that is good. Christian Scientists should be under no illusions as to the necessity of cleanliness, uprightness, morality, right thinking and right living, if they are to be individually blessed, if human existence as a whole is to be made harmonious, if the world is to become pacified, and civilization is to be protected against disaster, or rescued from calamity.
The problems that confront humanity today with regard to civilization and salvation must be solved, and can only be solved through individual enlightenment and understanding, through divine Love and faithful observance of and obedience to God's commandments — commandments that are summed up by Christ Jesus in his answer to the scribe, who asked him, "Which is the first commandment of all?" "The first of all the commandments," he replied is, "Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these."
Christian Science is opposed to everything that tends toward belittling the individual and the magnifying of the mass, toward the belittling of Mind and the magnifying of matter — to everything that is tinctured by deification of the material. Christian Scientists cannot believe, and cannot be convinced, by any sophistry that the world was made for the exaltation of matter. It holds to the conviction that everything created by God, by divine Mind, was made for man, and for the good of man; and its mission is to secure the individual in his rightful place, as God's child — as the inheritor of the abundance of God's blessings — and to equip him for the assumption of his rightful dominion over all the earth. To be so equipped it holds that he must be clean in thought and act; love his neighbor, and strive constantly to be perfect, even as his Father in heaven is perfect. Consequently he shall be healthful, wholesome, confident, independent on every material claim and influence, spiritually alert and reliant.
Heaven must be realized on earth. It can be realized on earth only when the true God is acknowledged, recognized, understood, and obeyed. Christian Science is positive in premise, unerring in conclusion, because it is based upon the allness, all-presence, and immutability of the infinite. It recognizes the supremacy of Mind, for God is Mind. It recognizes Truth as the only measure of right thinking and right living, for God is Truth. It recognizes Life as unchanging, unending, and eternal, for God is Life. It recognizes Love as the only spiritualizing, welding, binding force in the universe, for God is Love.
As Christian Science is the way to health and harmony, so, logically and inevitably, it is the way to salvation. Never has its Discoverer and Founder lost sight of the goal toward which she set out at the beginning — the regeneration of mankind through a higher understanding of God. To know God was her earliest desire; to apply, as she made progress, the understanding she acquired of God was the constant purpose of her study and her teaching; to bring confused, bewildered, and suffering humanity to an appreciation of God as the one and only power in the universe was the end and aim of her every effort, her every demonstration. The Bible was her only textbook; Christ Jesus her only model; to have that Mind which was also in him, to be inspired by his unselfishness, his charity, and his love, to rise to his stature — was her one great aspiration.
Working in Christian Science is being about God's business. It involves studious application, earnest thinking, exact deduction, and unwavering adhesion to Principle; but it returns generous dividends on every investment of time, labor, and self-immolation. It sheds new light upon the inspired Word of the Bible. It illumines error-beclouded thought, gives courage and strength to the weary, makes straight the path of the straying, and brightens with hope and conviction the outlook of the downcast and despairing. It enables the lame to walk, the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak, the blind to see. It overcomes the fear, and consequently the consciousness of death, through realization of the immortality of Life.
This, should it stop here, would be sufficient explanation and justification of the honor and the gratitude which all Christian Scientists bestow upon the Discoverer and Founder of their faith; but they are indebted to her for vastly more than this. Above and beyond every other gift that has come through her teachings is the understanding that she has given them of Love. For spiritual instruction and inspiration the Scriptures were to her all-sufficient. Upon them she drew freely for help and strength, and in reverent and grateful recognition of this, she placed the Bible first in the tenets of the faith she founded and in the services of the church she instituted and established. By easy and natural transition, therefore, she recognized and accepted Love, in the deepness and broadness, in the ample fullness of its expression by Christ Jesus, as the keynote of the new understanding of Christianity which she was giving to the world.
Thus she found her base impossible of dislodgment; thus was she enabled to say with spiritual consciousness of its eternal verity, "To infinite, ever-present Love, all is Love" (Science and Health, p. 567), and to name Love as the all-comprehensive, all-embracing synonym of God, good. Through research, analysis, and study of the Scriptures, she came into complete harmony with the Founder of Christianity, in all of his words and in all of his works, and rediscovered, after a lapse of centuries, the law by understanding of which, Christ Jesus, his disciples, and their disciples and immediate followers performed marvels of healing, called miracles, during approximately three hundred years of the Christian era. Following in the footsteps of Christ Jesus, with punctilious regard for the scientific Principle of being, which he comprehended and practiced with greater clearness and understanding than any other of God's prophets, Mary Baker Eddy chose Love for her guiding star, and it is the Love which inspired her and which she taught and demonstrated — the Love which her students teach and demonstrate today — that has given Christian Science the exalted place it occupies in the thought of enlightened people throughout the earth. Her writings reflect Love in every page, sentence, and word. Her teachings are aglow with Love. She places no restrictions, no limitations, upon Love. She has erected no barricade about it. On the contrary, lest her students and followers should ever be misled into a false estimate of its priceless meaning, she has written in our textbook (Science and Health, p. 113): "The vital part, the heart and soul of Christian Science, is Love. Without this, the letter is but the dead body of Science, — pulseless, cold, inanimate."
It was Love, as understood,
practiced, and demonstrated in Christian Science that healed me in the first
year of this century; that has directed my footsteps, met my every need,
sustained and supported me through all these years. It is Love that enables me
to stand before you now, and to speak to you of Christian Science, out of an
abundance of gratitude; it is Love that impels me to ask those of you who have
not as yet felt the inspiration of its healing and regenerative influence, to
leave here determined to ponder seriously all that I have been saying; for, my
friends, I assure you that the greatest thing the individual can do for his
home, his family, his business, his community, his country, his neighbor, for
himself, and for the world at large, is to think rightly, live rightly, to love
without limitation, and to trust God for the rest. This, if he receive it in
sincerity, will Christian Science enable him to do.
[Delivered Feb. 5,
1929, at Sixteenth Church of Christ, Scientist, 7201 North Ashland Boulevard,
Chicago, Illinois, and published in The Chicago Leader, Feb. 6, 1929.]