Francis Lyster Jandron, C.S.B., of Detroit, Michigan
Member of the Board of Lectureship of The
Mother Church,
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts
Francis Lyster Jandron, C.S.B., of Detroit, Mich., opened the Christian Science lecture season here Monday night, at Cadle Tabernacle, speaking on "Christian Science: The Science of Good Government." Second Church of Christ, Scientist sponsored the lecture.
Mr. Jandron, who is a member of
the Board of Lectureship of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ,
Scientist, in Boston, Mass., was introduced by W.T. McCullough. The lecture
follows substantially as it was given:
Christian Science brings to you a message which will heal you, if you take it into your consciousness and let it abide there. If you will receive it as a friend it will reveal to you the divine Principle of all true government, by which alone man should be and must be governed. It will enable you to prove that you can enjoy this spiritual, harmonious government in your own present experience. When Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, defined God as divine Principle, she put the world in possession of a discovery of far-reaching importance. Only a few stopped at first to listen, but year by year many others have come to see the vast significance of this spiritual discovery, and it is not too much to say that the thought of physical scientists has been profoundly influenced by it. That is not strange, for to know God as Principle brings the divine order within the range of the knowable and the provable.
Christian Science teaches that God, Spirit, the supreme cause and creator, self-existent Being, can not be finite or personal. Wherever thought can reach, there at that moment God can be found. God's government is instantly available to redress wrong, no matter how long established a wrong may have seemed to be. It is instantly available to avert danger, no matter how formidable a danger may seem. Because God, Spirit, is divine Principle, it follows of course that His creation must be mental or spiritual, to be perceived only through spiritual sense. Christian Science teaches that if you will allow thoughts which are Godlike, that is, unselfish and spiritual, to take possession of your consciousness, they will govern your experience, because they partake of the immutable quality of the infinite self-enforcing Principle which they reflect. It makes clear that you have but to entertain mentally, to reason with, these Godlike thoughts, and they will give you employment; they will heal you of sickness and sin; they will supply your needs abundantly; they will enrich and beautify your life; they will lift you above fear. They will prove to you that to acknowledge and conform to the government of God, the divine Principle of all real being, is to place yourself where nothing unlike God can thwart or reverse the good which you have made your own. The Psalmist discerned this possibility when he sang, "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty."
Now since this is true, and Christian Science teaches that it can be proved, then all which appears to contradict or oppose God's government in national, collective, or individual affairs must be the result of a mistaken view of God's nature and power. Proportionately as God's spiritual government is understood and conformed to, human governments are improved. The peace and good will which flow from obedience to God's government are really the only sure foundations of progress. Hatred never made a nation or an individual strong or happy, and genuine peace and prosperity cannot result from war and destruction. In our endeavors to assure peace among the nations we must acknowledge that God's government is supreme, and practice peace and good will in our own daily experiences. In God's hands alone "is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever."
Mrs. Eddy's discovery came to a generation unprepared to receive it. It came because there was one who could understand it; because there were some who were conscious of their need of it. Divine Principle operates in the same way for all people and in all ages. It reveals itself to the seeing eye and the hearing ear. There had been spiritual seers and humble listeners long before our century who were able to gain an insight into God's ways and government. Through them the thought of the world was gradually lifted to the point of preparation for and receptivity of the final and scientific explanation of God and man. Abraham, for example, became convinced of God's oneness, without an equal. In the strength of this deep, spiritual conviction he turned away from the idolatrous beliefs of his day, and founded a new nation dedicated to the worship of God in His oneness. It is not surprising to find a New Testament writer speaking of Abraham as "the Friend of God." Inspired obedience to the divine Principle was necessary to enable this patriarch to gain the enlarged vision and to cling to it steadfastly. Abraham's achievement shows us how much can be accomplished through fidelity to God.
Another long step toward complete recognition of God's government of man came centuries later, when Moses, face to face with God on the mountaintop, made the discovery that God is a Lawgiver. How Moses prepared himself for this discovery is told in the Old Testament. Moses learned from his mistakes, as most of us have to do. Without the guidance of Science the only way to learn is by experience. Under the government of self-will Moses slew an Egyptian, and he spent forty years in the wilderness, learning how to subdue human will and how to be meek. Small wonder that he was then able to hear God's voice and to rescue his people from bondage. Through meekness Moses became the servant of God, infinite intelligence. The Ten Commandments stand today as the imperishable monument to his triumph of meekness over human will, by which God was revealed as the only Lawgiver for man.
Again centuries passed, and, with the coming to earth of Christ Jesus, humanity at last received the supreme proof of God's government of man. Mrs. Eddy has described Jesus as "the most scientific man that ever trod the globe" (Science and Health, p. 313). Into the "Thou shalt's" and "Thou shalt not's" of the Ten Commandments he poured the understanding and proof that God is Love. He taught that the God who is One, as Abraham saw, the God who is a Lawgiver and works through law, as Moses taught, does provide the means for redeeming all His children from every temptation to fall short of the requirements of the divine law. Without such a proof of Love, God could not be known as One, and a destructive element would be boasting itself above God's law. Jesus was so completely governed by God in thought and deed that his career conclusively proved the inseparable oneness of God and man. As Mrs. Eddy, in a striking summary, has written (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 179): "The character of the Nazarene Prophet illustrates the Principle and practice of a true divinity and humanity." Jesus lived in a small and little-known province no larger than the state of New Hampshire; he left behind him not one written word to explain his teachings, yet the centuries have fulfilled his declaration, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." With the words, "Before Abraham was, I am," he boldly asserted the eternal, scientific foundation of his understanding of God. Reproached by the Jews for lack of learning, yet able to read the Hebrew Scriptures in the synagogue, to speak in Aramaic in Judea and Galilee, and to teach and heal in Tyre and Sidon, where Greek was spoken, he who spake as "never man spake" proved that the Christ, when understood, triumphs at every point over the opposing evidence and limitations of heredity and environment.
Christ Jesus' life and work on earth demonstrated that God's government is available in every human need. Our Lord quieted the storm when it arose; he healed the sick when they needed his help; he fed the multitude in the desert when they were hungry. He was able to do these great works because he understood that under God's government there is no storm which can overrule man's God-given right to peace and safety; no sickness which can overrule his God-given health and well-being; no famine or depression which can overrule the abundance which God freely supplies. Through Christian Science we learn that Christ belongs not only to a bygone age, but to all ages. Mrs. Eddy sounds the drums and bugles of universal salvation in a simple definition which I quote from page 583 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." You will notice that this definition of Christ is written in the present tense. It reads: "Christ. The divine manifestation of God, which comes to the flesh to destroy incarnate error." God is always able to make Himself manifest. Divinity is constantly beckoning every one of us to awake, arise, and take our rightful place under God's government. As we respond to these divine demands we reflect a measure of the undying power which Jesus demonstrated. Through Christ humanity becomes linked to God.
Christian Science takes nothing away from the Bible record of the unfolding of the supreme realities of being to human consciousness. In Science and Health (p. 547) Mrs. Eddy has written: "The Scriptures are very sacred. Our aim must be to have them understood spiritually, for only by this understanding can truth be gained. . . . It is this spiritual perception of Scripture," she continues, "which lifts humanity out of disease and death and inspires faith." In the sacred pages of Scripture, legend and history, mythology and truth, mistakes and triumphs, curses and blessings, evil suggestion and revelation seem often to walk side by side. Thus does the inspired Word depict the wanderings of human thought as it gropes uncertainly in its search for God, learning its lessons in a wilderness of suffering, and victimized by its own mistakes. Christian Science, with its clear, exact statement of God's nature, enables every sincere seeker for truth to distinguish between the man whom God created in His own likeness and the false image which ignorance appears to have built. In Science and Health (p. 259) Mrs. Eddy tells us, "The Christlike understanding of scientific being and divine healing includes a perfect Principle and idea, — perfect God and perfect man, — as the basis of thought and demonstration."
A personal view is something entirely different from conviction based on an understanding of divine Principle. One may be honest because he thinks honesty is a good policy to follow, and that of course is good as far as it goes, but until he has become honest from conviction, through obedience to divine Principle, his honesty is something which under sufficient pressure may be perverted and even lost. Honesty based upon Principle is not a personal possession; it operates in the same way at all times. It is not put on or taken off as expediency directs; it governs the honest man.
What is true of honesty is equally true of health. To consider health as a personal possession is no guarantee of retaining it; while to understand, in some degree at least, the teachings of Christian Science that divine Principle, God, produces health and harmony in man, will do vastly more to improve and maintain sound health for you than you can ever do by believing that sickness is brought about by weather, by diet, or by heredity.
Perhaps this may make it clear to you how important is the teaching of Christian Science that God is Principle. The Godlike thoughts or ideas which have Principle for their foundation cannot be lost, mislaid, forgotten, perverted, nor reversed. They are not the private or personal possession of anyone. They are available to all, at all times, everywhere. Everyone may use these divine thoughts or ideas freely, without impoverishing or harming himself or anyone else. That which is based on Principle can be shared without loss; it can be taught to others, repeated, proved, and multiplied infinitely. Under the government of divine Principle, promise and fulfillment, plan and execution, cause and effect are one and inseparable.
If Jesus had been merely a wonderworker, the possessor of a miraculous gift of healing and fortitude, this alone would not have enabled him to teach his disciples how to heal. He could not have made them understand what he himself did not understand. But Jesus the Christ understood and obeyed divine government, and through his teachings his disciples came to share their Master's spiritual understanding of God's government to some degree; in turn, they became able to heal and to teach others. For more than two centuries the early Christians practiced spiritual healing. It was only when spiritual understanding became more and more beclouded by personal, material views of God that healing ceased to be a spontaneous characteristic of Christian activity.
In our age, under divine inspiration, Mrs. Eddy perceived the truth that God is divine Principle. She proved this truth, and in her textbook gave her discovery to mankind. She did not depart from the method by which Jesus taught and proved his understanding of it. She gave to mankind an elucidation of the Science of being, for the age had come when it could be understood.
Christ Jesus summed up the requirements of God's government as love for God and love for one's neighbor. Love for God demands more than blind obedience or emotional affection. To love God we must understand Him. Love for our neighbor bears witness to our obedience to God's government. It follows that if one were to attempt to love God without loving his fellowmen, he would fail to obey God and would soon cease to love Him also. Unselfish love for one's fellowmen evidences the measure of one's love for God, as divine Principle. Let me illustrate this.
Not long ago a man who had been unemployed for a long time and who was almost destitute heard for the first time that Christian Science could help him. He was then in a state of despair, for through poverty his appearance had become so uninviting that employers would not listen to his pleas for work. He had been given the name of a Christian Science practitioner who lived in a large hotel. When he went to see her he was refused admittance by the hotel doorman because of his shabby appearance. He pleadingly explained why he had come, and the doorman finally let him enter, remarking, "I wish you would tell me on your way out what a Christian Science practitioner can do for a man in your plight." After his visit with the practitioner the visitor returned, and the doorman inquired, "Did she give you a job?" "No," was the reply, "but she told me that unemployment belongs to no man, and that I can prove it." The doorman was silent for a moment, and then said very seriously: "I have a brother-in-law who has been unemployed for several months, and I have had to support him and his family. Now if Christian Science works for you, I wish you would let me know, and I'll see if it won't work for my brother-in-law also." Two days later, the visitor returned to the hotel and greeted the doorman joyfully. "I've got a job," he said, naming the factory where he had found employment. And he went on triumphantly: "That Christian Science practitioner told me that unemployment belongs to no man, so if you'll send your brother-in-law to me, I'll find a job for him." Within a few days a position was found for the doorman's relative; and the doorman himself afterwards declared: "I'll never fear unemployment again. I see now that it belongs to no man." In just such benevolent and uplifting ways does Christian Science prove that since unemployment does not emanate from God, it can not belong to man, for it has no Principle to sustain it, and it can have no identity to express it. Under God's government there can be no unemployment.
Christian Scientists constantly endeavor, by study and meditation, by prayer and thanksgiving, to love God and to understand Him better. They learn too by experience that their love for God must translate itself into daily deeds of helpful service or it will become frozen and barren. Good deeds fit into their place in an infinite cycle of good which begins and ends with God. That which is based on divine Principle has its beginning in God, and it can have no end but good.
Let me give you another illustration which will help you to understand why our love for our fellowmen must go hand in hand with our love for or understanding of God.
A woman who had suffered from deafness for several years began to study Christian Science. She read and studied the Christian Science textbook faithfully, giving every hour which she could spare to the task, and her thought became enraptured with contemplation of the beauty and perfection of God's government which the book revealed. Her deafness, however, showed no improvement. One day a little daughter of hers, returning from school, asked her to sew a button on the child's coat. Mother was studying when this request was made, and she answered rather impatiently that she must not be bothered, for she could not attend to the button now. The child stood and watched her mother in silence for a few moments and then said very firmly, "Mother, since you began to study Christian Science, you don't love me as you used to." Mother was startled and resentful, and with some warmth she denied the child's assertion. But the child persisted. "You are studying all the time," she said, "and you don't pay any attention to sister and me." The child's rebuke went home; Mother promptly laid aside her books and sewed on the button. While she was doing this her deafness disappeared; she was healed. A healing in Christian Science is never complete until the patient has learned to give love as well as to receive it.
God's government affords the freedom of self-government, because man governed by God is self-governed. He is freed from the false, tyrannical rule of evil; he comes under the just government of the divine Principle, which operates for him with complete authority. God's kingdom comes on earth through prayer, through that sacred communion with the divine Principle of all good wherein the seeker realizes the presence and the sufficiency of good to meet each human need. The prayer of the Christian Scientist pierces the mist of fear and resentment, and realizes that man is now the perfect image of his Maker. Knowing that of himself he can do nothing, a Christian Scientist will not be led astray into bypaths of egotism and self-righteousness. He knows that only through purification of thought and deed can He reflect the divine likeness enough to heal.
Christian Science makes clear one's duties to his neighbor, his obligation to obey the laws of his country, and his responsibilities to his family and his home. It strengthens his ability to fulfill every human obligation, by strengthening his purpose to love his neighbor as himself, and to rely on Principle for his own reward and safety. A Christian Scientist is a better citizen, a more loving husband or wife, father or mother, neighbor or friend, because he is learning that to obey God's government every human obligation must be fulfilled in love and righteousness.
In an interview which was published in the Boston Herald in March 1898 (Miscellany, p. 278), Mrs. Eddy said: "The government of divine Love is supreme. Love rules the universe, and its edict hath gone forth: 'Thou shalt have no other gods before me,' and 'Love thy neighbor as thyself.'"
A physician told me recently that many young men in the medical schools and many practicing physicians are complaining that they have received no instruction in how to overcome mental influences which foster and prolong disease. Physicians are beginning to see that the mental state which causes disease must be healed in order to destroy the disease. No material remedy can cure hatred.
This physician added that the time is coming when doctors will no longer give names to diseases, because, as he put it, disease cannot be classified, as no two people have exactly the same ailment. This is an interesting admission, and points to the fact which Christian Science teaches: that disease has no law to govern it, but exists only as a supposed consequence of some individual belief or mental impression.
The law of God makes disease impossible. Disease can seem to exist only through a mistaken human belief that it is real and that it has the force of law. When the unreality of disease is understood it disappears, leaving no after effects. Through the understanding of this fact Christian Science heals disease.
Shakespeare long ago recognized the powerlessness of material remedies to heal mental influences on the body, when he made one of his characters address a doctor with the famous question (Macbeth, Act. V, Scene 3):
"Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd,
Pluck from the memory
a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?"
Christian Science teaches that all evil is mental in its origin, and any specific evil can be permanently cured by bringing the thoughts of its intended victim under the government of God. Evil has no real existence or entity. In other words, it is like a night-dream, which, however terrifying and real it may seem, is seen upon awaking to be utterly without reality. And as in a night-dream the dream-experience vanishes when the dreamer awakes, so just as certainly does your suffering vanish as soon as you realize that its origin is a fear of that which has no real existence.
Mrs. Eddy summed up the supposed influence of evil under the term animal magnetism. She did not originate the term. She exposed the deceptions of evil. She proved conclusively that to see the unreality of evil suggestion is to disarm it; and to refuse it power is to destroy it. Jesus met the claim in the same inspired way when he declared, "The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me."
Every influence which contends that you are outside of God's government is a deceiver. It may try to appear respectable and authentic, for not otherwise would it be obeyed. Evil tries to acquire this cloak of respectability and authority by usurping the garments of law. It begins by calling itself by your name and by speaking in your name. It suggests its purpose to you, bidding you acknowledge that you are sick, or wretched, or inclined to sin. Christian Science says to you: Awake! Recognize that under God's government man cannot be sick, or wretched, or inclined to sin. Awake to see that because man is subject to God's government and to none other, because his being is governed by divine Principle, which is wholly good, he can neither be, know, nor do anything which is not wholly in harmony with that perfect Principle. Perhaps self-love and self-pity have been clamoring that you have been unjustly deprived of good, that you are neglected. Perhaps self-will has been urging that you should refuse to acknowledge and correct a mistake. Turn away from these deceitful arguments. Divine Principle alone governs man, and under God's government man is now and always at the very point of satisfaction, wholeness, and right-doing.
Evil has no power to injure man, no matter whether it calls itself a law of nature, a law of health, or an unjust state law. Evil is unreal, for God's government destroys it. When Jesus walked on the water he was acting in obedience to God's government, which gives man dominion over all the earth. It was not a personal peculiarity which enabled him to defy the law of gravity. He walked on the water because he understood that he could express spiritual mastery over all the evidence which the physical senses present. Peter endeavored to emulate the Master, but he became fearful, and would have sunk if Jesus had not rescued him. It was Peter's fear and not a law of gravity which made him sink. It was Jesus' inspired understanding of God's loving government which saved Peter.
Christian Science teaches that we can escape from the bondage imposed by a supposed law of heredity; that we can suffer from no mistakes but our own, and from our own only so long as they are uncorrected. Heredity is a commonly held belief, but it is not supported by divine Principle, and it has no power to enforce itself when opposed by an understanding of God's government. The divine Principle, God, is the only Father and Mother of man.
Christian Science teaches you how you can free yourself from so-called health laws, which often might better be called laws of fear or laws of disease. The intelligence which accompanies an understanding of God's nature exposes them and proves their utter impotence. A supposed law which does not accord with the government of good can never stand the test of divine justice. Its seeming effects on the body are but the product of an illusion, and they will disappear when the illusion yields to a scientific understanding of the spiritual law which governs man. Christian Science is at work every day healing the sick and the sinning in proof of this.
Mere weight of repetition can not endow a falsehood with one particle of truth. Understanding this you can protect yourself from unjust onslaughts and false reports. Under God's government one is able to distinguish between right and wrong, regardless of any deceiving evidence which the physical senses may offer. Christian Scientists, obediently seeking to enshrine in consciousness the perfect model of God's creation, are learning that man cannot be influenced contrary to the will of God. Only the divine Mind can originate thought. God’s thoughts pass to man, not through dreams or mysteries, but through the activity of a reasoning, discriminating intelligence; they can always be known by their conformity to good.
Christian Science teaches that God, divine Principle, is the only Life of man, and that God's creation cannot really die. Only the false belief that life exists in matter can have an end. As we understand Life better, we lose our fear of death and we are saved from its sting. Our great Way-shower, Jesus the Christ, trod the path of salvation for us, and what he did we too can do as we approach his purity. Unselfed love is the key to this attainment.
Perhaps someone may say: "You say that we shall overcome death through unselfed love. One who was very dear to me has been taken away, and oh! I loved him so. What do you mean by unselfed love?" My brother, my sister: unselfed love is spiritual purity, which enables you to take God's hand and go forward unafraid. Let this love, which "seeketh not her own," awaken you to the gladness of knowing that man is spiritual and that God is his Life. As you put this into practice, grief and loss and incompleteness will be healed, for under God's government you cannot for one instant be deprived of good.
The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science is one of the great religious leaders of the ages. Her life and work deserve the earnest study of thinking men and women. Her career is distinguished alike for what she overcame and for what she accomplished. Almost an invalid until she was forty-five years of age, her discovery of Christian Science, in 1866, brought her to the threshold of forty-five more years spent in ceaseless activity on behalf of humanity, and opened a new religious epoch for the world. Mrs. Eddy should be judged only by the fruits of her labors for the unselfishness of her life-purpose to become at once apparent. Unfaltering in her reliance on God and unfaltering in her love for man, she met trials and persecutions without bitterness, and, in the spirit of the great Master, blessed those who cursed her.
She proved what she taught. She lived her own teachings courageously and humbly. In 1894, when the country was in the depths of a great financial depression, she called on her followers to build the original edifice of The Mother Church in Boston, and under her inspired leadership it was promptly completed and fully paid for. Cries of poverty and distress were widespread in that year, but to Mrs. Eddy's spiritually illumined consciousness, spiritual resources could not be restricted by false human beliefs. Mrs. Eddy laid hold of the infinite resources of divine intelligence through unselfish reliance upon God. No one was ever poorer or less loving for following Mrs. Eddy.
Mrs. Eddy was not content with merely making it known to others how the sick and the sinning might be healed through Christian Science. Imbued as she was with a boundless love for all humanity, she established a church which should afford all the protection and all the encouragement that every seeker for the divine government might need. She named her church The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts; its branches are found throughout the world. Christian Scientists are grateful for their church. They take church attendance seriously, bringing to the services of the church their offerings of consecration, thanksgiving, and brotherly love.
At the age of 87, with the youthful vision and spiritual alertness of one who walks with God, Mrs. Eddy established an international daily newspaper, The Christian Science Monitor, now in the twenty-seventh year of its useful and successful career. She personally directed the transactions involved in this great task. The Monitor may be regarded as a culminating achievement in Mrs. Eddy's life of unselfish devotion to her ideal of Christlike government.
Mrs. Eddy's fame is secure, though life meant to her only an opportunity to serve God faithfully. The church which she founded, and her great work, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," and her other writings are living witnesses to her purpose, her motives, and her achievements. She gave to humanity the Science of being and her priceless example of spiritual leadership. Through her writings spiritual leadership is made available to guide mankind into the light of ever-present good.
To bring God's government into your life is not difficult. Quite the contrary, for the rule is very simple: Acknowledge; obey; stand fast. It is always safe to wait on God. The Bible tells us: "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths." This is a proclamation of divine government which is applicable to every situation and to every hour of the day. To wait on God we must set aside fear and self-seeking, and humbly trust ourselves to Him understandingly and expectantly. We can be brought into no difficulty which will not yield if we wait on God. Good government is not remote, nor beyond our reach; it is available to us now. It comes to us through the ever-present Christ, the Comforter which Christian Science brings to our understanding.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ Jesus uttered the Beatitudes, which proclaim the blessedness of those who do the Father's will and subdue human will. The Beatitudes include in their assurances of blessings spiritual qualities through which human thought is exalted and receives the illumination of Christ. Every unselfish thought or deed is under the protection of God's government.
"Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," declared the Master. To be poor in spirit, to become conscious of one's need of the spiritual sustenance which God alone can supply, renders one receptive to the kingdom of God here and now. When conscious of his need of God, man finds that need already satisfied. His blessing is not a future one; it is one which he can inherit now. And they who are "persecuted for righteousness' sake," theirs too is "the kingdom of heaven." They who resist the buffetings of personal sense and remain staunch in their loyalty to God, who in the presence of death itself can, like Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus, declare, "Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me," to them is the government of good revealed, in spite of the stones which injustice and sorrow may have rolled to bar their progress. Christian Science shows you how you can prove your right to this blessedness today.
"Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God." He who is at peace with God is at peace with himself and at peace with his fellowmen. He is the heir of God, not at some future time but today. "Blessed are the peacemakers." Arise and claim this blessing with confidence, and possess it with assurance, for human envy can not take it away.
"Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted." No sense of lack or loss is beyond the power of divine Love to heal. Oh, mourner, lift up your eyes and behold the Christ! Cast aside the sackcloth of mourning and take into your consciousness the blessed fact that all that the Father has is yours to enjoy. As you do this you come under God's government, and you are blessed.
"Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth." To be meek is to do God's will, to be submissive to His government, regardless of penalties which worldly beliefs may attach to such obedience. Here is a blessing within the reach of everyone, even the assurance of dominion over materiality in all its forms. It is yours, if you will have it, today. "Blessed are the meek."
"Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled." Even the simple desire to know God better is blessed, blessed with its very fulfillment. No human consciousness can there be so darkened that it is not able to reach up to this simple prayer for good. And with the prayer comes blessedness: "Blessed are they."
"Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy." No law of God imposes penalties or suffering for the good which you do to your neighbor unselfishly. There is a blessing, a rich gain, which you can possess today, for every loving thought and deed. Accept this blessing. "Blessed are the merciful."
"Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God." When the voices of physical sense are hushed, when thought is transfigured through complete subjection to the divine will, then God is seen face to face. This is the spiritual ascension above all human striving, in which man finds himself through Science in conscious and complete harmony with God's government. For this spiritual purity there can be no counterfeit. The blessedness which it brings, no person, place, nor thing can take away.
In the early days of the Christian Science Cause, when Mrs. Eddy served as pastor of her church in Boston, she wrote a short poem. It is named "Feed My Sheep" (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 46). Every Christian Scientist treasures it, and its beauty and tenderness have been repeatedly acknowledged by many who are not Christian Scientists. In simple, touching words which kindle with the beauty of holiness, it tells of God's loving government of His children, and how every lamb in every flock may come under its protection. In these lines there is a prayer and a blessing for everyone in this audience eternally.
"Shepherd, show me how to go
O'er the hillside steep,
How to gather, how to sow, —
How to feed Thy sheep;
I will listen for Thy voice,
Lest my footsteps stray;
I will follow and rejoice
All the rugged way.
"Thou wilt bind the stubborn will,
Wound the callous breast,
Make self-righteousness be still,
Break earth's stupid rest.
Strangers on a barren shore,
Lab'ring long and lone,
We would enter by the door,
And thou know'st Thine own.
"So, when day grows dark and cold,
Tear or triumph harms,
Lead Thy lambkins to the fold,
Take them in Thine arms;
Feed the hungry, heal the heart,
Till the morning's beam;
White as wool, ere they depart,
Shepherd, wash them clean."
[Delivered Sept. 30, 1935, in Cadle Tabernacle in Indianapolis, Indiana, under the auspices of Second Church of Christ, Scientist, and published in The Marion County Mail of Indianapolis, date unknown. The delivery date was found in a briefer summary published in The Indianapolis Star, Oct. 1, 1935.]