Sue Harper Mims
Member of the Board of Lectureship of The Mother
Church,
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts
To tell of Christian Science in one brief hour is like trying to count the stars in illimitable space, or to number the unceasing waves of the sea this Science of Infinite Mind whose Principle is God.
This divine revelation of Truth has come to us, not only in the eventide of a century, but of an era a dispensation. The same expectancy of some great change, or event, that preceded the first advent of Christianity, already beats in the hearts and minds of a weary, waiting world. Nearly nineteen hundred years ago in response to this intense longing and desire, Truth appeared, doing its mighty works, but many perceived it not, some even bitterly opposed it. Is this second coming also with its wonderful works to be equally unknown and unacknowledged? A thousand tongues of joy and praise respond, No! "The earth helps the woman," and, God-crowned, she, to-day, has brought the little book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," that forever answers the questioning sphynx of human longings, desires, aspirations.
The whence? where? whither? is satisfied in the understanding it gives us of Jesus' words, "I came forth from the Father, and I go to the Father." This is the divine premise and conclusion of Christianity.
Herbert Spencer says: "The entire history of anything must comprise its appearance out of the invisible into the visible, and its disappearance out of the visible into the invisible." Had he only seen this entire fulfilment in Jesus, and its mighty lesson and import to humanity, he would have given a more vital philosophy to the world.
We must all learn that this "little noise between the two silences," this unsatisfactory, fleeting, material sense of existence like the "flower of the grass" "to-day in the field, to-morrow cast into the oven" is not life. Nor can this "puling infancy," and bent and withered age be man.
What is it to be Christian? to be Christ-like? Is it not to imitate Christ Jesus? What did he do in his brief ministry of three years? He taught, he loved, he patiently endured bitter persecution, he healed all manner of disease. He cast out devils, he destroyed sin and triumphed over death and the grave. To do as he did is to be Christ-like, to be Christian. He commanded his disciples to follow him in these demonstrations, saying, If ye believe in me the same works that I do ye shall do also. For this is the way of Life; the healing of the body was not the end, but the means to the end, the way of learning and proving the omnipotence and naturalness of Good, Life, and Love.
Thus he showed us how to work out for ourselves the problem of celestial being, gaining through tears, struggles, trials, the triumphant victory at last, of unity with Good God the omnipresent, divine consciousness. This struggle and progressive attainment brings out the fruits of Spirit: peace, joy, health, harmony, heaven, here and now.
Do Christian Scientists, more or less than other Christians, follow this divine exemplar, and approximate to this divine teaching? As a rule Christian Scientists do, more absolutely than any other class of Christians, come out from the world to be separate not to sit in condemnation on others: but because, when the luster of this great light dawns on them, worldly pleasures vanish as ephemeral shadows, Christian Science so abundantly satisfies the affection and aims; so absolutely answers the demands of reason and logic; so stimulates to noble, spiritual endeavor, that to "know God" and thereby bless men, becomes the one motive in life. It is so absorbing, so full of peace and joy and triumph that worldly ambitions and pleasures fall of their own weight, as naturally as the frail petals of a blossom fall when the fruit begins to form.
I believe it is generally conceded by all who know them that no body of Christians more reverently and assiduously obey the injunction, "Search the Scriptures," and I have never met a fair-minded, spiritually enlightened Christian who did not confess to pleasure and profit in discussing with them the spiritually scientific interpretation of the Bible, as in Christian Science. None others do the healing by the logical, scientific understanding of cause and effect, that Good cannot produce evil and while they are but in the infancy of their understanding of this infinite Truth, it is but just to say, that there is scarcely a disease known to the modern world that has not been healed by this spiritual method. Greater works remain to be done, as their growth increases and human resistance lessens.
These "signs of discipleship," coupled as they always are with the reforming and regenerating power of Spirit, make Christian Science the most comprehensively philanthropic movement on earth, for it includes in its work everything that the noblest philanthropy strives to accomplish. It is health-giving, it is divinely educational, it is the true and only asylum, the only true socialism; acknowledging but one Mind, one Father, one family, the brotherhood of man, all heirs of the same affluent Love each having all, as he claims it by divine birthright and heirship. Is not this Christian?
Indeed, all that poets have dreamed of, all that philosophy has striven for, all that science has toiled for, in laborious marches toward the conquest of material forces and laws, is gathered in one grand sunburst of Truth, and its Discoverer, the Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, has named it Christian Science.
Through it, all will some glad day sit at the feet of Jesus and acknowledge one Cause, one Intelligence, and its perfect harmonious phenomena, man, and the spiritual universe.
Glimpses of the reality of the spiritual cosmos have lightened the darkness of material history for centuries, from Plato to Emerson, and brightens like a fine thread of gold the woof of German transcendentalism, but it was left for one woman to clinch this glimpse of Truth with the incontrovertible logic that if the spiritual is the infinite Real, then correspondingly the material must be the unreal.
Two opposites cannot possibly both be real. She, in her teachings in Christian Science, holds to this unswerving, divine logic, brings its beneficence to meet human needs, and proves it absolute.
This divine Science summons each individual to choose which shall be made real to his or her consciousness; the perfect, spiritual, harmonious, and eternal, or its opposite, the imperfect, material, discordant, and mortal, unreal. It calls the slumbering world to awake, understand, and apply the power of spiritual thought.
Think truly, and thy thought
Shall the world's great famine feed.
Speak truly, and each word of thine
Shall be a fruitful seed;
Live truly, and thy life shall be
A grand and noble creed.
Let us learn to think no evil, but to think Life, Love, Truth think it constantly. Let our "conversation be in Heaven." Let us talk and write of beauty, purity, health, holiness. Think no evil and it will cease to be. Mind is the only Substance, causation. When we cease to think sin, disease, and death, they will cease to be, for they are not of God, or Truth, and without human belief in them they have no basis. Jesus taught this divine metaphysics, saying: "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man, but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man." It is not what one eats, but what one thinks that injures and defiles.
In Christian Science this transcendentalism of Jesus, lifting humanity from the finite sense of origin to the infinite, divine, is proved by him and his followers to be at the same time the most practical system ever given to mortals. It is applied Christianity, revealing a divine Principle, ever-active, ever-operative, an ever-present help in trouble, here and now, as the Scriptures declare God to be. This very reliance on God for the full salvation from sickness as well as sin, requires a closer walk with Him, a daily, nay, hourly, communion with the Principle that heals, blesses, sustains, supplies, and governs man; it forces the warfare with all fleshliness, till the unity with Life and Love is attained, and harmony, or the heaven within us, is reached.
When, therefore, the transfiguring power of this mighty Truth is doing its work in our consciousness and lives, and all existence is bathed in the glow of a higher conception of God, and His man, and His universe, "perfect and immortal" because He, the Creator Cause is perfect, when the Bible is seen to be the metaphysics of God, and all other literature pales into insignificance beside this book, illumined by "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures;" when we hear the imperative call: "Go ye into the world, proclaim the glad tidings," and we are met with the indifference or scorn of other Christians, the condemnation of pulpit and press, a rude shock for the moment startles us, for not less, but more of God, not less of Love, but more, does Christian Science offer to all. "The bond of peace and unity of faith," is the aim and desire of true Christianity everywhere. But, looking down the centuries, we see that this is ever the greeting that Truth receives, the sword, the cross, the spear, the scorn of materialism, the steady opposition to whatever disturbs the settled indolence of old systems, creeds, convictions. But God's law of infinite progression is ever operative and nothing can stay its divine force. It is man's sublime destiny to unfold more and more to the unending bliss and unspeakable joy that God has for them who love Him.
This sublime system is not confined to bodily healing. Our Leader says: "It is only the bugle call to higher action;" it ramifies every condition, its influence is silent like the dew, but it dissolves the mists of poverty and ignorance, it enlarges the scope of true government and harmonizes nations. God is seen to dwell with men. It wipes away all tears, for it is the Comforter, leading into all Truth, explaining the infinite meanings of God's ways to men. A true Christian Scientist must be a good citizen, a good neighbor; he must prove that honesty is the only true policy; that God Good is with the upright; that there is a divine way to have all that the "Gentiles seek after," and that is to "seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added," as the divine sequence of the understanding of Good. This recognition of Love's willingness and ability to supply, can still fill the widow's cruse and multiply the meal. Jesus proved the harvest was not from the ground, but from God omnipresent Mind.
Outside of Christian Science there is really no logical declaration of God and His relation to His universe and man. Since God Good (they are the same word) is the only Creator, there can be but one creation, which must be as perfect, harmonious, and immortal as its Creator. Jesus said: "Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect." God, speaking through Moses, said: "Be ye holy, for I am holy." Throughout the Scriptures this logical recognition of cause and effect is constantly acknowledged, and this recognition, and the steadfast abiding in it is the basis of all Christian healing. Jesus said: "Call no man your father upon the earth; for one is your Father, which is in Heaven." This is the very stepping-stone to Heaven. It has lain for centuries an unused pearl, scarcely accepted. Only the revelation of the power of thought as received in Christian Science enables us to appreciate and utilize it.
Paul and John, in tender earnestness, repeatedly assure us that we are now the children of God, the offspring of Spirit, and heirs, not of hereditary sin and disease, but of power, and glory, and dominion. We are learning that as a man understandeth, so is he. There is no more proof that man is, or ever was material and mortal, than that the earth was once flat, and that the sun and moon rose and set to lighten a stationary planet. It is in each proposition, the same physical sense testimony, which is the carnal mind's enmity to Truth or Science.
Nothing but perfection, harmony, and immortality can be the logical deduction from the basis of one Creator, who is infinitely wise, loving, and good. Otherwise we have the impossible inference that the omnipotent Creator is at war with his own body manifestation; Creation (Cause) at variance with its own effect. Omnipotence is dethroned, and God, or Good, is not supreme. All this is inconceivable to enlightened thought hence honest infidels and thinking agnostics. Christian Science asks the world to rest in the contemplation of a nobler conception of God as the infinite Principle, universal, impartial, unchanging Truth, Life, and Love, and His spiritual universe, including man. One Cause, governing by spiritual law His own manifestation, image, or reflection, the same "yesterday, to-day, and forever."
It is this infinite Perfection that is our refuge from the seeming ills and discords of the material sense existence. Only on the basis that infinite Life and Love can have no opposites, does Christian Science deny the reality of evil, disease, and discord, and affirm the eternal reality of Good. He made all that was made, "and without Him was not anything made that was made," and He pronounced His creation Good. Jesus emphatically calls evil the lie and not the Truth of Being. He said to the sick woman: "whom Satan hath bound," and to the sick man, "Go, and sin no more," thus recognizing error, not Truth, as the cause of sickness and death. Truth makes free from these illusions. It comes to the understanding, judging not by the "seeing of the eye nor the hearing of the ear," but judging righteous judgment. It comes a sword, separating between the holy and unholy, the clean and unclean, dividing the real from the unrealas we look not upon the seen and temporal, but upon the unseen and eternal.
I hope that these few words, added to the noble lives led by its followers in demonstrating this Truth, may help to prove that Christian Science is Christian; it remains to be seen if it is Scientific. The charge that Christian Science is neither Christian nor Scientific needs more than a passing notice, although a clever woman calls this charge: "The fossil of wisdomless wit."
For centuries the word science has been so appropriated by materialists, and claimed to have relation only to physical causes, and their phenomena, that quite a shock was felt when it was first applied to religion. The term science is properly applicable to anything that shows the relations between laws, principles, and systematized facts, whether material or immaterial. Webster defines it as,
1. Ascertained Truth.
2. Accumulated and ascertained knowledge which has been formulated and systematized with reference to the discovery of truths by the operation of laws.
3. A collection of the general principles, or leading truths, relating to any subject arranged in systematic order.
Pure Science is built upon self-evident truths. Exact Science is knowledge, so arranged that prediction and verification by experiment are possible. Applied Science is a knowledge of phenomena as explained, accounted for, or produced by means of powers, causes, or laws.
Christian Science fulfils every demand of these definitions it is a provable or demonstrable truth.
Professor Hoffman, in his book, "The Sphere of Science," defines the term thus: "Science is logically arranged and systematized knowledge, or, more fully, that kind of knowledge which consists of facts, accurately verified and logically put together in a system." Elsewhere he says: "The facts of the universe that are open to investigation are of two kinds: mental facts, which are the most certain of facts, and material facts." It is clear that Science must have a Principle. Webster defines Principle as the Cause, Source, Origin of anything; that from which a thing proceeds; in Science an admitted truth. Has Christian Science a Principle? It has admitted truth as its Principle. It is an admitted Truth that there is one God; God is infinite; that He is omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient. God is Spirit, God is Love, God is Life, God is Good, God is the one Cause or Principle. Webster defines Spirit as "Intelligence conceived of as apart from any material organization; vital energy, force, as distinct from matter; an immaterial, intelligent substance."
New let us look for a moment at Webster's definition of a syllogism, and then ascertain if Christian Science is pure Science, which Webster has before defined as built upon self-evident truths. "A syllogism is the regular, logical form of an argument, consisting of three propositions, of which the first two are called the premises, and a conclusion. The conclusion necessarily follows the premises, so that if these are true the conclusions must be true." It is an admitted fact that God is Spirit; it is also an admitted fact that God is infinite. These premises being true, the conclusion that Spirit is infinite must be true. Now Spirit, according to Webster is "Intelligence or Mind apart from any physical organization," and infinite is limitless. Therefore, the conclusion of our syllogism may be stated thus: Immaterial intelligence is limitless, or Mind is All-in-all, which is the fundamental statement of Christian Science. God is Good, and "in Him there is no evil." God is omnipotent or all powerful, and evil is powerless.
God is Truth, God is Life and Love. There is nothing true but Truth; hence, as things equal to the same thing are equal to each other, there is nothing true but Life and Love. Christian Science has as its Principle God, infinite Good, an admitted Truth, and is, therefore, pure Science, because it is built upon self-evident truths. A science must recognize law. Webster defines law as "a controlling regulation, or a rule, as being so certain and constant that it is conceived of as imposed by the will of God, or some controlling authority." Christian Science finds in the Scriptures the laws of Being, and by applying these laws understandingly, its followers are enabled to verify by experiment or prove that it is exact Science. It explains phenomena of every kind, and is, therefore, applied Science. What proper place has faith in Science? Let us quote from Professor Hoffman: "Faith, considered as a mental act, is exercised in the formation of every Science. There could be no Science without faith any more than there could be extension without space." Webster defines faith as "The assent of the mind to a statement or proposition on the grounds of its manifest truth."
Christian Science is not dependent on faith as the term is commonly understood, but is founded on the "assent to the manifest truth of a statement;" there is but one God, and that God is Spirit; there is but one Cause, and the law that like produces like. Christian Science lifts the definition of faith to Paul's apprehension, as "the substance of things hoped for," the "conviction of unseen realities," which is the literal translation of that passage, "Evidence of things not seen."
Thus we see that Science belongs as much to the laws governing mental phenomena as to physical causes and effects. This was for a long time absolutely ignored, and when Wisdom wedded those two words, Christian Science, in indissoluble and eternal union, old opinions felt a strange convulsion. That word is now the lode star of the age. The millennial age must be the scientific age, when the Mind that is Love will rule with the rod of unerring Principle, the whole world; not by physical law that blasts while it blesses, but by spiritual law, that says to the tempest, "Peace be still," and hears the "still small voice" above the ocean's roar. This will be the spiritually scientific age.
Since the discovery of Christian Science more than thirty years ago (which rent the fetters of the finite mind) the development along the line of subtle forces has been truly wonderful. That still unknown quantity (except to the spiritually scientific thought), electricity, has been brought from the clouds and chained to the uses of man; continents clasp hands with the throbbing cable beneath the ocean's depths; friends speak almost face to face along the lines; more and more subtle is it found to be, till now it is whispered that the wire is not needed; thought needs no wire. Thus even what we deemed the physical is rising to higher and subtler forms out of matter, and we enjoy the many conquests of science in every direction. More clearly are we learning that unerring law governs everything, even the wandering comet yielding to its unswerving demands. Is Omniscience and His government alone unscientific? Is God's revelation of Himself lawless?
Christian Scientists take the "Scriptures for their guide to eternal life." (S. & H.) David repeatedly prayed "to understand Thy law;" "I meditate on Thy law;" "Make me to see wondrous things out of Thy law," evidently recognizing it as something to be spiritually discerned. As above and beyond the so-called physical law Jesus said: "I came not to destroy, but to fulfil the law." To complete the demonstration of the immortal law of endless life, Paul said: "The law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." Also: "The carnal mind is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Since God's law is a law of infinite Spirit, this carnal mind is outside the infinite Reality of the divine law of life and love.
John said: "Sin is lawlessness." Therefore, sin is outside the Reality of the infinite law of God or Good, where Spirit is supreme.
This brings us to the Reality of the law of Good, of Life and Love, and thus we see that Christianity as a revelation and demonstration of divine law is not Christianity unless it is Scientific.
As there is one Law Giver, even God, there can really be but one infinite Science, which is and must be Christian Science, whose law is a spiritual law, a moral force, governing all the phenomena of Spirit in immortal harmony. In this Science the Christianity of Jesus is lifted out of the mists that have obscured it, and those who love it and prove it, and try to live it, know that it is establishing the kingdom of God, the law of Love, on earth. The character and the works of Jesus are illumined and revealed in their majesty and glory. In this Soul-light the meek and mighty Nazarene is seen to be the only truly Scientific man who ever lived; the only one who demonstrated or fulfilled the law of Life, that "makes us free from the law of sin and death." If Jesus did his works according to God's law in destroying sin, sickness, and death, that law, or divine Principle, must be the unchanging, universal, eternal Principle of man and the universe, and must be, as Jesus certainly taught, available to any of his followers who understand him; a Principle for all time and for all men. If ye believe on me [understand me] ye shall do the works that I do, even greater works, because I go to the Father.
If his followers do even the smallest problem according to this Principle, finding the true result, even if it is not the ultimate conclusion, it is as truly scientific as if it were the greatest; just as two and two making four is just as true as that two millions and two millions make four millions.
We have scarcely dared to grasp the stupendous possibilities of Scientific Christianity. In our blindness we forget how glowingly St. Paul speaks of the fact that Jesus hath "abolished death," that he took the ordinances or laws that were against us, triumphed over them openly, and nailed them to his cross.
Are the eyes and ears of this generation too gross to comprehend the infinite demands of Christianity?
The prophets ever foreshadowed, and even partially demonstrated, this supremacy of Spirit, but Jesus alone solved its problem to its triumphant finale.
Understanding his unity with the Father, his Divine cause, he attained in his brief ministry his God-given dominion and heirship. From his recognition of the outspread affluence of Love, he fed the multitudes, because he knew that Life was and is God, the Mind of all, and that neither are in, nor of matter; he raised Lazarus, knowing that Spirit is substance, and matter illusion; he walked over the waves, understanding himself as reflecting infinite Intelligence; he spake as never man spake.
Behold this transcendent being, and knowing that he is our Elder Brother and Way Shower, applying and demonstrating a universal law or principle, are we rash in saying that some day, and not far distant, all art, philosophy, science, including chemistry, will sit at the feet of the Anointed One, and all find themselves included in the infinite Love, the divinely intelligent Principle of the universe? In his Science, Christian Science, which is the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, leading into all truth, taking of his words and works and interpreting them to us in the light of Spirit, we see him not the victim to appease the wrath of God, but the scientific victor through selfless love, over every limitation of matter, rending its veil from top to bottom, and revealing the eternal co-existence of God and man; then ascending to his invisible (to us) spiritual individuality in Soul, Mind. To his followers he said: Go ye into the world, proclaim the glad tidings, heal the sick, "and these signs shall follow them that believe: They shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them. They shall lay their hands on the sick and they shall recover." That is, if they understand me and my method they, too, shall follow me in demonstrating the supremacy of the spiritual law of harmony, illustrate the reality of Life and Love, annulling the material law of sin and discord.
"To him that overcometh will I give to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set with my Father in His throne." Thus we see that the true Christian life must be a constant growth in the understanding and application of divine, spiritual law to human needs in all the relations of life a progressive life, constant gain in spiritual attainment till we, too, are one with the Infinite Love.
Why has it taken so long for this Science to come? some one will ask. Let us read a few words from Dr. Hepworth, of New York, one of the most distinguished clergymen of that city. He writes,
"Look at Christ. What did he do and see? So much that he did not think it wise to tell it all. We have been trying to digest his philosophy of life for many ages, but have only succeeded in getting ourselves into a theological snarl. He wanted to tell us how to live, but we have persuaded ourselves that he only wanted to tell us what to believe. He is the Stranger in our great company even now. If he were to return and repeat his words, we would turn our backs on him as they did of old. The bottom facts of Christian society and of a Christian life are not appreciated nor recognized. We are millions of miles distant from the Truth he taught. How close the Father was to him. And yet no closer than He may be to us. How calm under the stress of affliction he was, and yet no calmer than we can be when we get our spiritual food from the same source. We must realize these things, must meditate upon them, until they become a part of us; must appropriate them to our own use. Then the bitterness of life will give way to sweetness. There will be more hopefulness in our hearts, and our religion will be a series of lighthouses, enabling us to steer clear of shoals and rocks and to anchor in the haven of Heaven at last."
Dr. Hepworth is only one of many who are awakening to the fact that the religion of Jesus has been obscured by "creeds, and doctrines of men." The age seems barely able to grasp it yet, as is evidenced by the opposition to Christian Science, which is an explication of Jesus and his doctrine, life, and works. We should not be surprised that it has taken eighteen hundred years to grasp the infinite meanings of this transcendent life; this life so absolutely unique, this doctrine so entirely revolutionary; this promise of man's spiritual origin and conclusion, of his ascension out of matter into Mind, this denial of material birth and evolution, so relentlessly radical. Jesus always reckoned himself spiritually. This made him the Way-shower.
It needed all these years for the divine leaven to work, preparing humanity for the Science of Being. It needed a scientific age.
In this Science of Being, man is the divine ideal, inseparable from the Father or divine Mind. Through Christian Science this ideal is elevating and purifying human life and character. Christian Science offers to all a system by which each one may prove for himself or herself the transfiguring power of this ideal, held steadfastly in thought, subduing all things unto itself, dispelling the illusions of sin, sickness, and death, until this ideal becomes the only real. How exquisitely St. Paul described this wonderful, transfiguring, universal process. "We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." "Then will come the statelier Eden back to man," then will the desire of all nations be realized,
When from the lips of Truth one mighty breath
Shall, like a whirlwind, scatter to the breeze
The whole dark pile of human mockeries:
Then shall the reign of Mind commence on earth,
And starting as from a second birth,
Man. in the sunshine of the world's new spring.
Shall walk transparent like some holy thing.
A consciousness permeated with this abiding Christ, or divine ideal of ever-present Love radiates health and holiness as spontaneously as the sun emits light.
The Spiritual Idea of Truth, manifested by Jesus, has been slowly working all these centuries, till in this age, near the close of this century, one human consciousness has been clear, pure, spiritual enough to let in the Light of infinite Love, and the Rev. Mary Baker Eddy gives us "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" that unlocks its hidden treasures and solves the mysteries of Being.
In the plenitude of her maturity, she in selfless love and matchless wisdom, is leading this great movement toward the physical and spiritual freedom of the race.
It is, perhaps, a surprise to many that this Science of Sciences should have come through a woman a woman meek and mighty. Strong in the strength of spirit, brave with the courage of a God-bestowed evangel. Nor is this strange. Truth is not a tower of Babel, a structure of material hypotheses and theories, reaching Heaven on a material basis. It is a revelation, descending from God, out of Heaven. It is spiritually discerned by the pure in heart. The transparency of a purified affection, a selfless glorified life of love and tenderness were the requisites. Woman first proved the divine fatherhood of God. First at the sepulchre, she saw the immortality of man proven and rise superior to fleshly conditions and material laws, and now woman has given us the Science of Infinite Being, revealing the limitless possibilities of man, as heir through divine birthright of all good, eternal life and perfection.
[Delivered Dec. 21, 1898, in the auditorium of the Young Men's Christian Association at Atlanta, Georgia, and published in The Christian Science Journal, August, 1899. A break was added to a large paragraph for this transcript.]