Margaret Morrison, C.S., of Chicago, Illinois
Member of the Board of Lectureship of The
Mother Church,
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts
Margaret Morrison, C.S., of Chicago, Ill., lectured on "Christian Science Teaches the Acceptance of Omnipresent Good" Tuesday evening in the church edifice under the auspices of the Third Church of Christ, Scientist. Miss Morrison is a member of the Board of Lectureship of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass. The lecturer was introduced by Mrs. Lydia D. Ryker. Her lecture follows substantially as it was given:
If each individual in this audience were to be asked what is the most important thing in life for him, the answers would probably be as many and as varied as the individuals. Christian Science has one answer to that question which can be proved satisfying to each and all. The most important thing in anyone's life is that he have a correct concept of God, because his concept of God governs his thinking and acting whether he is conscious of it or not. He may think he has no concept of God — even that he does not believe in God, at any rate not as that word is commonly used; nevertheless he believes in his own existence, his own consciousness. Something has caused him to be, so there must be cause; and is not cause a good name for God? Whether that cause is matter or Spirit is the great decision to be made. It cannot be a mixture of both, because Spirit and matter are opposites and cannot possibly be mixed, any more than can light and darkness.
To know what God in reality is, is the most tremendously important thing to be known — in fact, it is the only important thing to be known, because in that knowledge is included the knowledge of all that really exists, and Jesus assured us that knowledge is eternal life. It must be emphatically stated that the teaching of Christian Science as to the real nature of God, cause and effect is based on the Bible, particularly on the nature of God as taught and demonstrated by Christ Jesus.
The truth about God and His creation, as it was demonstrated by Christ Jesus, was revealed to Mary Baker Eddy through her consecrated study and spiritually logical interpretation of the Bible. Because of her receptivity to its spiritual import and her acceptance of the actuality of its teaching, she was able to give the sign required by Jesus of his followers, "They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." There probably can never be a complete record of the healings accomplished by Mrs. Eddy through the spoken word of Truth.
That the human mind is slow to see and accept the true nature of God as Spirit, altogether good, is evidenced in that conversation of Jesus with his disciples, one of his last, as recorded in the fourteenth chapter of St. John: "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me." "I go to prepare a place for you . . . that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know."
With what infinite tenderness and compassion did he thus seek to show his disciples the way, as he had been showing it to them throughout his entire ministry, and yet Thomas said to him, "Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?" And Philip said, "Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us." With what patience and wistfulness Jesus answered him; "Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? . . . Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake." It is, then, from a spiritual understanding of the works of Jesus that we must learn the true nature of the Father. Those works of unsurpassed power, dominion, and goodness were based on the truth that God is Spirit and that, as Jesus himself said, "There is none good but one, that is, God."
The works of the great Master of metaphysics were accomplished by an understanding of this demonstrable truth: God is Spirit; God is good; God is All and the only good. From this pure premise of infinite, invincible good Jesus met and mastered every argument of the carnal mind based on the idolatrous premise of a god who is a mixture of Spirit and matter, good and evil. Those arguments presented themselves to Jesus just as they do to us today in the seeming manifestation of sin, sickness, lack, disease, deformity, death. How completely and immediately Jesus refuted those arguments, dispelled illusions, and revealed in their place reality — life, health, symmetry, abundance, and right activity.
With the same tenderness, with compassion and clarity, Christian Science is today showing this same way of life. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, has given us the exact Science of that way. She has proved that that alone is real which is in accord with divine Principle, perfect Mind, the only cause and creator. The unreality of anything contrary to divine Principle inevitably follows.
Anyone who reads an authentic, unprejudiced biography of Mrs. Eddy will see how in her own human experience she was obliged to meet and prove unreal every argument that the carnal mind could marshal against her; how convincingly she refuted ill-health, poverty, slander, hatred, and persecution; how triumphantly she rose to heights of spiritual demonstration and established the Science of Christianity and its healing ministry. Speaking of the understanding which Spirit imparts, she says, it "is not intellectual, is not the result of scholarly attainments; it is the reality of all things brought to light" (Science and Health, p. 505). Then, let us not say with the doubting Thomas, "How can we know the way?" nor with the unseeing Philip, "Shew us the Father." Let us with freedom of mind and simplicity of heart pray with the Psalmist, "Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law." Thus is the reality of omnipresent good brought to light for our joyous acceptance.
Granting the Christianly scientific premise that God is Spirit, it becomes clear that God can be understood only through the senses of Spirit. In the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," its author, Mary Baker Eddy, writes (p. 274), "The senses of Spirit abide in Love, and they demonstrate Truth and Life." In the same book she says (p. 273): "The physical senses can take no cognizance of God and spiritual Truth. Human belief has sought out many inventions, but not one of them can solve the problem of being without the divine Principle of divine Science."
It is a fact that one cannot learn anything true about Life and its activities, about his own life and progress, through the physical senses, the carnal mind. St. Paul, that great follower of Truth, who so clearly saw reality, has this to say of the carnal mind: "To be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." And Jesus disposed forever of any reality in the testimony of the physical senses or evil when he classified evil, personalized as the devil, as a "liar, and the father of it." Surely there can be no clearer or more concise statement of the status of evil than that.
The physical senses testify only to that which is unreal, the opposite of the real, the suppositional opposer of Spirit called matter. Can one find any of the qualities of Spirit or Mind in that which is called matter? Does one turn to matter for intelligence, good judgment, discernment, animation, joy, love, peace, and power? Would one necessarily turn to the person of the greatest avoirdupois to find the greatest wisdom, the finest discernment, or keenest power of decision? Yet, if, as the human mind declares, matter is the source and possessor of these qualities, would it not be logical to believe that the more matter we had, the more of the qualities of Mind we would have, and vice versa, the less matter, the less Mind? In such a case one might, indeed, watch the scales with excited interest and trepidation to see how much intelligence, joy, promptness, honesty, peace, and kindliness he was losing or gaining.
No, my friends, the qualities of Mind, the very substance of Life and Love, never get out of Spirit into matter, out of Mind into a physical body. Therefore, they are never subject to the limitations or so-called laws of matter or a matter body. Life is never subject to death, health is never liable to sickness, intelligence is never controlled by nonintelligence, the infinite measured by the finite, nor is good at any time overshadowed by evil. The veritable reality remains forever the veritable reality of all things, ever-present to be accepted and enjoyed, never interrupted nor reversed by the falsities of the physical senses. In order, then, to know what is real or true about God, the one and only cause or creator, we must turn completely away from the testimony of the physical senses to the senses of Spirit and abide therein. There we find, as the textbook says (p. 335), "Reality is spiritual, harmonious, immutable, immortal, divine, eternal." It is the ever-present verity of God and His goodness.
What about man, who is the expression of Mind, one with and inseparable from his divine source, the man that Jesus represented and brought to light in his healing works? We read in Science and Health (p. 352), "To Jesus, not materiality, but spirituality, was the reality of man's existence." It follows that only in Mind or Spirit can man's reality be found and brought to light for our acceptance. On page 475 of Science and Health will be found a most comprehensive definition of man.
There we are told, "He [man] is the compound idea of God, including all right ideas; . . . the conscious identity of being as found in Science, in which man is the reflection of God, or Mind, and therefore is eternal." Does this not make it clear that the ideas of divine Mind constitute the identity of man, and the qualities of Spirit the undying substance of man? Thus man is found only in the reality of perfection, perpetually enjoying and continually satisfied with his own self-completion.
As one understands this scientific fact, he sees that the most important thing in life for him is to know, to accept, and to live his true selfhood. What he has materially, what he does humanly, or where he seems to be, sink into insignificance before the reality and the sublimity of what he is. He can never change, add to, nor take from what he is. No material conditions or circumstances can change, enhance, or degrade what he is; but an understanding, an acceptance of what he is determines what he has, what he does, and controls his career and environment.
His understanding of the reality of being is a law to his human living in every detail. A scientific realization of what he is will solve any so-called problem which mortal mind may present. An unreserved acknowledgment of the allness and perfection of God, and man as His expression, brings to light spiritual law in operation where so-called material law claims to be in action. We can then see the harmony and reality of true being where a false sense of things would present an illusion of evil and discord.
As spirituality is the reality of man's existence, the faculties of man are spiritual and indestructible. Man has these spiritual faculties by reflection. He sees because divine Mind sees. He hears because divine Mind hears. This is very definitely taught in the textbook, where we are given this definition (p. 585); "Ears. Not organs of the so-called corporeal senses, but spiritual understanding." Realizing the truth of this definition, one will cease the vain effort to make material organs hear or to restore to them something they never really possessed. Rather will he be most careful to listen for, to hear, and to accept as real only the voice of Truth declaring the infinite perfection of being, of Soul's indestructible faculty of hearing. Through the intelligent cultivation of the faculty of spiritual understanding, he will find his human sense of hearing becoming accurate and acute.
"Eyes," we read in the textbook (p. 586), are, "Spiritual discernment, — not material but mental." Now, spiritual discernment sees only the perfection of reality. As one consistently cultivates this faculty of spiritual discernment, patiently and persistently refusing the pictures of sense testimony, as he resists the temptation to try to make material organs see, but consecrately and intelligently sees God aright and sees as God sees, he will find his human sense of vision strengthened and clarified.
Jesus, referring to the mental blindness of his disciples, who saw not the import of his mighty works, said to them on one occasion, "Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not?" On another occasion, it is recorded two blind men followed him begging that he would restore their sight. That record reads: "And Jesus saith unto them, Believe ye that I am able to do this? They said unto him, Yea, Lord. Then touched he their eyes, saying, According to your faith be it unto you. And their eyes were opened." Surely this indicates a mental activity. Their faith, touched by spiritual understanding, revealed the unmarred perfection of the reality of spiritual vision and dispelled the darkness of false belief. Jesus touched their eyes, awakened their "spiritual discernment," and they saw. So, today, Christian Science is touching our eyes, opening our understanding to behold reality. Observing its teaching, we cease trying to harmonize unreality and we accept and rejoice in the ever-present harmony of reality.
Through Christian Science we are being educated out of false material beliefs and superstitions into an understanding of spiritual facts and laws, into an understanding of the ever-presence and all-presence of good ordained and maintained by immutable, divine Principle. And so the aim and activity of one's living becomes not that of getting but of accepting. One begins to accept the good that is already his by reason of the truth of his being. To possess a thing spiritually is to possess it substantially, for in reality Spirit is substance — indeed, the only substance.
Real substance is never found in the inanimate and non-intelligent. It is found only in the animate, intelligent, active, and ever-conscious ideas and qualities of divine Mind. Substance is not being and never can be disabled, damaged, depleted, or destroyed, all seeming devastations of war to the contrary. Only he can be said actually to possess a thing who possesses it spiritually, through spiritual understanding. The only reason one seems to lack any good thing is because he believes it to be material rather than spiritual.
When one honors God with his concept of substance and sees it is mental, he sees that he already possesses it as a part of his true being. So he learns to accept all things desirable and needful as divine ideas. He learns to be wholly satisfied with those ideas and their activities and ceases his struggle to get material things.
He learns that Christian Science does not demonstrate things; it demonstrates the Mind of Christ. But he also learns that one cannot have the Mind of Christ and not have every good thing, any more than one can have the sun and not have light. And do not, for one instant, think that this is impractical. It is the only truly practical activity there is, because it is the reflected activity of God and His creative power, and when it is accepted as individual living one cannot shut the door on the good that is added. His will, indeed, be a blessing "that there shall not be room enough to receive it."
A very simple story of a young lad, a pupil in a Christian Science Sunday School, may serve to illustrate the practical value of seeking first the kingdom of God. This young boy, on being asked by his teacher one Sunday how he had demonstrated through the week what he had learned in Sunday School on the previous Sunday, told this story. The boy was very keen about swimming. That week there had been a race in the natatorium where he swam, and a prize had been offered to the boy winning the race.
He wanted the prize more than he had ever wanted anything in his life. His desire for the prize was so great that he could think of nothing else. He entered the race with that great longing in his heart, and soon found to his dismay that he was falling behind until he was almost the last boy in the race. Then he began to wake up, and he said: "I thought I had better get busy thinking about God and what I had been taught about Him. You know, I got so busy thinking about God, I forgot all about the prize, and the first thing I knew I was at the end of the tank, and they put the prize in my hand." The lesson is obvious.
Then, let us not postpone our good. Let us live in the day of acceptance rather than in the tomorrow of expectance. A very wise student and demonstrator of Christian Science once said, "If the devil can't make you fear a future hell, he will try to make you hope for a future heaven." Heaven is here and now, the only reality of Life, and each individual is included in that heaven, that harmonious whole which constitutes reality.
One of the very general and recurring fears of the carnal mind is that of lack of employment. Does someone seem to be struggling with that argument? Then let him stop striving so hard to "get a job" and quietly accept the employment that is permanently and constantly his. No matter what the human dream of employment may seem to be, the only real employment there is or can ever be is that of expressing the reality of being. One might call it the employment of being — consciously being what one actually is, the activity of divine Mind. Webster's definition of "employment" is, in part, "That which engages or occupies; that which consumes time or attention." So, when the argument is, "out of a job," no employment, let one accept wholeheartedly, industriously, and joyfully his true employment of expressing Mind. Let his thought and attention be occupied, his time consumed, by actively expressing the qualities of being, which are the reality of being — love, joy, peace, vitality, confidence, vigor, intelligence, made active in kindly service. Then he is employed, and he will find the lying argument of unemployment scientifically, effectually, and permanently routed. The human job will be added, never fear.
"Know well thyself, Thy grief no real thing!
For man, like nature, is the work of Him
Who bade the morning stars forever sing.
Did not His sons, triumphant, shout for joy?
And art not thou a son in His employment?"
Does the argument seem to be that of depression, sadness, lack of joy? Then do not wait for something to be happy about, but accept the joy that is already yours. Bear in mind the fact that joy is a golden quality of Mind, ever-present, ever possessed, utterly and completely independent of the limitations of personal sense; independent of person, place, or circumstance. It is to be accepted as the fact of being and allowed to shine on all, blessing all with its tender radiance.
Selfless joy is the handmaid of Love, and gladly does Love's bidding. Jesus spoke of your joy which "no man taketh from you." This joy in good or God is an effectual armor against what is called mental malpractice. Jealousy, envy, malice, or hatred find no response from a joyful heart, and fall harmless before its radiance. Accept this God-bestowed gift, your joy, and let it be seen of men. Then you will be joyful, not in spite of circumstances, but because of reality brought to light.
Is the argument that of physical sickness or disease? Then turn to spiritual reality, finding and accepting the scientific fact of health. The health of man in the reality of being can no more be invaded by sickness or disease than the principle of mathematics can be invaded or altered by a mistake in computation, or a light-filled room be invaded by darkness. The healing of any disease will come through a vivid and steadfast realization that in the realm of reality there is nothing to be healed, nothing that could possibly be in need of healing.
Let the one seemingly in need of healing keep clearly and consistently in thought the reality of his true being, what he actually is now — not a mortal, but the manifestation of God, reflecting the divine qualities of Mind, whose substance is sound and incapable of discord and decay. If one will do this and rule out of his thinking anything unlike those divine qualities, he will find the illusion of sickness or disease fading from his consciousness.
He will spend more time rejoicing in that which is real and true than he does in striving to heal that which has no right to exist and which does not exist in Truth. He will accept the health that is unremittingly his. Do not think that this is a cold abstraction, a compassionless statement of the letter of Science. It is the warm, invigorating presence of the Christ, an expression of that Love divine whose imperative law forbids the genuine existence of anything unlike itself.
A friend of mine, a student of Christian Science, was at one time obliged to meet a physical difficulty which presented the appearance of a bad case of infection. There was a great desire in her heart to prove the truth in this case, in its absoluteness, that is, not to try to heal sick matter and make it well matter, but to rule the claim out of consciousness because of its fundamental unreality. She desired so to honor God that no belief of anything unlike Him could find acceptance in her thinking. This desire was fulfilled and the healing accomplished through persistent and constant turning away from any thought or picture of the lie and by persistently and consistently rejoicing in that which she knew to be true.
It is not the struggling with error, but rejoicing in Truth that brings the healing Christ into consciousness for oneself and for others. Jesus' radiant vision of infinite divine goodness so shone through every thought and deed that the seeming opposition of the carnal mind melted before that glory; and his inspiring charge, "Be ye therefore perfect," is as vital and insistent to his followers today as when he first uttered it. Mrs. Eddy says (Science and Health, p. 353), "Perfection underlies reality." She also says (p. 417), "Sickness is a dream from which the patient needs to be awakened." So, if one will daily, hourly, declare and accept with rejoicing the sound health and substance of his spiritual being, the dream of sickness and disease, pain, poverty, and sorrow, will fade away before the perfection of reality.
Reality has no relation to time — a beginning and an end. Reality is related only to eternity, having no beginning and no end. Time is a mortal belief; eternity is an immortal fact — not the accumulation of years, but the elimination of years. How few, if any, human beings are free from the weight of time. They have either too little or too much time. Mrs. Eddy defines "time" in the Glossary of Science and Health, in part, as follows (p. 595): "Mortal measurements; limits, in which are summed up all human acts, thoughts, beliefs, opinions, knowledge; matter; error."
When one is tempted to claim that he has not enough time, or too much time on his hands, he might stop and remember that definition. If he did, surely he would not find himself saying so frequently: "I haven't time (error) enough to read and study as I should — there are so many material duties to attend to." "I really haven't time (matter) enough to take care of the specific argument of today. It will have to wait. It isn't so important anyway." What is needed? Is it more "time" or more love of spiritual reality, keener appreciation of Christian Science and its transcendent power, its value to the individual and the world, more selfless love for God and man?
The need is to turn away from time and become conscious of eternity, which represents the orderly unfoldment and government of divine Principle. In the consciousness of eternity one will find his human affairs governed by the orderly procedure of divine law, because spiritual power inhabits eternity. The one who has too little time will find his activities, not within the limitations of "mortal measurements," but properly fitted in and adjusted to the unmeasured, perfectly governed activity of timeless Principle.
The one who has too much time on his hands, with nothing special to do, will learn to accept his privileged and joyous employment of knowing and expressing divine Love, whose opportunities to bless and serve are ever present and unutterably satisfying. If, in one's administration of his daily affairs, he will accept the exact and orderly government of reality or Principle, the hurry, worry, limitations and restrictions of time will vanish before the present completeness and serenity of eternity.
Spiritual understanding, not death, is the steppingstone to eternity. Eternity knows no evil, because there can be no error, no mistake in what Mrs. Eddy calls "the infinite calculus of Spirit" (Science and Health, p. 209). No disease exists in eternity, no pain, no sorrow, no limitation of good, and remember that living in reality we live in eternity. There is no yesterday nor tomorrow in eternity, only today. This day is always a new day, a fresh unfoldment of the Mind which is God. It contains no temptation to look back at yesterday with remorse, regret, or longing; no temptation to scan the future with fear or uncertainty. Today is the omnipresence of Principle, containing all the immediate possibilities of an understanding of Principle, and so today is shining with opportunities to receive and impart to all good, joy, health, peace, encouragement, activity. This new day, today, is safe under the government of divine Love, safe from the invasion of time, doubt, fear, limitation. It is indeed, the very presence and power of God, manifesting His goodness, His tender care and provision, His exalted peace. This day is ours. Let us accept and dwell in this day of reality, serene in the knowledge that before each one of us lies an eternity of good.
In times of stress and danger, the thoughts of men instinctively turn to prayer, and even while using the material means at hand for safety, thought rises above those means to God for succor. This indicates that there is in human consciousness a deep and inherent sense of a power above itself, above the inventions of matter, a power to protect and deliver.
How can one pray aright and experience answered prayer? Again, it is to the teaching of Jesus the Christ that we look for an answer to this question. He has given much clear instruction on this matter by precept and proof. According to the Gospel of St. John, he says: "If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it;" and, "Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you." The important point in prayer, then, is that it be in his "name" — not in the name of the man Jesus, which would tend to restrict petition to a person for material needs or desires, but in the "name" or spiritual nature of the Christ, Truth, the saving Principle which Jesus represented and demonstrated.
The petition that is in accord with Principle must become a prayer of affirmation, because that which is in accord with Principle is the established reality of all existence. The answer to this purified prayer is ever-present to be realized and accepted. Did not Jesus say, "What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them?" How frequently Jesus began his prayer with these words, "Father, I thank thee!" Mrs. Eddy says his prayers "were deep and conscientious protests of Truth, — of man's likeness to God and of man's unity with Truth and Love" (Science and Health, p. 12).
It is thus that one prays aright. Abiding steadfastly in the realization of God as Spirit and man as Spirit's expression of indestructible Life, one experiences protection and deliverance from evil. Evil is powerless against the Christianly scientific truth that God, Love, alone is power and that this power preserves man in inviolate peace and wholeness. In Science and Health we read (p. 514), "Understanding the control which Love held over all, Daniel felt safe in the lions' den, and Paul proved the viper to be harmless." This protection of divine Principle, Love, is being proved in what seem to be miraculous ways by those serving in the forefront of battle.
In the Christian Science periodicals, the monthly Journal, and the weekly Sentinel, may be found many verified testimonies of such experiences. In one of these, a man who had spent three years of active service in France during what is called the first World War, tells how the knowledge he had gained of the inseparability of God and man protected not only himself but all those who were with him when they were obliged to go through a very heavy enemy fire. That morning he had received a letter from home with this message: "Don't forget that man cannot be where God is not."
He says that great provable truth
filled his thoughts and enabled him to demonstrate God's presence and power,
for when the roll call was taken at night, every man under his command was
present and uninjured, with the exception of one slightly hurt finger. Let us,
then, accept the ever-present protection which is so bountifully assured to us
in that beloved ninety-first Psalm: "He that dwelleth in the secret place
of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of
the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust. Surely
he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.
He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shall thou trust:
his truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the
terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence
that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. . .
. Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy
habitation; there shall be no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come
nigh thy dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee
in all thy ways."
Were one to accept as real the picture of the world as seen through the physical senses today, one might be overwhelmed with the vast proportions of the problem to be worked out, but the light of Truth, as revealed in Christian Science, does indeed shine in the seeming darkness, showing the moral and scientific impossibility of any reality in matter or evil. It is revealing the eternal, invincible, and unutterably comforting fact that evil has never destroyed and never can destroy good or one of the least of its manifestations. By the radiance of its own eternal light, Spirit outshines the illusion of evil.
Speaking of St. John's vision of reality, as revealed to him on the isle of Patmos, Mrs. Eddy says (Science and Health, p. 571): "With his spiritual strength, he has opened wide the gate of glory, and illumined the night of paganism with the sublime grandeur of divine Science, outshining sin, sorcery, lust, and hypocrisy." In the light of the sublimity and "grandeur of divine Science" one cannot think of God as being less than infinite — infinite in oneness. "Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord."
This infinite One can have no opposite, no opposition, no opposer. It is conscious only of its own infinite goodness, of the uninterrupted activity of its own perfection. This infinite One, which is Spirit, is never at war, never engaged in a struggle. It knows nothing outside of itself with which or for which to struggle. The universe of Spirit, reality, is perfectly supplied and equipped, intact, and complete.
Peace, then, is the scientific reality and invincible fact of the universe. There could not possibly be an instant in time or space where or when the exact operation of God's law could cease, or God's oneness be divided into races and nations with conflicting interests and limited good. In that oneness of Mind, that exact government of intelligence and Love, the reality of man and his activities is to be found, and the human mode of government must pattern the divine. Could an all-wise, all-loving creator be less than infinite in goodness and provision? Must there not be in the infinitude of Mind infinite resources to sustain and maintain its own creation?
All the wars that seem to afflict mankind are caused by the belief in limitation and its consequent sense of greed, jealousy, and fear. If there were no belief of life in matter, there would be no fear. If there were no fear, there would be no war. Believing substance and supply to be material, there follows the belief of not enough to go around — not room enough, not food enough, not clothing enough, which, translated into the mental, simply means not vision enough, not intelligence enough, not joy enough, not peace enough.
What a travesty of divine reality this material sense of God and His creation is! In reality, intelligence is infinite and infinitely expressed; Love is infinite and infinitely expressed; Life is infinite and infinitely expressed; joy is infinite and infinitely expressed. As this truth is capable of individual demonstration, it is capable of universal demonstration.
True and lasting peace will come only with the awakening to true existence as spiritual and not material; through regeneration into the spiritual reality of creation. As we accept this truth today individually, individually live and embody it, we will help to bring in a more immediate and permanent peace. A grave responsibility, which in the light of Christian Science becomes a joyous privilege, rests on each one of us to see to it that his consciousness is freed from the things that make for war, to see to it that each one rejoices in the possession of all good, knowing himself as he, in reality is, the expression of Principle, divine Love, to whom that Love is saying continually, "Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine."
In the face of today's seeming warfare, the enlightened Christian Scientist will remain poised in Principle, serene, unprejudiced, free from indifference, alert to the demands of Truth, and ready to serve that Truth in whatsoever capacity may seem to be needful. He will make sure that the light of Love in his own consciousness outshines the belief in war as a reality, between individuals or nations. Thus will he find provided protection even in the dream of war itself, and by his example he will help mankind to see the inviolate, abiding peace of God as reality. On this foundation of spiritual reality alone can abiding peace be established.
Christian Science has answered the prayer of the Psalmist. It has opened our eyes to behold wondrous things out of God's law, not as transcendental idealism, but as an exact Science. It teaches us to accept rather than strive to get, to be rather than to desire. It opens our eyes to see the reality of all being, safe in the substance of Mind, serene in the omnipotence of Spirit, selfless in Love, governed by Principle, joyous in Soul. This is the day of acceptance. Then, let us hasten to put off what our Leader has called "the sackcloth of waiting" (Christian Science versus Pantheism, p. 1), and put on the goodness and radiance of reality, for "the Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; . . . he will joy over thee with singing."
[Delivered Jan. 25, 1944, at Third Church of Christ, Scientist, Indianapolis, Indiana, and published in The Marion County Mail of Indianapolis, Jan. 28, 1944.]