Herschel P. Nunn, C.S.B., of Portland, Oregon
Member of the Board of Lectureship of The
Mother Church,
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts
Herschel P. Nunn, C.S.B., of Portland, Oregon, lectured on "Christian Science: The Science by Which We Come to Know Our True Selves," Friday evening in the Church Edifice, Washington Boulevard at 34th Street, under the auspices of the Third Church Christ, Scientist. Mr. Nunn 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 Wilbur A. Zobbe. His lecture follows substantially as it was given:
The lecturer spoke substantially as follows:
A young man of my acquaintance was undergoing his preliminary training in the Army Air Corps. He was making excellent progress save for one thing. He and his instructor did not get on well together, a situation which finally resulted in my friend being put on the washout list. This meant that if he failed in his flight test with a superior officer, he would be dismissed from the school.
My friend had seen men fail in these tests almost before they left the ground, because of their fear of the test, but this young man, having attended the Christian Science Sunday School as a boy, knew how to use his knowledge of the truth to help himself. He decided he would not let fear handle him, and in a simple, straightforward way began to correct his own view of the situation by what is known as a Christian Science treatment. He knew that God is omnipotent and omnipresent. If God is omnipotent, he thought, there is no other power. If God is omnipresent there could be only the presence of good right there where he was.
In a few minutes he found the fear had completely left him. He was relaxed and calm. Later, while at the controls of the plane, the superior officer asked him why his name was on the washout list, saying that if all cadets were as confident and calm as he was, the problem of training flyers would be a much easier one.
As you would guess, our young friend was not washed out, and soon after he and the young instructor became very good friends. The Christian Science treatment not only destroyed the sense of fear that seemed very real to him, but it also healed the resentment and misunderstanding between the two young men.
Many a young soldier and many a young sailor in our armed forces today is thanking God for an understanding of Christian Science. Unless these young men were conscious of a very present God, an all-knowing God, an all-loving God, they would not find the healing and protection which they find in turning to Him in their hour of great need. But that is the God they have learned to know in their study of Christian Science, a God that is "of purer eyes than to behold evil," a God that is the Principle and substance of their being, "with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."
In the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," by the revered Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, you will find that this word "Principle" is one of the seven synonyms for God which Mrs. Eddy put in the definition of God on page 465 of this textbook: "God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love." She says on this same page that these terms are synonymous and that "they refer to one absolute God. They are also intended to express the nature, essence, and wholeness of Deity." To think of God as Principle brings wonderful comfort because if God the creator of the universe is known as the divine Principle of His universe then we can think of God as conscious only of that which is in entire accord with His divine nature. Whatever is not in accord with God, good, is not the creation of God. This fact removes forever the possibility of evil of any name or nature having existence in His universe.
When our young flyer was declaring the omnipresence and omnipotence of God, he was bringing to bear upon his sense of fear the scientific fact that in the Principle of being there is no fear; fear is not God-created. He became conscious of the law of divine Principle and its operation on his behalf. This recognition of the activity of divine Principle banished the threat of fear, and he found himself free. Thus he was released from fear; his understanding of God, divine Principle, healed him.
Someone may ask how this healing of fear came about. May I explain by simple illustrations often used by Christian Scientists? If in working out a problem in mathematics you should make a mistake you would turn to the principle of mathematics, which of course, knows nothing of even the possibility of a mistake. You would seek to understand more clearly the principle and its application to the problem and so be led to find and correct your mistake.
The child tossing about in sleep with an unhappy dream is comforted by the mother-love which knows nothing of the nature of the bad dream. So it is that in our time of need we realize the presence of the love of God. To know that this God of ours, who is divine Love, infinite in His provision of good, of health, of joy, of freedom, of dominion, of happiness, of completeness, is also the God who is divine Principle, this is the most satisfying thought that one can have. Since the Principle, the basis, the cause, the substance of our very being, is altogether good, you as the expression, the manifestation, the evidence of this divine Principle must be altogether good also.
Our young flyer gained his calm assurance through recognizing his relation to God — a relation of at-one-ment between the Father and the son, Principle and its idea, Mind and its expression. He saw that if the divine Mind could not be afraid, neither was he afraid. Our Leader gives us this basis of relationship in our textbook, Science and Health, in these words (p. 250): "Man is not God, but like a ray of light which comes from the sun, man, the outcome of God, reflects God."
To some of you this statement may be entirely new. When you see what it really means it will come as revelation to you. To others of you who have read it many times, I ask you to ponder it deeply and earnestly. You will find it on page 250 (an easy number to remember) of our textbook. I have known the recognition of the real import of these words to bring healing many times.
Just as the ray of light is not an entity apart from the sun, the sun up there and the ray of light down here, but is a coming forth from the sun of the sun's very nature — its warmth, its light, its energy—so is man the outcome, the coming forth, the emanation of God's being. This is the Science of reflection, that man is not an entity apart from God to whom God sends His love and life and truth, but it is by man and as man that God expresses His own being.
"Few persons comprehend what Christian Science means by the word reflection," declares Mrs. Eddy in her textbook (p. 301). She further says, "To himself, mortal and material man seems to be substance, but his sense of substance involves error and therefore is material, temporal. On the other hand, the immortal, spiritual man is really substantial, and reflects the eternal substance, or Spirit which mortals hope for. He reflects the divine, which constitutes the only real and eternal entity. This reflection seems to mortal sense transcendental, because the spiritual man's substantiality transcends mortal vision and is revealed only through divine Science."
Please note two important aspects
of this statement. First, the divine nature which man reflects, constitutes his
only real entity. Second, this true entity, or spiritual substantiality,
transcends the mortal sense of things. Therefore, true selfhood, yours and
mine, is found only in what we reflect of the divine, the infinite, and the
eternal.
Now from this position let us move radically and positively forward and see where we arrive, for Christian Science is nothing if it is not radical.
Salvation results from the recognition and understanding of man's at-one-ment or oneness with God, and that is the only salvation there really is, or could be. Man — the real man, the perfect man, the spiritual, divine idea — does not need to be saved. Salvation, then, is a present recognition of God and of man's true selfhood. This selfhood is the man of God's creating, the divine idea, the spiritual image and likeness of Mind, Soul, Spirit. This is the man that you really are now and always have been. In salvation, you lay off the old sense of man and put on the new. This is a new sense of being appearing. The old being of material sense has no consciousness of the new being of spiritual sense. As St. John says in his Gospel, "And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." And in our textbook we find (p. 536), "The divine understanding reigns, is all, and there is no other consciousness."
Two Christian Scientists were riding in that early hour of the morning known as the darkest hour before dawn. Only the objects revealed by the headlights of the car could be seen. Gradually the gray forms of the trees and bushes became visible; then as more light appeared the grasses and flowers along the roadside were seen. As they rode along these two people thought of a beautiful passage in the Christian Science textbook. The author, Mrs. Eddy, is discussing the first verse of the twenty-first chapter of the book of Revelation. "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea."
Of this passage Mrs. Eddy says, in part (Science and Health, p 571): "The Revelator was on our plane of existence, while yet beholding what the eye cannot see, — that which is invisible to the uninspired thought. This testimony of Holy Writ sustains the fact in Science, that the heavens and earth to one human consciousness, that consciousness which God bestows, are spiritual, while to another, the unillumined human mind, the vision is material."
How like that darkest hour before dawn, thought these Christian Scientists, is "the unillumined human mind" to which no ray of perception of the Christ-idea, the true spiritual selfhood of each one of us, has come! Then through the healing of a friend or the hearing of a Christian Science lecture, the reading of a religious article on The Home Forum page of The Christian Science Monitor, or in the Christian Science Sentinel, or The Christian Science Journal, the light of Christian Science appears.
A wholly new aspect of life is revealed as more and more of this God-bestowed light of Truth shines forth; the individual comes to know that there is but one Mind and that this Mind is his Mind, because he is the reflection of God. He becomes willing to put off the belief of having a mind of his own apart from God and to discover "that consciousness which God bestows" as the only real consciousness, his only real being.
This recognition of his real
selfhood is the beginning of true salvation. The individual sees that he is not
a mortal but an immortal, not material but spiritual; he learns that he does
not have a mortal mind which is to be improved to the point of becoming
immortal, but that he may lay claim to his true heritage, reflection in the
divine Mind, in which the mortal is put off, and the immortal appears as the
only reality of being. One's first perception of the unity, the oneness of Mind
the allness of God, might be likened to the coming of the dawn as witnessed on that
early morning ride. Even as the rising sun sheds its light, in that early hour
of dawn, upon rock and tree and flower, so is the human consciousness illumined
by the beneficent light of divine Mind revealing the reality of all things.
We say God heals the sick. A well body appears in place of a sick body, as God's bestowal of true being, as spiritual reality appears in place of material belief. God did not create the well material body mortals behold any more than He created the sick one; but an improved belief appears because in the clearer light of spiritual illumination a truer conception of man is revealed.
Christian Science teaches that the
human must be overcome by the divine in every detail of human existence.
Unlovely traits of character disappear in this overcoming. Because of this,
unlovely conditions of the body are healed; the light and beauty of true being
once seen and understood reveals the unreality of mortal mind's false concept
of selfhood apart from God. The dawn of day comes quickly, and in the new day
in human experience, with the coming of the Christ, one who has hugged the
tattered robe of material sense about him for years, may find it dropping away
and realize that he is clad anew in righteousness.
Given up to die, as the result of a severe fall on the ice with friends and relatives gathered in her home in sad expectation of her passing on, Mrs. Eddy turned to her Bible, which she had long loved and studied. She turned to the account of Jesus' healing of the palsied man in the ninth chapter of Matthew. She says of this experience (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 24): "As I read, the healing Truth dawned upon my sense; and the result was that I rose, dressed myself, and ever after was in better health than I had before enjoyed. That short experience included a glimpse of the great fact that I have since tried to make plain to others, namely, Life in and of Spirit; this Life being the sole reality of existence."
This healing of Mrs. Eddy occurred in the year 1866. Her book, Science and Health, was not published until 1875. These nine years were spent, not only in patient search of the Bible, which she declares was her only textbook, but in demonstration of the truth she had discovered. She put it under severe and exhaustive test before she felt ready to write her textbook. The message came to her glorious with enthusiasm and revelation, and it is in the study of this book, the prayerful, careful, sincere study of it, that mankind will find redemption for the whole of human thought.
Christian Scientists are deeply grateful for this noble woman's consecrated life and achievement. Through her revelation of man's true selfhood she made it possible for all to demonstrate the truth of being. Your true selfhood and mine is the real man, the image and likeness of God, the Christ-idea, the spiritual reflection of the one infinite Mind, God, that selfhood which Jesus the Master demonstrated in his life among men.
No one would question the fact that Mrs. Eddy's discovery of this practical, operative truth came through prayer — a prayer that began with a reaching out for light and became the reflection of the light of Truth itself. No one can read her own simple but spiritually eloquent account of this experience as given in her work, "Retrospection and Introspection," without recognizing that she was led of the Father in all her footsteps of discovery, progress, and growth.
In her textbook she states (p.
107): "God had been graciously preparing me during many years for the
reception of this final revelation of the absolute divine Principle of
scientific mental healing." Her human experience had been filled with
untold trials, hardships, and sorrows prior to her discovery; but because she
was in the habit of turning to God for surcease from these difficulties, every
such trial became a stepping-stone to further spiritual growth and unfoldment.
The presence of God which she found through her prayer prepared her waiting thought
for its reception of the greatest blessing that has come to the human race
since the advent of Jesus the Christ.
Prayer is truly the Christian Scientist's "vital breath." From the new light on prayer which comes to him from his study of this Science he can well understand what Paul meant in his letter to the Thessalonians when he said: "Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks." One prays without ceasing when his thought is based on the realization that there is but one Mind and that he himself is the reflection of this one and only Mind.
God as Mind is the one infinite intelligence constituting and governing the universe of ideas. Divine Mind is the source and substance of all that really is. The affirmation and realization of these facts of being is prayer itself. Such realization identifies one with the divine Mind as its idea. This realization enables one to find and express his true selfhood as the expression or manifestation of divine Mind. One rejoices evermore and in everything gives thanks in this ceaseless prayer of the consciousness of real being.
An individual afflicted with some malady is not expressing his true selfhood because that selfhood, being the image and likeness of God, is the expression of wholeness, completeness and harmony. The full acknowledgment of spiritual perfection will bring instantaneous relief from discordant conditions of belief. A practitioner received a call from a man whom she was treating in Christian Science. He said to her over the telephone, "If only my heart would stop pounding, it would be such a relief." Instantly to the practitioner's thought came a phrase from our textbook, "the unlabored motion of the divine energy." The entire sentence reads (p. 445), "Christian Science silences human will, quiets fear with Truth and Love, and illustrates the unlabored motion of the divine energy in healing the sick." A few minutes later the man whom she was helping called back and said: "Right after talking with you I went to my chair and sat down. I suddenly realized that all that heart pounding had ceased and I am comfortable, and very grateful." That occurred several years ago and there has never been a recurrence of that heart difficulty.
Solomon asked, "Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart." Our beloved Leader says in her Message to The Mother Church for 1902 (p. 6): "All Christian faith, hope, and prayer, all devout desire, virtually petition, Make me the image and likeness of divine Love." We become aware of this likeness in proportion as we allow divine Mind to express itself as our intelligence, as we lay aside the belief in minds many and declare and know there is but one Mind. So prayer is fundamentally our spiritual perception of what we are, in Truth, man as the expression, the image, the likeness of God. Thus is true selfhood realized, the recognition of our intimate and basic relation to the Father, of our at-one-ment with Him.
The prayer of illumined understanding of Truth may petition as did Jesus, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." Such prayer approaches the divine presence, knowing only good and uncovering its supposed opposite evil, sin. From the vantage point of God's ever-presence, known and realized, it is seen that error is not an entity, but the inverted opposite of good, for good alone is real.
The important points to remember in considering the relation between prayer and the recognition of true selfhood are these: First, that since there is but one Mind prayer should be thought of as an activity of that one Mind. Second, that as man is the expression or reflection of this Mind, there is no separation between man and God. In other words, man is the direct expression of divine Mind. Paul says, "For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Third, to have that Mind which was also in Christ Jesus, we must pray as he did, "I and my Father are one." Fourth, that through the spiritualization of thought and conduct, we may attain this recognition of true selfhood here and now.
Jesus expressed this divine
intimacy when he prayed: "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them
also which shall believe on me through their word: that they all may be one; as
thou, Father, are in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us; that
the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest
me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and
thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one."
Beginners in the study of Christian Science (and who of us does not feel a mere beginner in the study of this inexhaustible subject?) discover a beautiful and helpful thing in their use of our textbook. They find that although they may not fully grasp the meaning of some of its great statements such as those used in defining God as infinite Love, Mind or Principle, by declaring them thoughtfully and prayerfully they begin to understand them better and better. Our textbook advocates making the declaration of the truth in the face of seeming error until we realize the fact instead of believing the lie of error. Remember that to make declarations of truth is far better than to entertain suggestions of error. Such statements of truth aid in exposing error's nothingness and in bringing healing to sick bodies by eliminating false beliefs from consciousness.
One evening, just as he was about to leave his office, a Christian Science practitioner found a man waiting for him in his reception room. The man was very much under the influence of liquor and had come to the practitioner for healing of the liquor habit. The practitioner explained to him that he could give him only a few minutes as he had an appointment that could not be broken. "I want you to repeat over with me these words," said he to the man: "There is but one God, one Mind, and that Mind is my mind." In a rather confused way the man slowly repeated the sentence. The practitioner said, "Now I want you to say it again." This the man did in a clear, full voice. He had been instantly healed of his drunkenness. The practitioner told of this experience to one of our Christian Science lecturers, who made this statement in reply: "With that declaration and resulting recognition of the one good Mind, that man then and there gave up the belief of another mind that could be intoxicated."
Christianly scientific demonstration is not concerned primarily with so-called material things or conditions, but rather it is primarily proof of divine facts. Better conditions, abundance, harmony, appear as the result of the application of one's knowledge of divine Principle and its laws.
When Jesus said, "I and my Father are one," he was expressing in deep humility his spiritual, perfect selfhood as the Son of God. He thus made nothing of material so-called selfhood; his love was reflection of the Love which is God; his intelligence the manifestation of the Mind which is God; his being the expression of divine Principle. Our Leader says (Science and Health, p. 26): "The Christ was the Spirit which Jesus implied in his own statements: 'I am the way, the truth, and the life;' 'I and my Father are one.' This Christ, or divinity of the man Jesus, was his divine nature, the godliness which animated him."
There is another statement of Mrs. Eddy's which it is well for us to ponder thoughtfully in considering the relation between the human Jesus and the Christ, or divine idea. It is this (Science and Health, p. 589): "Jesus. The highest human corporeal concept of the divine idea, rebuking and destroying error and bringing to light man's immortality."
In his resurrection Jesus demonstrated that God is the divine Principle of the universe, the one Mind, the one Spirit, the one and only Life. In this momentous experience he laid aside the "human corporeal concept" in the realization of his divine individuality, the Christ. It was this clear, unwavering consciousness of his real selfhood as divine idea that made this demonstration possible. The demonstration was going on just as truly when Jesus bore the cross up the slopes of Calvary as when he stepped forth from the tomb on the third day, or ascended on the fortieth day. In this is wonderful comfort for us when we seem to be going through crucifixion experiences. At these times let us always realize that it is not crucifixion that is going on in reality; it is an opportunity for resurrection and ascension.
An experience is crucifixion if its sorrow or suffering is considered real; it is an opportunity for resurrection if it results in newness of life, in perception of the divine and immortal Christ.
Mary Baker Eddy beheld humanity
destroying itself through its belief in the reality of sin, disease and death.
When in facing death herself her Bible revealed to her a message of healing,
she was divinely impelled to search for the Principle underlying her healing.
Thus the Comforter, the spirit of truth promised and prophesied of Jesus, was
brought to light in Christian Science. And today, as evidenced by its works,
Christian Science is reinstating primitive Christianity and restoring its
long-lost art of healing.
Last fall, The Christian Science Monitor published a notable series of articles entitled, "The World We Want," of which the twenty-ninth in the series was written by Basil Matthews, well-known teacher, writer, and lecturer. He tells of walking in the gardens of New College at Oxford with that university's Professor of International Relations, Sir Alfred Zimmern. This was at the time of the fiercest period of the months of continuous blitz over Britain. Mr. Matthews asked Sir Alfred this question: "What, in your opinion, is the greatest obstacle between us and the building of enduring world peace?" His reply, Mr. Matthew says, startled him beyond measure. It was in four words: "The small-scale individual." Mr. Matthews gives an example of what was meant by this statement. In 1666, after the Great Fire of London, Sir Christopher Wren, the great architect, laid out magnificent plans for a new city which would have made the heart of London the most beautiful in the world, with spacious avenues and superb vistas. But "small-scale individuals," selfish merchants, petty-minded counselors who sought office by cutting expenditures, a multitude of little people standing for vested interests, tore up his plan and London was built once more as a city of twisted narrow lanes utterly inadequate for the needs of subsequent generations.
What but a scientific Christianity will heal the world of its small-scale thinking with its pettiness, its selfishness, its materiality, its limitations, its greed? These are the qualities of thought that fight one another in wars. Only through individual salvation, through the individual discovery of true selfhood, will the world find surcease from these shackling, blighting qualities of thought which hinder the progress of civilization.
Every issue of The Christian
Science Monitor carries helpful, healing messages for the troubles of the
world. In fact, there are many instances on record of people who have found
healing, awakening, and regeneration through its advertising columns coupled
with the activity of Christian Scientists in their support of this advertising.
Through the inspiration of their Leader, Mrs. Eddy, Christian Scientists have been provided with a much cherished weekly Lesson-Sermon, made up of references from the King James Version of the Holy Bible and correlative passages from the Christian Science textbook. Thus the purity of Christian Science is preserved and human opinion excluded. These Lessons are provided for them in a publication known as the Christian Science Quarterly. Through the prayerful study of this Lesson during the week and the resulting daily application, Christian Scientists come to their churches on Sunday so well prepared to listen to the reading of it that beautiful spiritual unfoldment of new meanings in their two textbooks often comes to them there. Careful study of the Bible and the Christian Science textbook brings to students throughout the world, day by day and every day, spiritual illumination, healing, growth in character, peace, and assurance. This daily study of the Lesson brings spiritual refreshment every morning, increases our mental alertness, and establishes our day in "the secret place of the most High."
In the twenty-eighth chapter of Genesis we read: "And (Jacob) dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. . . . And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place; . . . this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." Spiritual ideas appeared to Jacob and awoke him from his dream of life in matter to the apprehension that heaven is a divine state of consciousness gained through entertaining divine ideas. "And Jacob rose up early in the morning." He wanted to establish his day in God. We need to have the absolute rule of divine Principle become a conscious habit of thought. It is wise to establish it for the day. In our present state of progress there is nothing better than to follow the example of Jacob and rise early in the morning. Many Christian Scientists will tell you of the value of beginning their day as Jacob did and making this a regular practice. After a while they discover that nothing has a beginning, not even a day, yet the good plan of daily work is still there.
"And Jacob . . . took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it." This was his sense of sacrifice. Our sense of sacrifice is the giving up of material sense and self, giving up the belief in false selfhood, in being "small-scale individuals."
Establish the divine law for every event of what seems a day. Give it the strength of the realization of the integrity of your true selfhood and of your own loyalty to divine Principle and allow that law to dominate every incident of that day, every circumstance and occasion. Realize that nothing shall occur in that day that does not belong to it as a matter of demonstrating the power of divine Principle.
Our Leader tells us that "metaphysics resolves things into thoughts, and exchanges the objects of sense for the ideas of Soul" (Science and Health, p. 269). When we understand substance, form, and tangibility as Spirit or Mind expressed as ideas without dimension or measure, we shall never lose the sense of substance, the sense of possessing all that makes for a harmonious, beautiful, complete experience. These divine ideas of which the one Mind, our Mind, is conscious, free us from the sense of limitation, disease and disaster, and give us a sense of health, wholeness, joy, freedom, dominion.
These impersonal ideas supply us with ability, intelligence, wisdom, judgment, purity, kindness, courage, honesty and tolerance. We reflect these divine qualities because of man's relationship with God. By seeking the kingdom of God all these things are added unto us. When we know Truth, this knowing constitutes our true selfhood, and we thus reflect Truth in every situation that could arise.
I hope I have been able to indicate, to some degree at least, how Christian Science presents the Christ-way of finding ourselves. When one truly and wholeheartedly succeeds in living Christian Science he will generally be known as one who has an outlook on life that is happy, contented, broad; tolerant, and generally wholesome. He proves that he is a better citizen of the world than before he became a Christian Scientist. He is satisfied that he has found a pattern of life for himself that is based on the Principle of all being, God, the one infinite Mind, the soul and substance of the universe. He rejoices in having discovered to a great degree, his real selfhood and how to express it in health, poise, and brotherly love.
At this point may I call your attention to an address delivered by Mrs. Eddy in Chicago, to a group of Christian Scientists, in 1888, titled, "Science and the Senses." It is found in her book, "Miscellaneous Writings." Here our Leader asks the question (p. 104), "How shall we reach our true selves?" She answers this question these words: "Through Love. The Principle of Christian Science is Love, and its idea represents Love. This divine Principle and idea are demonstrated, in healing, to be God and the real man. Who wants to be mortal, or would not gain the true ideal of Life and recover his own individuality? I will love, if another hates. I will gain a balance on the side of good, my true being. This alone gives me the forces of God wherewith to overcome all error. On this rests the implicit faith engendered by Christian Science, which appeals intelligently to the facts of man's spirituality, individuality, to disdain the fears and destroy the discords of this material personality."
"Who wants to be mortal" indeed? Who wants to cling to a delusion, a deception concerning his real being, when through the study of this Science such joy, harmony health, abundance, and completeness await him? In proportion as the mortal is put off the spiritual consciousness bestowed of God replaces the false sense of existence. Mortal mind does not become better — evil eventually disappears. Be sure that you do not believe that evil ever becomes good. Good already is. It is what you are demonstrating to be the only reality.
Overlooking the city in which I live is beautiful Mount Hood. On many of our clear spring and early summer days it may be seen in its silent white beauty silhouetted against the clear blue of the sky. Then there are other days when there is a mist or light fog over the city. On those days our mountain seems but a phantom, only barely discernible above the foothills. But we know our beautiful white mountain, in spite of the mist, is there in all its loveliness. When the sun dispels the mist our mountain is better seen. So it is with true selfhood. It is and always was perfect, as divine idea.
As the mountain is present in spite of the mist, so is true selfhood there in spite of the mist of mortal mind's false sense of man. How clearly our Leader expresses this in these words from our textbook (p. 312), "What to material sense seems substance, becomes nothingness, as the sense-dream vanishes and reality appears."
In the illumination of Christian Science and its demonstration, the perfect man, the "full representation of Mind" (Science and Health. p. 591), stands forth, complete in the fullness of his expression of God's being.
The Apostle Paul says, "Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face." And John says, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." Could not this mean that our true selfhood does not appear to material sense, but to our real, our God-bestowed consciousness of true being, true selfhood is an ever-present fact: for "now are we the sons of God"? We are not then something that one day is going to be the son of God. Never lose sight of that great statement, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God." Be what you are, the son of God, now. Stand in the wonderful security and joy of your real, your Christ-expressing selfhood.
[Delivered March 3, 1944, at Third Church Christ, Scientist, Washington Boulevard at 34th Street, Indianapolis, Indiana, and published in The Marion County Mail of Indianapolis, March 4, 1944.]