Georgina Tennant, C.S.B., of London, England
Member
of the Board of Lectureship of The Mother Church,
The
First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts
The lecturer spoke substantially as follows:
In talking about progress, how to make progress in our human experience and how to protect it after we have made it, we could compare our experience with the work of the pioneers in the old days. When they struck out into the wilderness they were careful to protect their progress — every step of it. For example, when they settled a community, they found a rising slope and built a stockade where they could keep a lookout so they could protect themselves from marauders.
The earth's physical surface is fairly well known now. Men pioneer in different fields. They penetrate space, release nuclear power, perform marvels of electronic communication, and travel at speeds faster than sound. We all watch these astonishing achievements. They leave us a bit breathless. Are they going to be the door to an expansion of opportunity, to greater freedom, or will they destroy our civilization, destroy what centuries of progress have established? From the standpoint of merely human thinking there's no assured answer. But Christian Science offers you an entirely different standpoint from which to look ahead. The basis of this changed standpoint is an understanding of the great unseen power commonly called God, a demonstrable understanding of Him. We pioneer in the field of spiritual thinking, we seek and we find the reason for confident hope.
We marvel at what physical science achieves, but have you ever stopped to marvel at the intelligence that makes this possible? Have you ever asked yourself where it comes from? Christian Science reveals that intelligence is the primal quality of Deity, of divine Mind. As there's only one God there is, in reality, only one Mind. This one Mind is the source of all true intelligence and understanding. Human intelligence, based on the belief in the reality of matter — why that's merely a counterfeit of true intelligence. If we want to attain a confident standpoint, we have to learn from the divine Mind how to think rightly, how to understand rightly. Divine intelligence, divine Mind, is the great unseen power. We see indications of it in the order of the heavens and in the changing seasons. Where there's belief in a material basis of creation there's belief in material destruction. But God's creation is indestructible. It is spiritual. We become aware that it's actual as we learn to understand God, to express His qualities and prove His power.
Christian Science is a religion. It is also Science. It's the way of life to the Christian Scientist. Christian Science takes its authority from the Bible. In the first chapter of Genesis we have the record of God's spiritual creation. Here it's recorded that God made man in His image and likeness, that He saw everything that He had made, and that it was very good.
After this true record comes an allegory that presents an account of a material creation. It presents creation as discerned through the mist of material sense; this mist gives a distorted view of man as made from the dust of the ground. You see, God has already created man in His likeness. There's a term in Christian Science for this misty material thinking — it's called mortal mind. The highest human progress lies in the spiritual understanding that divides between these two concepts of creation, rejects the material concept as false, and recognizes that God's creation is the real and ever present. This understanding is spiritual power. It has power to prove that God's good creation is the reality in any circumstance. It heals the sick, the sick in mind and in body. It leads to unity and brotherly understanding in families, in businesses, in nations. It's easy to see how desirable this understanding is — this spiritual understanding. It has direct bearing on human experience. It's practical.
We find how wide the benefits of divine Science are when we recognize that it is the truth of being, unfolding the nature of God and man to human consciousness. Our progress begins when we turn our back, so to speak, on a material basis and look to God for evidence of what is spiritually true, and therefore factually true. The time comes when we see that progress is God's law and that the spiritual understanding and power we need is available to us here and now — whatever we need for each progressive step — if we seek it from divine Mind. I'll still use the illustration of the pioneer; he turned his back on his old home and went his way till he came to the new country. The country was already there and as he progressed it unfolded to him — unfolded its character and opportunities. As we seek an understanding of the things of Spirit, God's spiritual creation is unfolded to us. We find that health and happiness, confidence and opportunity, belong naturally to man — belong to us as God's reflection. The ability to think spiritually is inherent in human consciousness, the ability to understand reality. It may be shrouded in the mist of materialism but it's there. As we progress we need to claim this God-given ability and to develop it. As we go along I'll show you how to do this; I'll give you some examples. But first of all let's see how far humanity's understanding of God and expression of His nature has progressed already.
The Bible is the great record of spiritual unfoldment in the human consciousness. The first concept of an invisible God was of a tribal, personal Deity, liable to anger and change. The Bible shows us how this concept developed more spiritually through the centuries till Christ Jesus revealed God as universal Love. Jesus taught his disciples God's real nature as a loving Father, forgiving and constant. He taught that man is God's beloved child so that man naturally expresses love.
The impetus to spiritual advancement, isn't it always some glimpse of the reality of the unseen God, some intuition that He loves us, and that we can prove this? Jesus knew the Father's love: he preached it; he proved it. His teachings are the impetus that's brought so much social progress to the world. The desire to aid underdeveloped countries and help them to stand on their own feet — that's the outcome of Christianity. There have been many dark periods in the record of Christian nations right up to this present day, but there has always been sincere Christian worship of a God who is Love.
This worship has naturally been expressed in a desire to help others; it has always shone through the darkness and been triumphant. Greed for material wealth or power, that is the reversal of this Christian impetus. But this greed has progressively yielded to the understanding of man as the beloved child of God.
Jesus showed humanity how to redeem its experience from every phase of evil. He redeemed his own experience from death and raised his mortal body from the grave. In this great achievement, in his resurrection, he proved that real life is deathless, that it is always present and that it is never in a mortal body. In his ascension he proved that the belief that the body is physical is just a false concept that vanishes in the pure light of spirituality. His Father's love cared for him all the way. Occasionally one hears that the story of Jesus' healing works, crucifixion and resurrection is just a beautiful legend. But would a legend have brought social progress to the world the way Christianity has? The story of Jesus' works and of his resurrection and ascension is perfectly scientific when it's understood in the light of Christian Science, but it was to be centuries before the Science of his teachings was discovered.
In the years since Jesus' time there has undoubtedly been healing through prayer and faith. And many a Christian has studied material medicine so that he could devote himself to healing the sick, feeling that in this way he was obeying the Master's injunction to heal the sick. Healing through prayer and faith is practiced, too, in many orthodox churches. But Christian Science healing is distinct from faith healing, from psychosomatic methods. It is distinct from medical methods too. When the Christian Science healer prays he turns from the evidence of material sense to the perfection of God's spiritual creation where God saw all that He had made and it was good. The Christian Science healer thinks out logically from this spiritual basis, and so he understands the unreality of matter and evil, understands it scientifically. He proves the unreality of disease by removing the evidence of it.
Mary Baker Eddy is the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science; she was a devout follower of Christ Jesus. She discovered the Science of Jesus' teachings. It was revealed to her that his saying (John 8:32), "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free," is a practical scientific proposition.
This discovery has great importance in human history, in human progress. It puts Mrs. Eddy in the leading rank of religious reformers and also in the leading rank of scientific discoverers. The well-known physical scientist, Professor Andrade, wrote in the Sunday Times of London — he was speaking of religious experience — and quoted himself as having said, "Science has proof but no certainty, religion has certainty but no proof." The point about Christian Science is, it has both certainty and proof. It can be demonstrated.
Mrs. Eddy's revelation that true being is spiritual and perfect, not corporeal, healed her when she'd been given up to die. She had immediate proof of the spiritual power that accompanies spiritual understanding. But then she wanted to discover the law that had healed her and find out how she could use it for others. This took years of rugged pioneering. Her awareness of divine Love, and her expression of it in love for humanity, sustained her during these years and protected her. Her pioneering in spiritual understanding opened up the Science of Christian healing and she gives it to us in the Christian Science textbook; it's called "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures."
The Christian Science organization was founded through her pioneering activities to protect her teachings and disseminate them. We receive encouragement through the Christian Science periodicals, through the church services and lectures, through the weekly Bible Lessons. They encourage us and inspire us to pursue our own way into spiritual understanding and the joy of its healing laws. The Lesson-Sermons are published in the Christian Science Quarterly, and they're studied every day by earnest students before they're read on Sunday in Christian Science churches. You might say these lessons are like blazed trails left by pioneers in wilderness country to point out the way of progress. Today these Lesson-Sermons are being used for self-instruction and healing in many countries of the free world.
If anyone here is not familiar with the Bible, I can recommend it as most absorbing reading. You'll find many stirring tales of how progress in spiritual understanding brought spiritual power to bear on human affairs and how this promoted human progress and protected it — the story of Joseph, for instance. He was sold by his own brothers to be a slave in Egypt; that certainly didn't look like progress, but his understanding of God did progress rapidly during that period. It protected him from the machinations of evil, sensuality, jealousy, and pride. It gave him inspiration and opportunity to bless far beyond his expectation. Through spiritual progress he became next in power to Pharaoh. His understanding of God's love protected him from the temptation to revenge himself on his brothers. He was able to love his brothers and forgive them and provide for them out of the abundance that his understanding of God had brought him. It was his faithful demonstration of God's nature that protected him.
Moses was another great spiritual leader who understood God's presence and power — understood it enough to prove it through miracles or what are commonly called miracles. Then there's the experience of David; he started out as a shepherd boy and became Israel's greatest king. You'll find in all these occurrences that the central characters — Joseph, Moses, David — acknowledged one supreme, invisible God and trusted Him. They were confident that God is a present help. They worshiped God and represented Him faithfully — each one according to his understanding. These experiences point out clearly that when there were lapses from this representation there was no protection. In the light of Christian Science these stories are perfectly natural. The divine Principle they illustrate is available to us today to understand and demonstrate in everyday life.
Christ Jesus told his disciples that they erred because they didn't know the Scriptures, and Mrs. Eddy speaks of the Bible as the chart of life (Science and Health, p. 24). It's important to us to gain a deeper understanding of the Bible, a spiritual understanding of it, if we want to attain scientific progress and the protection that goes with it.
Science and Health tells us (p. 275), "The starting-point of divine Science is that God, Spirit, is All-in-all, and that there is no other might nor Mind, — that God is Love, and therefore He is divine Principle." From this starting point the nature of God unfolds to each of us individually. We catch a glimpse of the spiritual truth that an acknowledgment of God's infinitude (and how could He be less than infinite?) includes the denial of reality or substance to anything unlike God.
If a child insists that two and two make three, his sums will always be wrong; but the moment he accepts his teacher's correction the principle of mathematics is there to help him. Ignorance may bring frustration and suffering into our experience, but the divine Principle, Love, is always ready to put things right. All that we need is to let our thinking unfold or progress from the standpoint of the allness of Spirit, the ever operative divine Principle, Love, and the consequent nothingness of anything unlike Love. It is then that we see that evil is not God-created and has therefore no reality scientifically speaking. This understanding is our line of defense and we need to watch that error cannot make us either just ignore evil or believe in its reality. Fear is nothing but mistaken conviction that there is reality in a power opposed to good; its basis is the belief that evil is not only as real as good but more powerful. The acknowledgment of God's allness and power even when the mists seem very real, the mists of disease, or lack or international tensions, this acknowledgment destroys fear. I'm not asking you just to accept this statement. I'm asking you to try it out. Try acknowledging the power and allness of divine Love and persist in this acknowledgment — see what it does for you.
The way of true progress is individual. Christ Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" (John 14:6). Jesus was present only a short time, personally present, but his divine nature, the Christ, is eternal. He was alluding to this divine idea when he said, "Before Abraham was, I am" (John 8:58). The Christ has always been the way. It sustained Joseph; it strengthened Moses; it inspired David. And it reached its full expression in Christ Jesus, in his blessed ministry. It still brings Jesus' promise (John 14:12), "He that believeth on me" — that is he who understands the Christ — "the works that I do shall he do also."
Christian Science brings an understanding of the Christ as the expression of God's nature and power. Christ is the message from God to human consciousness — the message of healing and comfort. It brings spiritual illumination and this illumination dispels the darkness of fear or pain. Science and Health defines Christ (p. 583) as "The divine manifestation of God, which comes to the flesh to destroy incarnate error." Individual Christliness heals both mind and body. And it opens the way to proof that God's kingdom is supreme on earth.
The way of true progress is individual. Man's individuality is sacred, and we must learn to value it and protect it. A right understanding of man's individuality is the answer to most of the problems that confront human progress. We'll talk about some of these problems more specifically a little later on. Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health (p. 281), "The one Ego, the one Mind or Spirit called God, is infinite individuality, which supplies all form and comeliness and which reflects reality and divinity in individual spiritual man and things." This is a profound statement. But as we think about it, as we study it, we can see that it's simple. A child can understand it. A three-year-old child I know flew into a temper one morning. Suddenly he stopped, smiled seraphically, and said, "I'm forgetting who I am." This incident shows the effect of the teaching that children receive in the Christian Science Sunday School. The child knew his identity as the child of God. He knew that God's child expresses God's qualities, and his acknowledgment of his true identity dispelled the temper.
Now let's go back and talk about the fact — it's so important to human progress — the fact of man's spiritual individuality as the expression, or reflection, of the one Mind. In real being progress is the perpetual unfoldment of Mind's ideas. It's the law of God and it's irresistible. We demonstrate this unfoldment in our experience in proportion to our expanding understanding of God, and it must be individual (the unfoldment must be).
Here's a statement from the textbook (p. 508): "The only intelligence or substance of a thought, a seed, or a flower is God, the creator of it." Well, just to illustrate how individual progress is, let us take a packet of seeds, mixed seeds — no, take a bag of mixed bulbs instead. We're more familiar with their characteristics. The only true substance of these bulbs too is in the Mind that conceived them. When we plant them — daffodil bulbs, crocuses, snowdrops, tulips — when we plant them in a garden together we expect something to happen. The bulbs may look dull and dead, but we know that they're under nature's law and that when the right time comes, each one will grow and express beauty in an individual way. Each bulb has its own identity, and it unfolds complete and exclusive of anything that doesn't belong to it. All the bulbs are equal in importance although they look quite different. The same way with people. As each human being becomes conscious of the true idea of God, his spiritual identity unfolds to him, complete and exclusive of anything unlike God. And notice this: The bulbs don't all flower at the same time. Progress doesn't come to everybody simultaneously or in the same way. This illustration points to the human perception of the individual unfoldment of God's idea, man, his inevitable unfoldment, protected and going on forever in Science. When we become conscious of this perpetual unfoldment, this protects our individual progress in human experience. I think there's a great deal of comfort in this illustration.
Our demonstration of true individuality is under God's law of progress, and this law doesn't ask us to do anything we're not able to do, any more than the law of nature asks the tulip to be a daffodil, or to come out before the snowdrop. Because the one Ego, the one Mind, is infinite individuality, man, Mind's reflection, is individual. Nothing can come into man's individual experience unless it comes from God, good. If one of us seems to have less than his neighbor, or seems to be slower at his business than others; if some people are healed while somebody else has to struggle with sickness, we can remember the bag of bulbs. The snowdrop unfolded long before the tulip, but each one was lovely in its own way. So our complete harmony will become apparent — each one's complete harmony. There's no rivalry in attaining it, just patient growth in the understanding and demonstration of the real man. But we do have to grow.
There is comfort in this illustration, too, when we find ourselves holding a position that mortal mind says is beyond our powers. We've seen that progress is governed by spiritual unfoldment. We know we couldn't be in this position if we hadn't grown to fitness for it; so why fear inadequacy or accept suggestions of inadequacy? We can just be humble and trust our unfoldment. We know it includes all the qualities we need. It remains for us to use them.
And now, to go back to our pioneer! He needs equipment. The pioneer in spiritual thinking needs spiritual qualities — the expression of God's nature — needs spiritual ideas, too. They come from God. So man is equipped by God and this equipment gives him power. We need to understand this so that we can claim our equipment; sometimes this requires persistence! Let me tell you about a friend of mine who persisted in claiming her equipment. She was just a young student of Christian Science, but she'd learned that as God's expression she manifested His nature, and that it included joy. She was visiting an uncle who was very deaf; she became depressed and felt dull. But she saw that this was a wrong state of thought, and she needed to be healed of it. So she prayed to be conscious of her joy, the joy that was her right. She prayed very earnestly. One day her uncle took her for a drive in an automobile. During this drive the joy that she'd been claiming suddenly flooded her consciousness. Her uncle called out to his son (the son was driving), "What's the matter with this automobile? It's making such a noise. It sounds like a locomotive." He'd been healed of deafness. He hadn't asked for healing. And my friend hadn't included him consciously in her prayer, but the Christ light that flooded her consciousness in her own healing of depression dispelled the darkness in his thought too. This shows the power of spiritually enlightened thought.
A Christian Scientist — this is a very important point — a Christian Scientist doesn't treat other people unless they ask for treatment. A Christian Scientist respects each one's right to work out his problems in his own way and would regard any form of mental interference as wrong. Human thought that has been instructed in Christian Science recognizes Mind as the one creator, recognizes man as Mind's reflection, and works to demonstrate this. This kind of human thought — scientifically Christian — is the vanguard of human progress.
Science and Health says (p. 170), "Spiritual causation is the one question to be considered, for more than all others spiritual causation relates to human progress." Face today's problems — the very problems that are brought about by human progress. Which problem shall we consider? Let's take what perhaps looms the darkest. Let's apply this statement to the threat of nuclear warfare. When we set out as pioneers in spiritual thinking we turn our back on a material basis, on the belief that matter is causative. Now that doesn't mean we've turned from the world, far from it. It just means that we regard world happenings, such as the threat of nuclear warfare, from the standpoint of spiritual understanding. The world certainly seemed determined to destroy Joseph when he was sold into Egypt, but his understanding of God and the use of God's qualities changed the evidence so completely that he came to be benefactor to the very people who had tried to destroy him.
Let's just face this threat of nuclear war in the light of Christian Science and think it out. Who is to start a nuclear war? Not man whose origin is in God. Not man whose individuality unfolds God's wisdom and goodness. But suppose somebody made a mistake? Can a mistake originate in divine Mind that governs all? Can chance really destroy humanity's progress toward universal good? Don't forget — God is all power. So where would these negative forces get the ability to act? Reasoning with ourselves like this and answering from our understanding of God and of spiritual causation — that's one way Christian Scientists pray. Then we go on. We petition divine Mind for a clearer understanding that it is the only Mind; so it's the only Mind we have. We don't just plead with God to save humanity from destruction, because we know the whole picture is only in the distorted sense of creation called mortal mind or matter, that is unknown to God — utterly unknown. But we do petition to be a clearer reflection of the divine. We make this silent petition constantly.
In one of her books, "No and Yes," Mrs. Eddy explains this prayer of silent intercession. She tells us, "Such prayer humiliates, purifies, and quickens activity, in the direction that is unerring." She goes on to deal with the progressive sense of prayer, to quote: "True prayer is not asking God for love; it is learning to love, and to include all mankind in one affection" (p. 39). Wasn't that how Joseph reversed the evidence of destruction? And wasn't the supreme proof how Jesus turned his crucifixion into the glory of ascension? He understood spiritual causation and included all mankind in one affection. The threat to both of them appeared from without, but it was overcome by their own spiritual thinking.
Now let's think about the young man or woman who wants to choose a progressive career. Or the middle-aged person who wants a progressive change. What's the first thing to do? Well, first we have to establish in our own thinking a right sense of man's identity as the child of God and to see that in reality man's activity is the unfoldment of God's nature. This shows us that neither material environment, material background, nor material prospects can limit us.
To set out to seek our fortune by material means won't free us from limitations of material sense. But if we set out to express God in His way, this does free us from the limitations of material sense. Science and Health says (p. 326), "Working and praying with true motives, your Father will open the way." Our motive — what is our motive? Why, it's to express the affluence of good that comes from God. We've turned our back on the belief that material ways and means can bring affluence or happiness or success. These are signs of human progress (affluence, and so forth); so to be genuine and secure they must come from spiritual causation. Now let's consider some of the spiritual facts that bring about this human progress and protect it. As we accept spiritual truths, as we value them, they guide us in the way God plans.
God, divine Mind, is all-knowing; so this Mind includes all right direction. Love's resources are infinite; there are no closed doors to Love's expression. Spirit's power is unopposed, supreme. Man, His image, is spiritual, provided for by this divine power, protected by it. Man's expectation is from God; it's confident and responsive. Mind is infinite individuality caring for each of its ideas individually. God's plan unfolds intelligently and irresistibly.
I know a young man who worked out the problem of progress along these lines: he was quite successful but he was always overworked. He always had a sense of strain because he still felt that the power he used was his own. One day a friend said to him, "You know, God isn't a hard taskmaster." That just broke the spell. He went on with his progressive work but now he did it with a sense of lightness and freedom. You see, he'd been demonstrating progress all right, but he hadn't protected it; so he came under the general belief that progress brings strain. But, when he woke to see that God governs every step through His own power — His loving power — he was freed. You see, progress need not bring strain.
Here's mortal mind's outline of progress for mankind: immaturity, maturity, decline, and decay. Now I ask you: isn't that a travesty of man in God's likeness? But human thought is changing all the while and we see how much more older people are doing now. Man's individuality is spiritual unfoldment of God's nature, and so it's eternal. When we understand this it heals sickness and old age. It destroys the belief in death. Let me give you an example: I knew a woman — she was well on in her eighties — who became crippled with arthritis. She sometimes read Christian Science literature, but she was a loyal member of an orthodox church. One day when she wasn't getting any better, she asked her daughter — the daughter was a Christian Scientist — whether a Christian Science practitioner would help her. The practitioner discerned the mortal belief that death was not far off and would free her from disease; the practitioner asked the daughter to explain to her mother that unfoldment is eternal; that death has nothing to do with it, doesn't come into it. The mother accepted this idea of the unfoldment of man's real nature and she was quickly healed. She resigned from her old church, and joined the Christian Science church, and worked on suitable committees. Truth went on unfolding to her and she loved to share her inspiration with others — kept on doing this — until she was ninety-seven. The understanding of unfoldment — and she had accepted it when general belief might have said it was too late — brought healing and a changed standpoint that transformed her life.
You remember at the beginning of the lecture we spoke about the stockade that the pioneers in civilization built so that they could keep an alert watch and protect themselves. It is important for us to protect our thinking from mental interference that would try to hinder our spiritual progress. This stockade would have been a castle or tower in the old countries. The Bible says (Prov. 18:10), "The name of the Lord is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe." How can we run into this strong tower and be safe? Well, we can know that man's individuality expresses God's name or nature, and that we abide in this truth. Truth contains no error. In fact the omnipresence of Truth means that error is not present. So, when we dwell consciously in the strong tower of Truth, that's a sure protection from errors of mortal mind.
God is Life. God is not in matter; so how could life be in matter? Life doesn't die out of matter. The strong tower of Life protects us from the false beliefs about life which mortal mind entertains. Beliefs, for instance, that life is prone to disease and deterioration. Divine Life gives us the understanding that unfoldment is eternal. Old age and death cannot restrict it.
God is Mind. Intelligence is Mind's most distinctive quality. Intelligence does not make mistakes. So the strong tower of Mind is a sure defense against mistakes, ignorance, or accident. Mind's allness is a sure defense against mental interference, domination, or imposition.
God is Love. There is no malice in Love, no jealousy. Living in the strong tower of Love purifies our thinking from hatred and envy. This protects us from malice. Our motives are strengthened as they respond to Love's constant desire to bless. Love gives us the right word, the right impulse that we need to help others.
And how do we live in the strong tower of the name of the Lord? Why, by expressing His name, His nature. From this strong tower we keep watch over our thoughts; we reject those we see are unlike God's nature; we cultivate those we recognize as coming from the divine Mind. Now this is not a merely intellectual process; it bears witness to the activity of the Christ in our consciousness. It's a sacred activity, a religious activity, not just at certain allotted times but all the time. It demonstrates the truth concerning the man of God's creating and destroys the contrary evidence of material sense. And that is how we demonstrate the healing power of the Christ, the power Jesus used.
Truth is forever unfolding its own immortal idea. And Mary Baker Eddy through her discovery of Christian Science is the revelator of Truth to this age. At first in Biblical times the stirrings of spiritual thinking in human consciousness were faint, but through the years they've grown steadily stronger. Their transforming power in human society has become more apparent. When we see that God does express His qualities in man and that the human concept of man is redeemable, when we see this, this understanding gives buoyancy, steadfastness, adaptability. We see the irresistible progress of mankind. This progress, whether it's political, social, or religious, is the fruit of the unfoldment of spiritual truths in individual human consciousness. We can trust the unfoldment of Truth's own immortal idea. It may not unfold in the way we have humanly outlined. But God's way is wise. The right idea to meet the situation is always available to anyone who is sincerely seeking good.
Where does mankind's true hope lie? Why, in the increasing longing for stability and understanding. No one believes that fear can bring peace. Peace comes with the dawning of spiritual understanding. This new light reveals God's spiritual creation where freedom and progress and peace are already established. This spiritual understanding is the goal of all true pioneers.
Jesus told his followers that there would be days of tribulation but that we are to look up because then our redemption, is near (Luke 21:28). Mrs. Eddy too has spoken of the material world as being the arena for conflicting forces. She says (Science and Health, p. 96): "On one side there will be discord and dismay; on the other side there will be Science and peace." Let us be sure that we are on the side of Science — the understanding of true manhood and the unfolding of God's nature through men. This will bring peace. Isaiah's vision of God's power still stands (Isa. 26:3), "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee."
©1963
Georgina Tennant
All
rights reserved
[1963.]