James Watt, C.S.
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:
We are all agreed, I am sure, that this hour together should be of specific value to each one of us. Our assembling here has required some effort on the part of us all. It may well be said that these are times of the greatest possible demand upon thinking people. And as we all know, the value of a moment, or an hour, is commensurate with the intelligence which constitutes it. Then let us think together earnestly and deeply.
Let us begin by asking ourselves: Why did each individual present this evening accept the invitation of the Christian Science organization to attend this lecture? Some of the organization members may have responded through a sense of duty. Others among us may have come through courtesy. And perhaps some have come because of curiosity. However, it seems reasonable to conclude that an innate regard for the power of good largely accounts for our being here. To speak for myself, I have accepted this invitation as a welcome privilege to share with you my understanding of Christian Science. It is not my purpose to entertain you or to entreat you to accept that of which I am convinced. I am sure you do not expect to hear a complete explanation of so vast a subject in an hour. But I shall be able to tell you something of its Science and of its Christianity. Then you may draw your own conclusions.
Christian Science is just what the name implies: exact knowledge of God and man, of the Christ, of Christianity, in other words, the Science of Christianity. The term Science indicates its identicalness with the method of teaching and healing which constituted the ministry of Jesus — Jesus of Nazareth, the most exact thinker the world has ever known, the man whose thinking constituted such an exact and complete understanding of God that he overcame the laws of time, space, and matter and performed what are called miracles. One definition of the word Christian is, in part: "Of Christ and his teaching . . . showing a gentle, humble, helpful spirit." It is with a gentle, humble, helpful spirit that Christian Science has been offered to mankind and is presented to you tonight.
Not long ago I read an article which said that the question of God evokes a faint but discernible discomfort on the college campus today. It went on to say that a certain large percentage of the college world will voice a faith in a superhuman power or underlying force. But there is discontent with what is viewed as ecclesiastical rigidity and inconsistency. And it has been said of education that thought must go from cock-sure ignorance to thoughtful uncertainty. Undeniably it is right that one should think, and find satisfaction in his own conclusions. There could be no greater blessing to humanity than that every individual be free enough and intelligent enough to reason for himself from the basis of his own conscience and his innate regard for good.
Have you ever stopped to consider that our greatest asset is the power to think? Humanly speaking, without consciousness — awareness, the capacity to think — one would be unconscious, powerless, a nonentity. Everything one is and does is thought expressed — thought objectified. Metaphysically, knowing is the expression or manifestation of divine Mind, God, and this constitutes man — our true being. Then it is of supreme importance that what we accept in the name of religion should not be imposed upon us by reason of birth or ecclesiastical system, but should be accepted by us as a result of intelligent thought. And, awakening to the value of thinking things through for oneself, many individuals, the world over, are finding Christian Science and finding in Christian Science demonstrable truth, the true way of life, the way of life referred to by Christ Jesus when he said: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). Nationality, race, creed, certainly have no real power to deter the honest thinker from the use of his intelligence and the unfoldment of his own inherent unity with God.
Not one of us, I am sure, would deny being open to progressively greater usefulness, continuous health and more dependable security. I am mindful of the words of the prophet Isaiah, in the Bible, which seem appropriate to us: "Come now, and let us reason together" (Isa. 1:18). We realize that in the consciousness of mankind there is, pretty generally, an innate though often not acknowledged recognition of a supreme power apart from and beyond any human concept of power. Everyone here is aware of the maze of human complexities in the present international scene and is mindful of its dangers. In the world today, it appears that there is no longer any dependable security to be found in material ways and means.
I feel sure that whether we are Christian Scientists or whether we are not, most of us are aware, each in his own way, that there exists a power, imperceptible to material sense, that is omniscient and everlasting. And it is to this eternal and therefore indestructible entity, or presence, that many have looked for blessings and guidance — yes, and also for punishment. And even though we wished to do so, it would be impossible to name all the terms and explain all the concepts by which mankind continues to identify this intangible, spiritual force. However, the conclusion that this entity or power exists has been widely accepted.
It might be said that the thought of the world was aroused by a shock one day in August 1945 when a frightful flash ushered in what is now commonly called the "atomic age." The works of Roentgen and the Curies, the ideas of Einstein and Hahn and many others, had given us some knowledge of the atom. But it was farthest from their minds and hearts that the results of their efforts would be used for destruction. It is clear that the key to a peaceful atomic future lies wholly in the realm of thought and thought must be constructive.
Then let us look away from matter to consider consciousness as the basis from which to proceed. Let us consider the subject as presented by Christian Science, namely, that divine consciousness is basic; that God, the creator of all, is Mind, or Spirit, and that His creation consists wholly of spiritual ideas.
In Christian Science we recognize and accept the reality of being to be divine Mind, the perfect consciousness which constitutes existence, or in other words, is Life eternal. Divine Mind, which we reverently term God, being All-in-all, without beginning or end, knows nothing apart from its own invariable perfection. Our acknowledgment of perfect consciousness, or God, as the only reality of being awakens us to see that man is idea, expression — the manifestation of Mind. In proportion to the fidelity of our thought to this profoundly simple spiritual fact we begin to understand the omnipresence and omnipotence of God, divine Mind, and we begin to experience Immanuel, which means God-with-us, in a practical and wonderful way. The divine power of good manifests itself in our thinking, as our pure conscious knowing, to guide and guard and heal us.
Christian Science replaces a material concept of existence with the spiritually scientific realization that divine Spirit is All-in-all and that the universe — the only universe there is — is spiritual, the manifestation, or expression, or idea, of Spirit, God. To thousands of intelligent, grateful individuals the world over, Christian Science is vital, dynamic, and challenging beyond anything! They are finding Christian Science practical and provable. The fact that God exists and can be an integral and beneficial force in their daily experience is being evidenced in the lives of students of Christian Science all over the world.
Let me tell you what Christian Science did for one college student I know — he's the son of a college professor, one of my dear friends. We'll call him Bob.
One day the chemicals in an experiment Bob was doing in the chemistry laboratory exploded. The main force of the explosion hit him in the face. He was also severely burned on one wrist. The force of the explosion pitted his glasses so badly as to require new lenses.
He was brought home in great pain. His father immediately called a Christian Science practitioner for help.
Each time a paroxysm of pain came, father and son repeated the Lord's Prayer, together with statements of truth from the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," and other writings by Mary Baker Eddy. They repeated these passages loud and clear. The son's thought grew quiet. By the end of an hour, he fell asleep completely free from pain. A short time later he awoke, healed. This is a concrete example of how one college man through his application and understanding of the basic truths of Christian Science had a physical healing which was the result of the healing of thought.
You see, in order to voice scientific facts of being from the Bible and Science and Health, Bob had to think them. These spiritual truths gradually replaced the material suggestions of fear and pain which had imposed themselves in his thinking. And the practitioner, not mesmerized by such suggestions could and did maintain the correct view of man from the outset. He declared the divine facts that right where an injured human being seemed to be, right then, right there, was actually the perfect man, the perfect expression of God, divine Life. He realized that this divine fact acted as law to the human situation — as a law of obliteration to the picture of accident and its aftermath, and as a law of release and healing to the case.
Another example is that of a man who has rendered valuable service to our country and who has been extraordinarily successful in what he has attempted. He told me that one afternoon during boyhood, he and a friend were playing in a hayloft. Suddenly he fell to the concrete floor below. One arm was badly broken at the elbow. He and his parents were earnest students of Christian Science and work was taken up at once by a Christian Science practitioner.
Next morning, although the arm was not a very pretty sight, it was decided that the boy should go to school. That day the school physician decided to visit the school and when he saw the arm and the boy refused to let him set it, he said, "Well, you'll never use that arm again; you'll always be a cripple." Within three weeks the arm was again normal in every respect and our young friend was out playing baseball.
As an Army Chaplain in World War II, I saw many Christian Scientists serving in our Armed Forces living their religion and reaping the rewards of their clear spiritual thinking in protection, guidance, inspiration, and healing.
These experiences show how a reaching out for enlightened spiritual understanding brings the state of Christianly scientific thinking which results in healing, in success, in joy, in freedom, in inner peace.
Today, faced with the super-destructive force of ever developing thermonuclear bombs, already conceived of with capacities of millions of tons of TNT, the thinkers of the world are beginning to look beyond present material concepts. They ask, "Is there a constructive power — a spiritual power — beyond all of this?" In other words they are again asking, "What is truth?"
Pilate, a Roman governor, asked that question at the trial of Jesus in Jerusalem almost two thousand years ago. And now, as then, the answer is as close to the seeker as is his ability to accept the answer. Quite clearly, the truth is a matter of consciousness, the truth is the expression of divine Truth, which in Christian Science is a synonym for God. There stood before Pilate, the man who had performed miracles, the great thinker who knew something that annulled what are called material laws or laws of nature. The thinking that comprised the tumult and cried, "Crucify him," was ignorant, fearful hatred. It was, was it not, a defensive mental attitude that clung to a ritualistic, complex, material viewpoint. It was material thinking resisting spiritual knowing. The same unperceiving standpoint of thought that impelled the high priests and their followers to reject the saving Christ, which in Christian Science is understood as the spiritual idea of sonship, appears in some measure to be characteristic of us all. Yet would not each one of us like to free himself and others from trouble? Would it not be intelligent to accept willingly, here and now, the divinely true concept of being that will do this? Isn't this just putting into today's language Paul's admonition, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 2:5)?
Let us think together in a spiritually simple way so that we will have in us more of the Mind that was in the master Christian. Now to be spiritually-minded does not require us to abandon what is called the human intellect. Education and culture are desirable attainments. But intellectual achievement of itself has no more power to bestow or obstruct spiritual perception than has the lack of it. In other words, as the Bible puts it, "God is no respecter of persons" (Acts 10:34). Throughout all time and from all walks of life, there have been noble thinkers whose influence for good has comforted and enlightened and transformed those near to them, and frequently, in some degree, all mankind. Indigenous to every one of them, regardless of status, has been a truly great simplicity and honesty, a selfless love. This consciousness of Truth was in Jesus of Nazareth more than in all others. Jesus was his name but the title Christ refers to this consciousness of Truth. The Christ was the understanding of God, or Truth, which he lived, and taught others to live.
Let us consider what he had to say, as though hearing it for the first time: "Before Abraham was, I am" (John 8:58). "I can of mine own self do nothing" (John 5:30). "The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself; but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works" (John 14:10). "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also" (John 14:12). "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). "Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give" (Matt. 10:8). "Follow thou me" (John 21:22). "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6). "I and my Father are one" (John 10:30). "Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets" (Matt. 22:37-40).
These statements convey the Christly logic of the Master. To love God is a matter of thought. To do so with all one's heart, soul, and mind could not mean less than consummate devotion. Such unconditional recognition of the actuality and omnipresence of divine power must partake of that power. This divine fact was set forth in Jesus' words, "The Father that dwelleth in me." "I of my own self" — or so to speak, from a personal standpoint of thought, "can do nothing." "But the Father" — or in other words, divine consciousness — reveals itself to me as the only power, the only presence, as eternal Life, or God.
It was through Jesus' expression of divine Mind as Life that the so-called human yielded to the spiritual and eternal. During his ministry he said in substance that his healing works were accomplished from the spiritual standpoint of his thought which acknowledged no other might nor presence. Material laws of space and gravity and of disease and death were annulled by the divine consciousness expressed by him, just as they can be today by all who understand and practice the exact Science of his teaching. Demonstrable understanding of the Science of Jesus' teaching, indicated in the quotations just given, is gained through the study of Christian Science. Mrs. Eddy epitomizes the scientific method of his healing work in these words from Science and Health (pp. 476, 477): "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy."
Healing continued during the first three centuries of the Christian era through the truth that Jesus taught. Then the element of healing was lost as Christendom ceased to perceive and therefore to accept literally the unequivocal divine demand of the First Commandment. The lost element of healing has been restored to Christianity through Christian Science. Its Founder, Mary Baker Eddy, discovered nearly one hundred years ago that the truth of being belongs to every age. Mrs. Eddy is deeply beloved and respected by Christian Scientists. Our esteem of her includes no sense of deification. It is simply reasonable and wholehearted gratitude for the demonstrable understanding of Truth which she has made available to everyone in the world.
Mrs. Eddy had always loved the Bible. She was reared in a New England home where the Bible was much loved and much read. Mrs. Eddy's love for God and her fellowmen carried her through many trials and seemingly insurmountable difficulties. She speaks of her great discovery in these words from Science and Health (p. 108): "When apparently near the confines of mortal existence, standing already within the shadow of the death-valley, I learned these truths in divine Science: that all real being is in God, the divine Mind, and that Life, Truth, and Love are all-powerful and ever-present."
All genuine Christian Scientists recognize Mrs. Eddy as the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science and as their Leader. Christian Scientists regard Mrs. Eddy as the one who has brought the final revelation of Truth to the world. They see no miracle in this but realize that the revelation came to her because she was the one prepared to receive it. Mrs. Eddy's steadfast devotion to gaining a clear and correct understanding of God prepared her thought and rendered her receptive enough and ready enough to receive the revelation.
Students of Christian Science use its textbook, Science and Health, in conjunction with the Bible for rewarding daily study. These two books make clear that bondage to all the limitations of material thinking — sin, sickness, death — is a false belief, a misconception of God and man which disappears in the degree of one's spiritual understanding.
An autobiography of Mrs. Eddy is included in her book "Retrospection and Introspection." In it she tells of the founding of the Church of Christ, Scientist, the branches of which now encircle the globe. This is a quotation from that book, and it deserves thoughtful attention: "Our great Way-shower, steadfast to the end in his obedience to God's laws, demonstrated for all time and peoples the supremacy of good over evil, and the superiority of Spirit over matter" (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 26).
The writings of Mrs. Eddy are in accord with the inspired word of the Bible. For example, note how fully the meaning of the First Commandment is unfolded in Science and Health: "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" (Science and Health, p. 275). And here on page 468 Mrs. Eddy asks the question: "What is the scientific statement of being?" Mindful of the present-day search for Truth, listen closely to her answer: "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual." And she writes: "The First Commandment is my favorite text. It demonstrates Christian Science" (Science and Health, p. 340).
In Christian Science the practice or use of our understanding involves prayer. Science teaches the pattern of prayer as practiced by the Way-shower. The prayer of Jesus was always based upon an unqualified acknowledgment of God, divine Spirit, as the reality of being instead of what appeared to be matter. He maintained the spiritual facts of being — the divine viewpoint — with such understanding and compassion as to reach each individual right where he was and to meet his need instantaneously. The crowd saw a leper; but Jesus saw the likeness, the expression, of God, and this enabled him to say (Matt. 8:3), "Be thou clean" — and the crowd to see a leper healed instantly. Spiritual, Christlike thinking, active in individual consciousness, really constitutes prayer as Christian Scientists understand it. Christianly scientific prayer means obeying literally the First Commandment! Prayer in Christian Science is simply becoming conscious of the true, perfect, spiritual nature of all that really is. It means letting that Mind be in us which was also in Christ Jesus.
Here is an illustration of what took place in the experience of a young woman as she became more aware of the true nature of being. The problem which was healed was that of obstructed breathing so intense that she could not move about or lie down without a sense of suffocation. The trouble came upon her gradually after her return from an extended residence in a foreign country where her husband was under contract. The country was under a dictatorship and living there included certain hardships and shortages that might have been considered conducive to the physical problem. Treatment in Christian Science seemed unavailing, and the difficulty grew to almost total incapacity.
It appeared to be an inherited physical ailment. She recalled traveling as a child to various climates and health resorts with her mother, who had been afflicted with what some doctors called asthma, others, hay fever, and still others, allergy. There were endless night hours, spent sleeplessly in a chair, during which to repeat and ponder the familiar words from the textbook, "Love is the liberator" (Science and Health, p. 225). And she would think: "Why, I love. I am kind and good toward everyone. I maintain the truth, and would not knowingly harm anyone. Why does not Love liberate me?" Then as the dawn gradually dispels darkness, there came to her an unfolding concept of Love that dispelled self-deception. She saw that God, divine Love, the perfect consciousness that is Life, could never react to anything because of its eternal allness.
There came to thought the sensitivity of her mother to mortal behavior and situations, and how discomforting this had been to the household. Then followed recognition of the fact that while she herself had determined never to manifest this quality, she had simply sent it underground, so to speak. She had cultivated a reliably composed and agreeable manner that hid from even her own view the same sort of reaction and sensitive thought which had been expressed by her mother.
It became clear that the obstructed breathing was not an inherited physical ailment, but simply the belief of an inherited propensity or temperamental trait. Almost at once a more divinely simple and profound sense of spiritual reality began to dispel the silent criticism that had seemed warranted and an undercover resistance to the ways of mortals. It became evident to her that the stir in her thought which came during the sojourn in the foreign land where injustice seemed rampant, had become progressively deep-seated since her return. This harmful, mortal standpoint of thought was replaced with the presence of the healing Truth. And within a few days every vestige of the obstructed breathing vanished, never to return. However, what had vanished was a false sense of being, a lack of releasing, healing love.
This instance of healing makes clear that Christian Scientists do not ignore what appears as human experience or what is called the material universe. We are not indifferent to the belief of a material universe simply because we do not accept it as the reality of being. We uplift human experience by entertaining the true concept of it which heals. Having learned that Spirit and Truth are synonyms for God and that therefore everything real is spiritual, we might say that we have spiritual truth instead of matter.
In reality we do not need to be freed from material conditions but from believing that there are material conditions. The only thing we need to be freed from is our ignorance of God and man, our misconception of being, in fact from a state of self-deception. An awareness of the ever-presence of divine Mind, or God, will evidence itself in our daily experience just as it did in the experience of those who were true to the divine viewpoint two thousand years ago.
A spiritual understanding of God brings Truth, or divine Love, to bear upon everything we consider and evidences itself as demonstration. In Christian Science demonstration is the appearing to human apprehension of divine reality. We must have proof of our understanding to be sure we understand — and demonstration is this proof. We do not demonstrate well matter. We demonstrate the Truth that is divine Love. This means letting go a personal sense of things and gaining a spiritual understanding of the Mind which is divine Love. It means holding thought steadfastly to the truth of being until error disappears from a human sense of being. For although all that is truly good in human experience comes from God, nothing can be called a demonstration of Truth unless it comes about through correct and direct understanding of Truth, unless it shows forth the nature of divine Love.
In order to demonstrate Christian Science, one must think in accord with this Science. Problems in mathematics and physics can be solved only by following the rules of these sciences. One never thinks of rebelling against this requirement, and it would be equally foolish to rebel at the demands of Christian Science, which are inseparable from the Science itself. The Christianly scientific consciousness which it demands will bless us and everyone and everything it rests upon because it reflects divine Love.
The mist that went up from the earth, as recorded in the Bible, or the so-called thinking born of a belief that mortality is, is all that obscures our present spiritual sense of being.
Well, someone may feel that obeying the rules, accepting the exacting demands of Christian Science, following the straight and narrow way of Truth might be very limiting, that it might "cramp one's style," so to speak. Quite the contrary. Christian Science liberates and enriches. It doesn't deprive one of anything useful or good or real. One expresses his true identity in the measure that he knows divine Love and its infinite expression to be the reality of all things.
Probably no Scriptural words are more familiar to all than, "God is love" (I John 4:8). Needless to say, Love used as a synonym for God is more than a good disposition or mere mood which may be expressed as love at one time and not at another, or as love for one and not for all. Nor does a dutiful sense of love partake of the divinely effortless and spontaneous nature of immortal Truth. Expressing divine Love is experiencing true being. It far transcends mere personal affection and thoughtless personal worship. Love that is Life needs nothing external to itself to continue to be Love and to act as Love. Love includes the truth of all that actually exists. As long ago as the early Christian era, Love was sometimes used in place of the word God, removing from divinity the sense of a localized or variable deity. Love connotes an imperishable and beneficial consciousness. It is not concerned with being loved but with expressing love, because it is Love.
In expressing divine Love, we are being linked to an irresistible power. Love is not only the greatest thing in the world — the reality of being is infinite Love, or God. This allness, this "I AM," this limitless consciousness which is eternal Life, includes no other power than blessedness. We cannot accustom our thinking to the eternality of perfect consciousness, Life, without becoming less susceptible to mistakes, disease, and lack, without experiencing more vigor, joy and aliveness.
The remedy for lack of anything in our experience, for a dearth of anything good in the world, is to love more. Divine Love, increasingly manifest in one's thinking, is the mainspring of supply. Love cannot be present in one's conscious knowing and remain unexpressed. Failure, making mistakes, lack of ability, are all due to a lack of correctly understanding and fully expressing divine Love. Spiritually scientific thinking is more powerful than any human effort. Divine Love releases one from past mistakes and enriches one's experience with intuition, judgment, and demonstrated obedience. A disclosing from within of the perfect nature of reality displaces fear and shows opportunity to be an eternally unfolding idea.
When we demonstrate love sufficiently in our own thoughts, this love will eventually sweep away every appearance of error. This divine fact, accepted and lived, brings progressively satisfying communication and relationships into human evidence. If we will stop looking to a person or persons, and look instead to the divine concept of them, we shall find Love's expression being evidenced in a completely satisfying way which we could never foresee — not coming from man, woman, or child, but certainly from the likeness of God which we have maintained. Divine Love remains Love under all circumstances.
Love unifies. One governed by divine Love is never on the defensive and never puts another on the defensive, because Love always unfolds from the basis of oneness. Every individual can choose to entertain thoughts of fear, criticism, envy. But if one resolutely replaces such unreal, lacking thoughts with love, they will intrude less and less frequently and finally not at all. The law or presence of Love never makes one feel insecure. Fear comes only from an insufficient understanding of divine Love.
It takes a growing appreciation of divine Love to prove the utter futility of error, or evil, in all its guises. As each hidden aspect of error is scientifically brought to light, the same forgiving and releasing love which exposed it will render it harmless. We must turn from the contemplation of error and hold thought steadfastly to divine Love until error disappears from consciousness.
When one is able to maintain an awareness of Love so gentle, so strong, so constant that one naturally knows the perfection and oneness of God and man, the world will have in increasing measure such works as Jesus performed. Because such demonstration is the acme of Christian Science healing which every consecrated Christian Scientist holds as his ideal, love must be practiced.
Practice is required for proficiency in any field of endeavor. True mental activity is literally the presence, intelligence, and power of divine Love with us. It must be practiced with all our heart and mind and soul and strength. Jesus practiced in the carpenter shop. He continued to know the truth no matter where he was or what he was doing: on the hillsides, in the villages, on the sea, on the cross, and in the tomb. The establishment of the Christian Science movement attests the steadfastness with which Mrs. Eddy maintained her unfolding spiritual outlook. Trials did not swerve her from Truth.
We must love now the very best way we know in order to learn to love better. One cannot dedicate his thought to the omnipotence of divine Mind without partaking of the divine nature and manifesting a progressive measure of intelligent judgment, dependable health and success. A continuing spiritual outlook must characterize our habitual way of looking at things. It cannot be turned on and off like a faucet if we would have progressive dominion in our daily experience.
Christian Science is an indivisible whole. It teaches scientific discipline and devotion of thought to Christian healing and living. If we would have reliable proof of our understanding, our only choice is to accept and practice it fully. Scientific Christian healing and real love are one. To practice fidelity to Truth is to allow divine Love to govern our whole thought.
Faced as we appear to be by the extremity of nations, it is of vital importance that we should replace human conjecture with releasing love born of pure Christianly scientific knowing. And to love means having dominion over our thoughts. Let us watch ourselves and see how many times we indulge and voice harmful opinions about the conduct of governments; the behavior of world leaders; and the future of the race. Such speculative thinking is worse than wasted because it confirms the burden that rests upon humanity. All is lost if we are not learning to love.
Think, weigh in the balance, contemplate, Which is the power for me: love or hate? The presence and action of divine Love have the same influence on erroneous sense, so-called mortal mind, which in itself is affliction and chaos — that light has on darkness. Where light asserts its presence and action, darkness simply ceases to be. Nothing needs to be changed but belief. Therefore we need not fear. Humanity must be on its way to happier days because it is possible to find by means of proof that divine Love is the only real power.
Expressing only that which emanates from the divine consciousness, Love, is true reverence for God. Really to love is a great accomplishment, far beyond what we have been accustomed to believe. It requires a nobility of character which emanates from divine Love itself. To love one another and all mankind may seem a simple thing to do, but it requires full redemption of the human and plumbs the very depths of one's thoughts.
Let us not be too busy to be merciful and to love. The way will never be more open to us than it is now. The perpetual newness and pure affection of the eternal Mind belongs to no special age, time, or individual. I rejoice that divine Love is your Life and consciousness and equal to every need. This is the teaching of Christian Science.
[Published in The Principia Pilot of Elsah, Illinois, Feb. 8, 1963.]