Arthur C. Whitney, C.S. of Chicago, Illinois
Member of the Board of Lectureship of The
Mother Church,
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts
Arthur C. Whitney, C.S., of Chicago, lectured on "Christian Science: A Religion of Answered Prayer," Sunday afternoon in the church edifice, Irvington, under the auspices of the Fourth Church of Christ, Scientist. The speaker was introduced by Mrs. Bertha Lanman.
The lecturer spoke substantially as follows:
It is good to be here, and it is a joy to share with you a few priceless spiritual truths. They are found in the Bible. They are the simple truths about God and man. They become healing truths when you know them, when you really have a conviction of them. Remember the promise of our Way-shower, Christ Jesus, who said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Now, the prayer of Christian Science is prayer based on a spiritual understanding of God with which you can know the truth. It is not prayer based on belief or blind faith. You cannot know the truth with belief or blind faith, but you can with spiritual understanding.
It is natural for you who come here in need of healing to find it during this hour, whether it is relief from fear, frustration, loss, hate, depression, lack, sin, or disease. How can you be healed? By your simple act of accepting and knowing the Bible truths about God and man. You can also be healed by earnestly reading and studying the lecture.
Let me tell you of a healing that took place during a lecture a short time ago. At the close of one lecture, a man came up to me and put out his hand. I gave him mine and he really took it. I haven't had a handshake like that since I was in college and you remember how we used to do it there. He looked me right in the eye. He had a twinkle in his eye. He said, "I did that purposely." Well, it didn't make any sense to me at that point. But then he went on to say: "When I came in here tonight, I came in with a useless and helpless right arm and hand. I just wanted you to see and feel what the power of God did for me during this hour." He raised his hand and arm over his head and he said: "Do you see that? I can't remember when I've been able to do that."
That healing exemplifies so naturally what the Word of God can do if you open your consciousness to receive it. You know, you can't get anything into closed hands. That, of course, anyone realizes, and yet how utterly simple it is to fill those same hands when they are opened wide. To achieve healing through Christian Science you must be like a little child. You remember what the Master said that unless you become as a little child you cannot enter the kingdom of God. You ask how can you become as a little child? By being receptive, humble, teachable, responsive, adjustable, believing. That is really expressing spiritual receptivity, and spiritual receptivity is prayer. You are praying now as you take that attitude. Spiritual receptivity is the first of five different kinds of prayer I want to tell you about. I know you will pray the prayer of spiritual receptivity consistently during this hour.
For centuries men have turned naturally to the Bible for spiritual light. The Bible's pages are filled with vital spiritual treasures of truth. There are countless instances of the power of God made manifest through the truths that men have drawn from its pages. You can have a Bible, however, and have it do you no good. You have to dig the treasures out. The truths are there. They are priceless, vital, healing.
The other day a Christian Science practitioner told me that she was called to a home where an individual was seeking Christian Science help for the first time. She said to the woman there, "Have you a Bible?" The woman replied: "Why, yes, we have a Bible somewhere here. We keep it tied up."
Well, it's the first time I ever heard of tying up a Bible! There are some things it probably would be a good plan to tie up. It made me think of the little girl who told a visiting minister, "I know everything that's in the Bible." You know, that's a pretty big order for a little girl to know everything that's in the Bible. And so, lovingly, he said to her, "I wish you'd tell me. I'd like to know." And without a moment's hesitation she started right in. She said, "There is Grandma's picture, two pressed leaves, that old letter of Daddy's, and a recipe for gingerbread." Of course, her Bible might just as well have been tied up.
Let us seriously look into the Bible, and not just between its pages. Let us see what it teaches about God. It tells us that God is divine reality, the only reality there is. That God is infinite divine presence, the limitless power of good, the ever-present divine intelligence or Mind, divine Love, the eternal Life of man, ever-present Spirit, Soul, the spiritual consciousness of man. It tells us in the words of Paul that we live, move, and have our existence in God, in this eternal, unchanging spiritual consciousness. It tells us that God alone created man in God's likeness and endowed man with dominion over all.
For centuries these great truths about reality, about God and man, have been recorded, but generally have not been accepted or effectually used. Less than eighty years ago, a Christlike New England woman, searching the Bibles pages for Truth, caught the practical aspect of God, and of prayer to God, which healed her and has since healed a multitude of others. That woman, Mary Baker Eddy, said, "We are tired of theoretic husks" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 369). In her textbook on Christian Science, called "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," she writes (p. 261), "Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts."
Christian Science teaches you to pray simply by just knowing the truth by just realizing, as the Bible teaches, that the divine presence is right here now. You pray, too, when you expel the belief from your thinking that there is any other or opposite presence. You can know that wherever your boy or other boys may be tonight, that right there is the presence of God, infinite spiritual consciousness, the realm of the actual and real. Know that they live, move, and have their existence in God, and God alone. Reject the mental concept that would see them in a material realm of war, danger, destruction, and death. Repudiate such a concept as a counterfeit belief of the carnal mind.
In like manner, become conscious that all the power that exists is divine, spiritual, good is God. That you, your boy, and other boys are subject alone to that power which protects, guards, sustains, and heals; for each one lives, moves, and has his existence in the realm of the spiritual, the divine, the real, the actual, not the mortal, the material, the apparent, and unreal. You live in God now and eternally. God is eternal Life, and God is your eternal Life. To know it is to pray, and to know or be conscious of the truth is to be made free from its opposing beliefs. The important thing, though, is to know it. Jesus didn't say that you could be made free by hearing the truth or by reading the truth, but, of course, it is a good plan to hear and to read, then you have something to know. But the vital thing is to know the truth. To have a conviction that it is true and real and actual, here and now to be at peace in that consciousness.
When the first chapter of Genesis finished telling about man, it used this statement, "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." "All right," someone says, "where do these things that aren't good come from?" I like the way Paul explained it when he referred to them as beliefs of "the carnal mind." Now, how simple it is, when anything presents itself to you which is not Godlike, to repudiate and cast it out, not for what it claims to be, but for what it is a counterfeit belief of the carnal mind. And Paul said, "The carnal mind is enmity against God."
Oh, by the way, did you ever see a counterfeit three-dollar bill? No, of course not. The reason you never did is because there isn't any real three-dollar bill. The obvious lesson is that you'll never have a counterfeit of anything that isn't real. And also the additional lesson that if you ever find a counterfeit you know there had to be a real before that counterfeit could be made. So, when you repudiate a counterfeit belief of the carnal mind because it is not Godlike, always see what the spiritual truth, fact, or quality is, recognize and claim it as part of your birthright as the son of God. This is the second kind of prayer, the prayer of spiritual understanding.
Let us look into the Bible again, and see what the Bible teaches about you, about man. I wish you would think of what I am going to say to you just as a woman did the other night. She came back after the lecture and said: "You know, it was just as if everything you said, were said just to me not to anyone else here. It was just as though there was no one else here, except just you and me, and all you said was just made for me." I wish you would think of what I am going to say about you just that way.
How does Christian Science tell you to utilize the Bible teaching that God created man in His likeness, and endowed him with dominion over all? By realizing that God alone created you created you in God's likeness and endowed you with dominion over everything unlike God. That is a wonderful truth to know. Truly, to do that is to pray. And repudiate the thought which says that you were born materially, and that you are a corporeal mortal trying to become spiritual. You are in reality already spiritual. That is the way God made you, but you need to know it, to become conscious of it, to have the conviction of it. Christian Science utilizes that thought of the beloved apostle, John, where he said, "Now are we the sons of God." It tells you to claim it. Now, am I the son of God Godlike, spiritual, perfect, joyful, free, triumphant. That's the truth about you. To know it is to pray, and to know the truth is to be made free.
One evening a woman told me that she felt it was asking too much for any listener, during the lecture, to do what I recommended the audience do in this next thought. She said, "You ought to call that homework and ask folks to do it after they get home and can give it proper time and thought." So, let's call it homework. Here it is.
Tonight, in the quiet of your thought, take a good look at what you have been thinking about yourself. Just as you wash dirt from your hands the dirt is no part of your hands just so mentally cleanse and purge your thinking of every concept of yourself that is less than Godlike. They are nothing but beliefs of the carnal mind. The beliefs of the carnal mind are to be recognized as counterfeits, and repudiated. Then replace them with the opposite, spiritual truths, spiritual qualities which are your birthright as a son of God. Do not stop until you can see yourself as God's perfect expression as you really are.
But that is just part of your homework, and perhaps the easier part. Next, purge your thinking of every ungodlike concept of those around you in the home, church, business, and social circles. Keep purging your thinking until you can see only the likeness of God in them all. Now, that is effectual prayer. It is knowing the truth in a most practical way. It heals.
Let me tell you just how effectual that kind of prayer is. Eleven years ago, a Chicago businessman found himself in constant pain, and losing considerable weight. Three physicians diagnosed his condition as an advanced case of cancer, and held out little hope. In desperation the man went to a Christian Science practitioner, who recognized that what the man really needed to be healed of were false and ungodlike concepts of his family and business associates, for his thinking was filled with resentment, hatred, and bitterness toward them. The practitioner set the man to work at once cleansing his thinking about himself and his brothers. The man set to work to transform and spiritualize his thinking, making love the motive power for every thought, attitude, word, and act. He expressed that quality of spiritual receptivity. He didn't ask or wish someone else to do his work for him. He realized, too, that to correct the mental cause would dissolve and eliminate the diseased effect. The practitioner applied the prayer of spiritual understanding to dissolve those accumulated beliefs of bitterness, hate, and resentment which had been growing in the man's thought for some time.
In a very short time the swelling dissolved, the pain disappeared, and the man returned to his business free. He gradually regained the fifty-six pounds he had lost, and today he is happy, healthy, and successful. This illustrates how Truth readily heals individuals, first, by purging their thinking, and then, in turn, by utterly dissolving their diseases and distresses. This illustrates a third kind of prayer, the healing prayer of love and forgiveness.
Each instance of healing that I cite and you will hear several more is of an individual whom I personally know. In some cases I have been an eyewitness to the healing. I can vouch for the authenticity and facts just as they are given to you.
Purge your thinking. Then think and live like the son of God that you are. Let me think and live like the son of God that I am. That is the wonderful part of prayer in Christian Science. It is real; it is vital; it is living; it is not just words.
You know, one time a clergyman was invited to conduct an experience meeting in a church in the South. A woman arose and told of the beauty of her religion as a light-bringer and comfort-giver. After a while he interrupted her and said: "Now, that's fine, Sister, as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough. How about the practical side of your religion? Does your religion make you get your husband a good breakfast every morning? Does your religion make you look after him in every way?" Just then he felt a tugging on his coattails, and he heard the local preacher behind him whisper, "Press dem questions, press dem questions, Doctor, dat's ma wife!"
Christian Science teaches that the Christ is the truth, the way, and that Jesus' demonstrations of the Christ made him the Way-shower. Jesus understood and demonstrated the fullness of the Christ, that understanding of God and of man's inseparable sonship with God. Anyone may have the Christ to the degree that he has spiritual understanding. Through his perception of the Science of the Christ, Jesus did more for humanity in the three short years of his ministry than anyone else has ever done.
Let us follow him on one of his healing journeys. He used to walk with his disciples, going from one town to another, preaching and demonstrating the Christ. On one occasion, they were approaching the gate of the city of Nain when they were met by a funeral procession. The Bible tells us (Luke 7:12-15) they were carrying out a dead man, the only son of a widow, and adds, "And much people of the city was with her." What an opportunity for Jesus to convincingly present the healing Truth, the Christ, to all those people.
Let me interrupt for a moment to ask: What is the truth, the Christ-truth of that situation, which he said we are to know, and which would raise the dead? Is it not this that right there was the presence of eternal Life, God? And that man lives, moves, breathes, and has his being, his existence unchangingly, in that Life? The Master turned to that widow compassionately, and said, "Weep not." He knew she had no occasion to weep, even if she and the multitude thought otherwise. Then he turned to the son and said. "Young man, I say unto thee, Arise, and he "sat up, and began to speak." That was the application of the Christ; that was the knowing of the truth that makes free. It was not a person, Jesus, who healed. It was the Christ, the truth which Jesus knew. And the Bible says that all those people glorified God.
Jesus gave us a promise. Think of this, too, as a promise made to you individually. He said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me [that is, he that believeth the Christ, the Truth], the works that I do shall he do also." That is a promise. No promise of the Master ever failed.
Let me tell you of a modern fulfillment of that promise. Some years ago, a nine-year-old boy was playing on the roof of a three-story apartment building. He was up there with some other boys. He tried to jump to the roof of the adjoining building, just a few feet away, but his legs just weren't long enough. He landed on a concrete pavement. Bystanders picked him up and rushed him to a hospital. The hospital authorities phoned his home. They said: "Your boy met with an accident. He has just been brought into our hospital. We've examined him. He's dead."
At that moment in that home were two earnest Christian Scientists who believed the truth, who had a conviction of the Christ. They repudiated the picture presented as a counterfeit belief of the carnal mind. They held to the spiritual facts of the presence of eternal Life, and man living eternally and unchangeably in that presence, in that eternal Life. One of them called a Christian Science practitioner and asked that the consciousness of the eternality of that boy's life be upheld. Think of that. She didn't ask that he be raised from the dead, no! She asked that the consciousness of the eternality of that boy's life be upheld. That's knowing the truth. That is the prayer of spiritual understanding. A little while later that day, the hospital authorities discovered that boy breathing again. There was no explanation they could offer. Prayer in Christian Science was continued, and three days later that boy regained consciousness. Now, I say to you just what I want to read to you from the Acts of the Apostles in the Bible. Paul said this to King Agrippa, and I say it to you: "Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?" It should not. When Jesus said, "Ye shall know the truth," he said it would make you free, and he put no limitations whatever upon what it would free you from. It frees you from whatever is unlike God.
The other evening a man said to me after hearing that experience, "But where is that boy today?" It seemed to me that I sensed a little skepticism in his voice and thought. It was really thrilling to joyously answer, "He's in active service in the United States Navy."
Before his ascension, the Master said, "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, . . . even the Spirit of truth." There we are, right back to Truth again. "The Spirit of truth" the truth that makes free, and which only requires knowing or conviction to be operative in your experience. For three hundred years after that promise was made Christian healing flourished. It was common to raise the dead. Then followed centuries of religious darkness. The promised Comforter was only awaiting the consciousness sufficiently clear, spiritually, to discern its presence and purpose. Mary Baker Eddy, a gentle woman, who from childhood had been accustomed to talking with God in prayer, did discern that promised Comforter, through inspiration and revelation, and appropriately named her discovery Christian Science, because it is the Science of the healing Christ.
Mrs. Eddy's love of God was early instilled in her by a devout mother, and before she was ten years old she had already become a devout student of the Bible. The inspiration she gained from the Scriptural example of Daniel, who withdrew three times a day to pray, aroused in that little girl a desire to do likewise. So, up in that New England farmhouse she retired to the woodshed where she could pray without being disturbed, not three times a day, but seven. Each time after praying, she made a chalk mark on the side of the woodshed lest she forget to fulfill her full daily obligation of prayer. Isn't it natural that the child-heart that reached out in trustful prayer to God to bless a needy world should be rewarded by that spiritual light through which God revealed to her the Comforter, Christian Science? This unfoldment came as soon as her more matured spiritual thought enabled her to nurture, protect, and demonstrate it. Thus God prepared and selected her as the revelator of His Science of the Christ. Thus she also became recognized by the world as the Discoverer of Christian Science.
As a result of her devotion there is found nowhere in modern history another such record of answered prayer in healing the sick, transforming the sinner, and awakening the deadened consciousness, as we find recorded and authenticated in the works of that dear, unselfish woman. Were it not for her prayer-inspired consecration to God, which caused her to spiritually discern and freely share Christian Science, I would not be here today. Neither would many of you in this audience.
She gave us a prayer of which she spoke as "my prayer." It is the last verse of her poem "Christ My Refuge." It would be wonderful if everyone here called it "my prayer" and lived it. It reads (Poems, p. 13):
"My prayer, some daily good to do
To Thine, for Thee;
An offering pure of Love, whereto
God leadeth me."
Mary Baker Eddy is gratefully, reverently, and universally recognized today not only as the Discoverer of Christian Science, and the founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist, but, through her inspired writings, as the present and forever Leader of this great world-wide Cause of Christian Science. Christian Scientists are deeply grateful to her for what she has done, and for what she, through her writings, is doing for them and for the world today.
Have you ever realized that gratitude to God is prayer? It is most effective prayer, perhaps much more so than many of you realize. It is the fourth kind of prayer I wish to tell you about.
Some years ago, a woman was confined to her bed with a condition of malignant growth. She was under the care of a Christian Science practitioner and a Christian Science nurse. They worked faithfully, but months passed with no progress. She became disheartened.
The practitioner prayed for more spiritual light. He came to her home one morning and he said, "I want you to do something today, more than you've done heretofore." She said, "I'll do anything; I'm desperate." He said, "I want you to open your heart in gratitude to God, and pour it out continually."
She shook her head. She said: "Please don't ask me to do that. I'll do anything I can, but I can't do that. I haven't got anything to be grateful for, truly I haven't." She said: "Here I am, in such a desperate condition. We're head over heels in debt. There is so much discord around. Truly, I haven't a thing to be grateful for." He said: "Let's see, now; let's just lift our thought and see. Can you be grateful to God, can you thank God that right here where you are is the healing presence of God, and that you are living, moving, breathing, and having your being in that presence and nowhere else?" She thought a moment, and then said: "That is true, I can be grateful for it. I can thank God for it, and I will."
"All right," he said. "Let's lift our thought again. Can you thank God, can you be grateful to God that every bit of this oppressive sense is not of God's creating, therefore is not real or true, and can no more stand in your experience before the conviction of the truth than darkness can stand when you bring in light?" She said: "I know it. I know it's true, and if I know it's true, of course I can be grateful for it, and I will."
He said: "Let's lift our thought again. Can you thank God that God alone created you? Can you be grateful that God has maintained His perfect and unchanged creation? That you are wholly spiritual, perfect, free, joyful, triumphant, now?" She said: "Of course I can. I see what I need to do. It isn't difficult. I've only got to recognize what is actual and be grateful for it. I can do it, and I will do it."
The practitioner had the nurse get a pad and a pencil. Then he started that woman scribbling off her thoughts of gratitude as fast as they came to her. Then he said, "Tonight, and each succeeding night until you are healed, and know it, I want you to have those sheets put into an envelope and mailed to me." The next morning in the mail was an envelope from that woman. The practitioner opened it, and there were sixteen letter-size sheets filled with gratitude to God. That very day that condition dissolved and passed out of that woman's experience. I don't think we half realize what a potent spiritual force we have here at hand to work with. Cultivate that attitude of constant thankfulness to God not just for apparent blessings, but much more for the spiritual realities unseen to the senses.
I want to tell you about a fifth kind of prayer. It is the most effectual kind of prayer I know. It is the prayer of consecration. It's so simple. You know what the Master admonished. He said, "Not my will, but thine, be done." That's the basis of consecration. You know how an individual starts out tries to do everything on his own, and after a while, when he finds it doesn't work, then he tries to use God. Well, that's all right, but it's like getting halfway up the stairs and being left halfway up. You can't get anywhere halfway up the stairs. Then comes consecration. Instead of trying to use God to get what you think you want or need, let God use you, to unfold His will and plan for you. That is consecration. That prayer never fails of an answer.
You know, most folks just pray for what they want. That's the common concept of prayer to ask for what you want. One time a little boy, whose parents had never given him any real or proper reason for praying, was asked by a minister, "Johnny, do you pray every night?" Instantly, Johnny replied: "Why should I? Some nights I don't want anything."
The individual who, in consecration, prays God to use him or her to unfold the divine will and plan, and consistently seeks to follow each divine impulse, in that very attitude lives the prayer of consecration. Let me tell you of an instance of it.
A seventeen-year-old Sunday school boy went away to college. He put up a sign over his desk reading, "Myself Third." This meant nothing to the fellows, and, of course, they all wanted to know what it meant; and, wisely, he would not tell them. Finally, a while later, his roommate pressed him, and he said to his roommate: "I'll be glad to tell you. I didn't want to say anything about it until I could really make it work. Now, I'll be glad to tell you." And before I tell you folks what that boy told his roommate, I'd just like to say this, if you haven't a better basis for inspiring your thinking, your motives, your attitude toward others, your words, and your actions, think about what this boy did and follow his example. This boy told his roommate: "When I went away to college, my mother asked me to do three things in any situation which came up. She said, 'Always put God, Principle, and your highest sense of right, first; service to others, second; yourself, third.' And, so I wouldn't forget it, I put up the sign 'Myself Third.'" I am told that there are many "Myself Third" signs over desks, work benches, and kitchen sinks as humble testimony of the earnest desire in the hearts of so many individuals to live that most effectual prayer of consecration.
Here is an example of the prayer of consecration. It is a most beautiful instance of its protecting and healing influence. An army private wrote me these two letters. I want to read them to you. He gave me his permission to use them, and I share them with you. You'll love them, and you'll never forget the lesson in them. The first letter reads: "I guess you knew we made the landing at Anzio. Well, on the way into the beach, I had a hymn in my mind 'Shepherd, show me how to go' [by Mrs. Eddy]. I never knew the words to that hymn until that time and they just came to me. I have often thought that I've had so many miracles as the fellows would say, but we know that these were and are just God's presents. One thing I am, oh, so grateful for is the time I spent up on the line, that I had complete confidence in God's protection. Not once did fear enter my consciousness. I hope that some day I will be able to help others find the light. I have had something when I've been able to help others. A buddy of mine in my outfit had been hit in the arm, and it left his right hand stiff. He was striving for something and so I have been reading the Lesson to him and have lent him my books to read. Well, last Sunday he told me that he is overcoming the condition with his hand. I only wish I had a firmer knowledge so I could help him more.
"I want you to know how much help Christian Science has been in this turmoil. I feel that I have gained a power, or shall I say, accepted it? I am ever so grateful. I've constantly held to 'the scientific statement of being' [Science and Health, p. 468], and also the twenty-third Psalm. I always have clung to these. The fourth verse of the twenty-third Psalm is so comforting." Now, that is the end of his first letter. Before I read the second, I want to quote that verse, because of what follows. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me."
Here's the second letter: "I have had the most wonderful demonstration. I am the only one of four who is alive. We were sitting in a jeep when a shell blew it out from under us. Well, I landed in the hospital blind. That buddy of mine read the Lesson to me every day, and I have been healed of that condition of blindness, and am O.K."
Can you ever doubt the effectiveness of the prayer of consecration after listening to those letters? a lad not yet twenty, impelled by consecration, rescued from death, and then from blindness. You ask, how you, here, can better live the prayer of consecration? By not being satisfied with selfish material thinking and living, but by humbly, meekly, lifting your hearts to think and live unselfishly, with each thought, motive, word, and act under the divine impulse. By seeking to give, to share, to help, not to get, to have, or to be served by others. To make each moment of each day an occasion to bless others and glorify God, to pray consistently for our men in service, and for others whose needs seem greater than your own. Then the kingdom of heaven on earth today is your reward the fruitage of the prayer of consecration which Christian Science teaches you. No wonder Christian Science is called "A Religion of Answered Prayer."
During this hour some of you have been roused, spiritually quickened, uplifted, released from false, limited, material thinking. It has resulted in healing, release from physical oppression. If anyone here is not realizing complete freedom, rejoice in your opportunity for further spiritualization of thought. Make spiritual receptivity a living prayer, nurture and hold close to your heart the priceless spiritual truths about God, and about yourself as God's inseparable son and manifestation. Make the prayer of spiritual understanding a constant one. Do your homework, consistently every day. Purge your thinking from any thought about yourself and others which is unlike God. Thus, you pray the prayer of love and forgiveness. Let there be no one in home, church, or business who in your vision is less than the perfect son of God, and humbly demonstrate real brotherliness to each one. Keep your heart overflowing with a constant prayer of gratitude to God. Keep your experience a living prayer of active, consecrated service to God and man. Study the life and teachings of the master Christian, Christ Jesus, as recorded in the New Testament of the Bible. Seek to live the admonitions Christ Jesus gives us there. Study those first seventeen pages of the Christian Science textbook. Science and Health the chapter on "Prayer" until you are satisfied with your fruitage of prayer.
Come to the church services Wednesday and Sunday with the assurance that it is the Word of God which is read from the Bible and Science and Health. That the healing is in the Word, and it is abundantly adequate to meet any of your needs. The services are for the purpose of enlightening and healing. Come and be healed.
In closing, let me give you this benediction from the Bible, for yours shall be the promise given Ruth: "The Lord recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust."
[Delivered April 28, 1946, in Fourth Church of Christ, Scientist, Indianapolis, Indiana, and published in The Marion County Mail of Indianapolis, Indiana, May 3, 1946. A few overly long paragraphs have been broken up for this transcript.]