Articles

A CASUAL visitor at a Christian Science meeting listened attentively to several testimonies of healing by the application of the word of God to the need of humanity. He then rose to his feet and said that while he believed, with the Christian Scientists, that God healed the sick, he also believed that the one receiving the blessing had his part to do in the work of healing.

WHAT one of us has not gone on from day to day, possibly from year to year, praying, "Not my will, but thine, be done," and then awakened to find that it was after all but a prayer of the lips, a mere repetition of words, though they seemed to have been uttered in all sincerity and wrung from the profoundest depths of the heart. Realizing this, can we not look back and clearly discern the reason for limitation or desire unfulfilled? How needless the mistakes, but how rich the lessons learned through hours of trial! One may study the letter of Christian Science for a long time, may even prove its Principle in some degree, and then find that human will and ambition have had a large place in one's life.

AN honest seeker for Truth has reverently propounded a series of questions and statements which embody such a large amount of prevailing inquiry respecting Christian Science teaching, that a statement in epitome of his queries, with some comments thereon, may prove helpful to the readers of the Journal. He said in substance,— Christian Science teaches the unreality of evil, and that there are no such things as sin, sickness, and suffering because God is All and He is good, hence evil cannot be of Him; but if there is no evil, no sin, sickness, or suffering, what was Christ's mission on earth? If evil is unreal, what reason was there for the appalling sacrifice that he made? To say that Christ came to destroy a belief of evil does not help the situation, because the belief itself is a most astounding evil.

THE question, Under which government do yon prefer to live? does not here refer to a choice between national, state, municipal, or similar governments. It refers to man's true place in the universe, and to the supposed laws, on the one hand, and the real laws, on the other hand, of the universe in which we find ourselves.

NO Bible student can fail to have been struck by the many prophecies and promises, contingent upon the due honoring of the name of God, to be found both in the Old and New Testaments; and in the Psalms of David and the book of Isaiah we read of a longing and desire to know this name. Now a mere name or designation is in itself powerless to procure good, or to arouse this longing, and so we are led to search for some deeper and wider meaning.

FOR more than forty years Christian Science has been waging unremitting and successful warfare against the belief in sin. sickness, and death.

CHRIST JESUS laid great stress upon the necessity of constantly meeting and overcoming error of every kind. He repeatedly told his followers that they would be tried and tested continually concerning their knowledge and understanding of Truth and their ability to put these into practice.

ONE of the first effects that Christian Science has upon the learner is to lead him to declare with Jacob, "Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not. " When first taking up this study, the average learner grasps the truth by degrees, "here a little, and there a little.

ONE sometimes wonders if Christian Scientists have any conception of what it means to have a text-book of Christian Science. As librarian in a Christian Science reading-room I have been deeply impressed with the value of this possession.

IN nothing was Jesus more emphatic than his insistence that men should seek the highest good and should make the kingdom of God the ruling passion of their lives, lie not only taught this, but he lived it, and thus became the Wayshower whose words and deeds, when enshrined in men's hearts, bring forth the fruits of righteousness. Patient study of the Master's teaching and example can leave no doubt as to what the noblest life-purpose should be, yet humanity generally is actuated by a distorted sense of proportion with regard to those things which bring peace and happiness.