Christian Science has given me such a sweet and altogether wholesome sense of communion, that I now delight in an ordinance which formerly I neither understood nor enjoyed. Because I did not know the purport of the holy sacrament, I had no affection for it, and the recurring intervals when this solemn event was celebrated, brought only mental confusion and self-condemnation. The fear of eating and drinking unworthily, or of not partaking at all, was the Scylla and Charybdis which flanked my Christian voyage, as a youth. The simplicity of the communion season, as I found it in Christian Science, the elimination of all formality, of material type and symbol, made the sacrament beautiful and attractive. I felt as though I had journeyed from the valley, where the mists still made the landscape chill and gray and uninviting, to the uplands, where I could see the sunshine, drink in the fragrance of the morning air, and feast my gaze on a fair and noble prospect, which waited only my exploration to yield new delights of the freshest and best in the kingdom of Mind.
There can be only one true basis for communion, and that is the spiritual. Matter, material modes, and personal relations have no part in the genuine office of communion. Hence it follows that the less we have of outward ceremony, the more apt we are to draw near to the very heart of communion, sacrificing none of the essentials of the spiritual fact by cumbering it with a theological pageantry. For this reason, the communion as it is observed in the Christian Science church finds a sympathetic response in the heart attuned to hear and understand the grand symphonies of Love's composing. Under the sweet and pervading influence of this holy hour, our thoughts take on the serenity of a placid lake, reflecting the peace and beauty of the firmament above it. No "sober melancholy" robs this season of its highest meaning. Sadness, regret, remorse, may be the preliminary emotions which usher us over the vestibule, into the communion itself, but here, all thoughts of self are lost in the contemplation of man's unity with God. Pride is humbled, material desires are put off at the door, and we enter the sanctuary of Mind to find the true self, to commune with God and His children.
Because true communion is wholly spiritual, it is understood only by the spiritualized thought. It is essentially an individual relationship, and cannot be properly interpreted by matter. Indeed, there is no communion at all between a material mind, or a consciousness made up of material sensations, and the Mind which is Spirit. To partake of the communion is to dematerialize thought, to become conscious of the presence of good, and consequently to lose a consciousness of everything that is not good. Communion is the daily demonstration of man's unity with his heavenly Father and his superiority to every claim of life apart from Mind.
