IN the spiritual interpretation of the Lord's Prayer which our Leader has given us, occurs this significant phrase, "Give us grace for to-day" (Science and Health, p. 17). As the beginner in Christian Science comes to this scientific elucidation of the familiar words, "Give us this day our daily bread," the plea that had seemed the clearest and most practical in the "Lord's Prayer," his thought is arrested. The substitution of the word "grace" for "bread" raises his thought to a higher plane of beauty, but there arises the necessity of bringing to the word grace as basic and elementary a significance as that which attaches to the word bread when it stands for the maintenance of life. He recognizes that he must put aside for the time the primary signification of this word grace, for Mrs. Eddy could never have meant we should ask for that which is only "kindly, or graceful, or the evidence of good will;" nor could she have implied that the more popular application as "favor, privilege, or forgiveness undeserved" is the grace which Christian Scientists should make the subject of daily prayer.
The theological definition of this oft-interpreted and misinterpreted term is the first glimpse the writer experienced in perceiving the possibilities of what a proper analysis of our interpretation might develop. Eadie's "Biblical Encyclopedia" defines grace as "the free favor of God bestowed upon men without any merit or claim on their part, and sometimes divine influence and its results upon the heart." This brings such a humble and grateful sense of God's mercy and tenderness, and awakens confidence in His "influence," guidance, and control. Above all, it is an evolution from a sense of Deity's unjust regarding of persons in bestowing indiscriminate favor or privilege, to a hope that if some receive favor even without merit, all may earn it through a higher conception of divine justice and wisdom in the bestowment of grace where it is deserved, used, and developed for good.
Right here let us be led with Christian, the earthly pilgrim who carried so great a burden of sin as to be called "graceless," and who. through a desire to die in Truth, progressed to the heavenly realm where "grace reigns." To lead Christian from sense to Soul, Bunyan selects as guide the Interpreter, which he defines as the Holy Spirit. We read,—
