From my earliest boyhood I knew the Bible thoroughly from a Calvinistic standpoint, and when I reached manhood I had the privilege of listening to some of the greatest preachers of our time in England, Scotland, and Holland. During the time I was in Scotland, I heard also some of America's great preachers. At that time I studied the New Testament exegesis, and read a great many theological books and volumes of sermons of the best preachers of the past; but all this had only one effect upon me, it closed the Bible to me and made me an agnostic. Why? Because in the old thought we did not worship the God of the Bible. This is a bold statement, but nevertheless true. The God of the Bible is infinite, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, All-in-all. The God we worshiped in the old thought, we also acknowledged as infinite, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent; then 'we turned around and acknowledged at the same time another power called evil or devil, thus limiting the God we worshiped, robbing Him, as it were, of His infinitude; because He could no longer be infinite if there was another power outside Him. Is it, then, a wonder that the Bible became a closed—sealed—book? The God whom we thought we worshiped did not exist, hence God became to us a mysterious being. There is always a mystery about anything which exists only in belief. There is no mystery in that which is real.
Mrs. Eddy has opened up the Bible, and has shown us what the God of the Bible said about Himself: "I am the Lord, and there is none else." Let us listen to what Christ Jesus said about God. In the twelfth chapter of Mark's Gospel it is recorded that when one of the scribes asked Jesus, "Which is the first commandment of all?" Jesus answered him, "The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord." This is true from all eternity; it was true when Jesus uttered it; it is true now that Christian Science is demonstrating it. But if we hold that this truth should be made practical, those who are in the old thought will tell us that it is blasphemy. In referring to the evil one, the Master at one time said, "There is no truth in him he is a liar, and the father of it." Now a lie is a thing that does not exist, it is nothing; and the father of it is nothing— thus it is a case of nothing producing nothing. Christian Science is demonstrating today the allness of God, good, and the nothingness of evil; but some of those who hold to the old concepts will tell you that it is a Christless religion.
Mrs. Eddy again opens the Bible and points out that in the dim past it was thundered from Mount Sinai, "Thou shall have no other gods before me;" and she tells us that "this me is Spirit" (Science and Health, p. 467). Christ Jesus said, "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." Before he made this definite statement, he said to the Samaritan woman at the well, "Ye worship ye know not what;" and this is exactly what we have been doing in the old thought. Then Jesus added: "The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him." To worship the Father in truth is to live and demonstrate the truth in our daily life. In so doing we reflect the Father, and this is the true worship. The underlying truth of Christ's teaching is action not profession. Jesus further said, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." In Christian Science we know what it means to take up the cross—it is to demonstrate in our daily life the allness of God and the nothingness of evil.
