THE trend of modern thinking has been, on the whole, away from the former idea that membership in a church organization means in itself salvation from evil. Many modern church societies frankly affirm that they are only associations of earnest people who think alike, gathered together for mutual help and for the benefit of others, and many persons who have had this concept of a church have had a good deal of interest to know just what membership in a Christian Science church means to those uniting with that body.
Among the various Christian denominations the amount of authority exercised by the church over its members varies in a large degree. In some religious organizations newcomers can but expect that they are going to find very exact and definite rules for their conduct, that they are going to have much of their thinking directed if not dictated by the authorities of the church, and sometimes persons feel that they are glad to yield their thought to such personal control, as a relief after the weary years of trying to think things out for themselves. Those who come to the Christian Science church, however, find, and to their surprise, perchance, that the governing idea, the chief rule for act and thought which is laid down to them, is that God alone can tell them what they ought to do at every turn of their lives, that He alone can reveal Himself to them, and that their constant effort must be to keep thought turned always to Him for guidance. Membership in this church, therefore, has a wonderfully strengthening effect, just because it keeps one always reminded not to depend upon personality as the source of any good. Instead of a personal dictatorship of any kind, the only personal aid may in a certain sense be said to be that which teaches the newcomer to get along without personal aid.
A true teacher of Christian Science seeks by his teaching to enable the student to dispense with further teaching. A teacher is not one who is to take the place in any degree of the pupil's own honest effort to attain to the divine guidance for himself. One of the chief functions of a teacher is to show the student his own faulty tendencies and how to correct them. Both this loving rebuke of the true teacher and the whole meaning of church-membership are wonderfully epitomized in the "Rule for Motives and Acts" from the Manual of The Mother Church (p. 40), which is read in the Christian Science churches all over the world on the first Sunday of every month. It says: "Neither animosity nor mere personal attachment should impel the motives or acts of the members of The Mother Church. In Science, divine Love alone governs man; and a Christian Scientist reflects the sweet amenities of Love, in rebuking sin, in true brotherliness, charitableness, and forgiveness." The last section touches on the need of members to "daily watch and pray to be delivered from all evil."
