THE question of the attitude of readers in Christian Science churches toward the presentation of the Lesson-Sermon is one of vital importance to the growth of our cause. The nature and inherent tendency of the human mind is to assert itself, and this self-assertion when clothed with the letter of Christian Science is a thing to be carefully avoided, especially by those whose privilege it is to read in Christian Science churches.
The tendency to self-assertion is not always detected by the new reader, and when not detected and overcome he is likely to study and read the Lesson with strained effort. Sometimes he may wonder why his reading does not produce in himself and his auditors the comforting and satisfying peace which he feels should be its outcome, but a little reflection will show the reason for the absence of these desired results. If the reader is influenced by self-will, or an uncontrolled zeal of impulse, he may impart this state of thought, with the result that those who hear him may be more or less similarly affected. The reader might thus become a channel through which self-will usurps the place of the pure Christianity necessary to accomplish the reformation for which the services have been provided. It requires earnest study, growth, humility, and careful self-analysis to detect and defeat the wilful tendencies of the carnal mind. This so-called mind's self-will cannot be conducive to peace, healing, or even an apprehension of the subject under consideration.
One of the most subtle forms of self-will is made manifest when a reader is led to believe that his success as a reader and the success of the meeting depends upon his interpretation of the Lesson-Sermon. This may lead, through a desire to make his interpretation clear, to an altogether unwarranted emphasis of certain words and phrases. It is true that the success of the meeting depends largely upon the reader's mental and spiritual condition and the manner in which the Lesson is read, but for the reader so to emphasize his reading as to amount to an insistence that the congregation accept his particular interpretation of the Lesson, is a serious mistake. It transfers the listener's thought from the impersonal contemplation of the subject-matter to the reader and to the particular thought he is seeking to convey. This may deprive the listener of the mental experience of gaining for himself through his own analysis the truths which his own state of development will permit him to grasp. In almost any good-sized congregation there will be some whose temperament, until sufficiently purged by Truth, may incline toward the spectacular, but no sense appeal, however finely cloaked with the letter, will prove conducive to the hearer's spiritual development, nor will it comfort the weary wanderer who has come to the meeting in search of the healing waters of Truth.
