TO one who has heard the outpouring of grateful hearts at the Wednesday evening services held in the Christian Science churches and noted the oft-repeated quotation of Mrs. Eddy's opening sentence in the preface to Science and Health, as also the many references to her chapter on Prayer, it seems that in some specific way these two are significant to the first experiences and the need of the seeker for Truth. That it was divine leading and not mere coincidence which placed the chapter on Prayer first in the book, and that even the preface (which the present-day desultory reader more frequently omits than reads) also contains a rich blessing, is plainly indicated by the constant references to them from those who bear witness to the healing. The Christian Science text-book makes its way to the couch of pain, and its first message, "To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, today is big with blessings" (p. vii), inspires a hope whose radiance pierces the gloom of the sufferer. It leads on and illumines the way through the succeeding pages, dispelling sickness and destroying sin until fruitage in experience and "Fruitage" in the text-book are coincident.
"Desire is prayer" (p. 1 ), says our Leader, and desire is the starting-point of every experience. Perhaps to human sense some desire has been left unfulfilled or has been thwarted, perhaps the desire when fulfilled has failed to bring the joy and satisfaction which was its very aim. For these reasons men and women have sought the message and found it in Mrs. Eddy's revelation about prayer. No one can listen to the testimonies given, noting the spiritual discernment which accompanies the recital of personal experience, and fail to acknowledge that Christian Scientists have an interpretation of Scriptural truths which is practical and scientific and that the study of their text-book has a direct bearing on the understanding of such Scripture. Many of the incidents in Jesus' life seem mere narratives to the Bible student before he learns of Christian Science, but its text-book, as a key, reveals something more profoundly significant in those narratives. They contain a metaphysical truth applicable to every individual experience of which Jesus' experience is a type; a truth that indicates the way pointed out by one who laid his life down that we might pattern ours accordingly.
In Luke's gospel we read that Jesus "went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God." Let us look into this narrative and see if it does not yield possibilities of study and inspiration beyond any previous understanding we had when we regarded it in the old way. Metaphysically understood, mountain represents exalted thought. Mrs. Eddy has taught us, as did Jesus, that to pray does not mean joy to beseech an indifferent Father, whose ear needs to be turned to us in our need, but rather to affirm what is true—to still the voice of fear with the ever-present consciousness of God with us. Yielding ourselves instruments of right thinking, letting that Mind be in us "which was also in Christ Jesus," and cherishing daily thankfulness for even the little good we perceive—these conditions indicate the state of mind fit for prayer and receptive to its answer. Our work is not to make God hear, but to open our own ears; to stop the shouting of self-will, the whining of self-pity, or the groaning of selfish martyrdom, so that it is possible to hear the "still small voice" which tells us where and how to look for what we ask. Our desires cannot be fulfilled while we keep them in the valley of depression and clothe them with morbid longing. Fulfilment comes when we lift up the desire to be purified and spiritualized. So, then, when Jesus went into the mountain to pray he lifted his desire into the realm of exalted thought. We read further that he "continued all night in prayer." He continued in the prayer which extracts self from the desire and submits all to the Father. "Continued all night" says the narrative. How many of us continue our desires during that period which seems night to us? Are we not, rather, too often tempted to give up when the first hour brings no response; or, what is even worse, how often do we continue to the eleventh hour and then impatiently fling wide the doors of consciousness to the myriad phases of discouragement, finally dragging in the specter of despair and resigning ourselves to the gloom of an endless night? Let us remember at such a time that Jesus prayed all night. We are told that not until it was day did he call the disciples to give the message—the divine beatitudes.
