THERE are no students of the Bible who value its teachings more highly than do Christian Scientists, for they find that the spiritual sense gained in Christian Science enables them to apply these teachings in a wonderfully practical way. It goes without saying that those who are well acquainted with the Scriptures have an advantage at the start, but in every case the spiritual sense must be gained, for an attempt to interpret the inspired word materially grasps only the letter which killeth, when humanity's great need is the spirit which "giveth life." On page 547 of Science and Health our revered Leader assures us that "it is this spiritual perception of Scripture, which lifts humanity out of disease and death and inspires faith."
In almost every instance those who seek help in Christian Science for mental or physical suffering have their thoughts turned at once to some passage of Scripture, and this oftentimes without any conscious effort on the part of the practitioner, simply because revealed truth is the final court of appeal against the adverse decisions of mortal mind. In such cases the text is illumined and a new meaning given to it, so that those who are healed can say, as did the people who witnessed Jesus' healing work, "We never saw it on this fashion." In the Old Testament the ninety-first psalm is to the student of Christian Science as a great mountain peak of revelation which can never be scaled by the mere critic, but at each step of the ascending path the devout pilgrim finds fresh proofs that infinite Love in its almightiness broods over the unfolding thought with never-failing protection, whatever be the seeming dangers of the way. What if a thousand fall at thy side from deadly pestilence or some other ill, the divine assurance is, "It shall not come nigh thee." This is not because the all-Father favors one child above another, but because it is life to know God, and without the kind of knowing which Christ Jesus called for there is no sure protection and no real life.
Mrs. Eddy tells us (Science and Health, p. 110) that after her own healing, and while she was seeking a fuller understanding of the divine Principle of that spiritual experience, in her quest for Truth the Bible was her only text-book. She says, "The Scriptures were illumined; reason and revelation were reconciled,"—an experience which has been repeated with unnumbered thousands who have been healed in Christian Science. A young student was once enthusiastically telling a clergyman of some healing work done through the new understanding of divine law gained in Christian Science. The theologian however contended for the law of heredity, and solemnly quoted from the second commandment the clause which says that the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children "unto the third and fourth generation." When he stopped at this point the Scientist asked him to go on, and when he did it became clear that even humanly interpreted this decree referred only to "them that hate me" (divine Love), and the rest was a most gracious promise to "them that love me, and keep my commandments."
