With that willingness to learn which characterizes all seekers after truth, Christian Scientists are glad to acknowledge that whatever their Leader regarded as important should be practised by her followers. They count it a privilege to heed every caution and injunction which she has uttered for the protection and progress of the cause of Christian Science and of every individual who has regularly enlisted under its banner of freedom for the overcoming of sin, disease, and death. Mrs. Eddy was fully aware of the great good which had come to all humanity in Christian Science. She well knew also the counterfeit nature and purpose of evil, and has thoroughly directed the attention of all her followers to the need of unceasing watchfulness. Christian Scientists are therefore without excuse if they do not constantly increase in the understanding of the omnipotence of the divine purpose and the utter powerlessness of its supposititious opposite.
Students of Christian Science obtain an understanding of this true purpose when they acknowledge "the power of God; who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began," to quote Paul's words to Timothy. This, as Paul also points out in his epistle to the Ephesians, shall be known by the church "according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord." There is therefore abundant consolation and support in knowing that God's purpose for the world is being directed by the power and wisdom of God, and that no intention contrary to His purpose can succeed.
A mistaken sense of the power and purpose of God can only appear to human consciousness as a temptation, a false claim, and is never to be considered as anything more. It is a falsity to be overcome by a right apprehension of its nature and powerlessness. Let us then uncover mistaken views of Christian Science, and all erratic opinions respecting the privileges and duties of members of the church which is its mouthpiece, and do this from the standpoint of our Leader. She declares that "the only incentive of a mistaken sense is malicious animal magnetism,—the name of all evil,—and this must be understood" (Miscellany, p. 357),
It is a subtle trick of this evil to send out suggestions in attempts to darken the minds of sincere workers as to ways and means of cooperating with the purpose of The Mother Church and its various activities, expressed in church services, periodicals, lectures, and the like, and in the work of the branch churches. True activity is desired through every church member, but it must be of the right character, for otherwise it becomes a hindrance rather than a help. Our mental work can be effective only when in truth and love it conforms to the letter and spirit of the Manual of The Mother Church. It does not take expression in officious interference with trustees, directors, readers, lecturers, practitioners, or others, or in giving treatments to any one without that one's request and knowledge. What Mrs. Eddy forbade respecting malpractice upon "our Leader or her staff" (Manual, Art. VIII, Sect. 8) is similarly detrimental to every one who is filling a position connected with the cause of Christian Science. Under the impulsion of Truth and Love the loyal member can find right ways for obeying Sections 1 and 6 of Article VIII of the Manual without ever holding any person in thought or coming under the influence of a mistaken sense of privilege and duty.
Each member can best express his or her loyalty through individual obedience to the demands of the Manual and of all laws, rules, and regulations in the parent and branch organizations. The making of good individual members who are in fidelity to the Christ, Truth, the rendering of men, women, and children less mortal and more Christian, the constant striving to love God with all the heart, and one's neighbor as one's self, as the true sense of loving is fully outlined in the teaching of Christ Jesus and of Christian Science, will help the cause and its officials who seem to be carrying the burden and heat of this day of fermentation and purification.
Nothing but good works will prove the individual's loyalty to our cause. Is it not plain that scientific results can only be obtained if Christian Scientists everywhere strive to keep their thoughts away from individuals unless personally requested to work for them, and let thought rest in the realization of God's allness and of the perfection and power of His purpose expressed in His own idea? Will not those in temporary authority have less interference to overcome if Christian Scientists refuse to handicap them by mistaken methods of mental work? Will not the loyalty of Scientists be more valuable if they give more time daily to their own intimate problems, and to the scientific denial of the existence and power of malicious animal magnetism,—a term which covers the entire lie,— knowing that its attempts to promote mistaken views are rendered null and void by the law of God, which is everywhere operative and all powerful?
It has been said by some one that "the tempter prevails not so much by what he suggests to a man as by what he finds in him;" and this is useful to Christian Scientists, not as an acknowledgment that evil prevails, but as a warning to pay more diligent heed to Section 4 of Article VIII of the Manual, that there be less and less response to evil in one's own consciousness. The world of human thought has been flooded with negative proverbs, which if accepted in the negative would sustain the workings of animal magnetism. All Christian Scientists need the spirit which Paul manifested when he referred to the law of belief which worked in his members, and followed it with a steadfast declaration that "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" really made him "free from the law of sin and death."
In this righteous warfare all need and can have a just sense of true proportion, a right sense of Truth and of error. These right estimates applied to human consciousness will surely eliminate the false sense of things and bring out the true, which alone will endure. If thought rests in God, abides in His idea, in Christ, it is so lifted into contemplation of the infinitude and omnipotence of Truth and Love that, the student will clearly see how small must be the mortal concept of earth in comparison with the unlimited universe of good.
Mortal sense is only a vapory realm of counterfeit mind, the motive power of which is evanescent human will, the pretended substance of which is imaginary, fleeting, dying. The ideals of mortal mind, starting from dust, always remain material and return to dust. Having no origin but a false sense of God and man, this counterfeit mind is without cause, foundation, or reality. It is simply a supposition, and is nothing to God; hence it should become nothing to us, and will become so in proportion as we allow the Mind "which was also in Christ Jesus" to overcome the counterfeit.
Simple indeed is the statement, "The Lord he is God; there is none else beside him," but this truth is as great and grand as the spiritual universe. Loyalty to the cause of Christian Science will demonstrate this truth in peace, health, joy,—more harmony everywhere, transforming the earth into the sphere of perfection which God expresses, and making "each loving life a psalm of gratitude."
Our Leader has given to her followers numberless encouragements along this line, and on page 19 of "Miscellaneous Writings" is one which has definite application to the subject under discussion. Mrs. Eddy writes: "He who has named the name of Christ, who has virtually accepted the divine claims of Truth and Love in divine Science, is daily departing from evil; and all the wicked endeavors of suppositional demons can never change the current of that life from steadfastly flowing on to God, its divine source."
