In the same way that the right thinker is the only true Christian, so a right state of thought constitutes the only true church membership. The true church is not something external to consciousness; it is the divine idea reflected in the human consciousness which is purified, regenerated, and active in fulfilling God's will in relation to all mankind. Therefore our concept of the church determines our attitude toward it, and the place we give it in our thought and work. Nothing can be clearer to the enlightened understanding than Mrs. Eddy's definition of church on page 583 of our textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures": "Church. The structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle." Spiritually to apprehend this, to recognize the church as a divine idea clothed with the power of righteousness and Truth, and to be consecrated to its service, is to bear the impress of Christ, and to be enrolled into its membership with responsibilities and opportunities that are universal in their operation and perennial in their fruitfulness.
To every loyal Christian Scientist such an ideal, embracing all that comprises the kingdom of heaven, should make an insistent and persistent appeal. It should cause him to think of his spiritual endowments, rejoice in the wealth of spiritual ideas available, and remember that he is the heir to all the gifts of Love. It should call to mind the almost incredible fact that it is only fifty years since the discovery of Christian Science, since the day when to our revered Leader, through her healing, there was revealed one of the greatest of all demonstrable facts, "the scientific certainty that all causation was Mind, and every effect a mental phenomenon," as she says on page 24 of "Retrospection and Introspection."
Let us consider for a moment how much Christian Science has contributed to the salvation of the world. Conceive, if possible, of the mighty mass of testimony in the last fifty years in regard to the redemptive effect of this Science of Christianity,— the destruction of error, the purification of thought, the awakening from the mortal dream of sickness, sin, and death! That testimony is embodied in the lives of multitudes of God's children, in the volumes of Christian Science literature, in the more spiritual, scientific, and intelligible interpretation of the Scriptures, in the increasing desire to depend wholly upon God for the supplying of all human needs, and in the growth of those activities which are based upon divine Principle and which are showing the world that Principle is the only real power. If we remember all this, then we shall have some idea of what the church, scientifically understood, stands for to-day.
