EVERY quality pertaining to God and man has its specific use. Grace is a saving attribute; it is an adjunct to the healing of the sick and the sinning, an expression of love which clothes science and law with spiritual attraction and causes truth to be recognized by human consciousness as lovely and of good report. Every practical Christian Scientist knows what is meant by grace, although it may be difficult to set this forth satisfactorily in words; every practitioner, lecturer, Reader, teacher, or worker in any department of Christian Science activity knows the healing value of this saving grace in the presentation of the subject nearest to his or her heart.
Spiritually considered, grace is more than a mere embellishment, for it is indispensable to Christian progress. It is the compassion which brings divine Science to meet the human need. It presides over the reconciliation of man to God and makes human footsteps possible. Publicans and sinners rejoice in it, because "they that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick." Jesus did not go through the resurrection until he had performed his works of mercy, nor did he reach the ascension except through the resurrection. The three days' grace which creditors commonly grant their debtors are symbolical of the patience requisite in the practice of Christian Science; for since humanity is not perfect (else it would not cry for forgiveness and healing) it must be evangelized, it must be restored.
The application of the law of Moses alone is not the complete practice of Christian Science, for since Moses' day the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ has come and the compassion which makes Christian Science available for the imperfect. Not that Moses was not cognizant of grace, but that his times had need of the law first of all. Indeed, we read that at the transfiguration both Moses and Elias talked with Jesus, and all three were thus shown to be of one mind. It requires grace to bring the absolute to the apprehension of mankind, for not otherwise can the love and favor of God come as a free gift to the undeserving. As Mrs. Eddy has written in her Message to The Mother Church for 1901 (p. 10), "Theoretically and practically man's salvation comes through 'the riches of His grace' in Christ Jesus. Divine Love spans the dark passage of sin, disease, and death with Christ's righteousness,—the atonement of Christ, whereby good destroys evil,—and the victory over self, sin, disease, and death, is won after the pattern of the mount."
