One of the most striking passages in the New Testament is that which tells of the Apostle Paul standing in the midst of Mars' Hill and speaking to the assembled Athenians as follows: "Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you."
From the earliest period of human history mankind has striven to find God,—to find good. This greatest desideratum, the finding of God, good, has been the one chief pursuit of every individual of the human race. The lowest type of savage sees in his supply of food his immediate good, but does not feel impelled to look much farther. There are savage tribes somewhat higher in intelligence, who look beyond the immediate material food to the physical courage and strength which are deemed essential to the procuring of that food; and these physical qualities are by them accorded a sort of worship. From these low beginnings, in all races of mankind and up through all stages of civilization, men have searched for that which they deemed to be good. Some have sought what they considered their highest good in conquest and material influence and power; some, like the miser, in gold; some, more imaginative than the latter, have sought it in those things which they believed gold could procure. It goes without saying, however, that in none of these material, supposititious claims to spiritual good, nor in all of them combined, have men found that ultimate good which they call God. For "God is a Spirit," and those who truly worship Him must worship Him "in spirit and in truth."
To-day there are millions of individuals who are quite prepared to admit or assert that God is Spirit, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, but who at the same time, and with much firmer conviction, assert the substantial reality of all things material, regardless as to whether those material things appear to their senses as good or as evil. Their assertion that God is Spirit, coupled as it is with a belief in the reality of matter, is merely formal, and amounts only to a tacit admission that they have found no true or lasting joy in things material. It expresses a hope that true happiness is to be found somewhere in the unseen, and a belief that its enjoyment must be postponed until the so-called hereafter, when material things shall have passed away. These individuals also have failed to find God.
And what is to be said of all the scholars, philosophers, and material scientists, who in all generations for the past twenty-five centuries have devoted themselves to speculation and research in earnest efforts to solve the riddle of the universe and to find God? They, too, have failed. And why have they failed? Because so-called material science concerns itself with facts as the senses give them, and ends with these. Material scientists can never by searching find God in matter. Material scientists frankly admit their failure to reach ultimate Truth,—their failure to find God. Some of them go so far as to say that ultimate truth never can be attained. At the same time, many of them affirm the necessary existence of an inscrutable power, of which material things are but symbols, and which has been named the "great First Cause."
Herbert Spencer, not the least of the world's philosophers, in his "First Principles," declares: "Positive knowledge does not, and never can, fill the whole region of possible thought. At the uttermost reach of discovery there arises, and must ever arise, the question—What lies beyond?" And in a chapter entitled "The Relativity of All Knowledge," he says: "Ultimate religious ideas and ultimate scientific ideas, alike turn out to be merely symbols of the actual, not cognitions of it." The conviction, so reached, that human intellectualism is incapable of absolute knowledge, is one that has been slowly gaining ground as civilization has advanced. Each new ontological theory, from time to time propounded in lieu of previous ones shown to be untenable, has been followed by a new criticism leading to a new skepticism. All possible conceptions have been one by one tried and found wanting; and so the entire field of speculation has been gradually exhausted without positive result, the only result arrived at being the negative one above stated, namely, that the reality existing behind all appearance is, and must ever remain, unknown. To this conclusion almost every thinker of note has subscribed.
Nor have the various systems of theology made any substantial progress beyond the accomplishments of material science and philosophy. The old theologies, as they developed, pronounced a denial of those beliefs which held that the divine nature is assimilated to the human in all its lower propensities; but though this denial indicated a higher faith, it was a faith but imperfectly realized, and it resulted in the worship of an "unknown God." Further developments of theology, instead of leading to a knowledge of God, culminated in such assertions as that "a God understood would be no God at all," and that "to think that God is as we think Him to be, is blasphemy." Finally, the belief that God is unknowable permeates much present-day theology. Thus we find that popular theology and material science agree in the statement that the power which the universe manifests to us is utterly inscrutable. The words of the Apostle Paul, therefore, are of as timely import to modern Christendom as they were to the men of Athens nineteen hundred years ago: "Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you." How, then, are we to attain to spiritual truth? How are we to know God aright? God cannot be found in matter. The physical senses are not interpreters of spiritual truth. These senses can tell us nothing of Spirit.
Christian Science teaches that spiritual truth is absolute, and that Spirit, Truth, is God. To know Truth is to know God. How, then, is Truth to be known? Jesus has said, "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Truth is known only when realized. We have real knowledge of the doctrine preached by Jesus only when we can make practical demonstration of it. Divine Principle, God, is involved in the declaration of the Founder of Christianity: "My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." And Principle is always of supreme significance,—certainly in the highest sphere to which human reason can attain. It is by the understanding of Principle that truth and error are to be discriminated between. Verifying spiritual truth is possible only through proving or demonstrating it in our own experience. The reason why popular theology is in so backward a state is that spiritual experience and practical demonstration have not been sufficiently demanded.
In Christian Science only are we taught how to know God in practical experience, that is, to demonstrate our understanding of Truth. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 42): "The resurrection of the great demonstrator of God's power was the proof of his final triumph over body and matter, and gave full evidence of divine Science,—evidence so important tomortals." And she goes on to say: "Jesus had taught his disciples the Science of this proof. He was here to enable them to test his still uncomprehended saying, 'He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also.' They must understand more fully his Life-principle by casting out error, healing the sick, and raising the dead, even as they did understand it after his bodily departure."
Jesus emphasized the prime importance of the evidence of demonstration; and the test he set to determine whether the message of any one was from God, was this: "By their fruits ye shall know them." When John the Baptist, in prison and in doubt, sent two of his disciples to inquire of Jesus, "Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?" we read that "Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see: the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them."
More than any other who ever trod the earth, did Jesus know God, understand Truth. His message was not speculative; nor was it for his own time only. His works were not capricious; nor were they supernatural. His message was for all men in all ages, and was preeminently practical. His works were demonstrations of Truth, which is eternal. Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health (p. 52): "The 'man of sorrows' best understood the nothingness of material life and intelligence and the mighty actuality of all-inclusive God, good. These were the two cardinal points of Mind-healing, or Christian Science, which armed him with Love. The highest earthly representative of God, speaking of human ability to reflect divine power, prophetically said to his disciples, speaking not for their day only but for all time: 'He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also;' and 'These signs shall follow them that believe.'"
For some two or three centuries after the departure of Jesus, the early Christians did continue in his word, and did do many of the works that he did. But gradually spiritual understanding was dimmed by the gross materialism of the age, until finally it became practically obscured, and was succeeded by various schools of popular theology which, throughout the succeeding centuries, have contended over the words of the text, but have preached in common largely an "unknown God." The reason for this falling away from Truth, and for the continued failure of popular theology to rediscover God, is not far to seek. It is found in the stubbornness with which the human intellect relies upon the testimony of the material senses to the exclusion of all strictly spiritual experience. This is aptly illustrated in the character of the disciple Thomas, who, when told that the Master had risen, said, "Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe." We are told that thereafter Jesus again appeared in the midst of his disciples, and this time Thomas was with them. "Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."
Truth must triumph; and it cannot forever be hid. Mary Baker Eddy has given to this age, in Christian Science, a new revelation of the truth that Jesus declared and demonstrated so perfectly over nineteen hundred years ago. Christian Science teaches us how to triumph over sin, disease, and death, and enables us to give proof that it is of God. To understand this Science is to know God; as we read in John, "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."
Remember the new word
The Syrian twilight heard,
That marvellous discourse which John records,
The one last great command
The Master left his band,
"Love one another!"
