MARY BAKER EDDY writes in her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 128), "The term Science, properly understood, refers only to the laws of God and to His government of the universe, inclusive of man." And on page 127 of the same book she says that "the term Christian Science relates especially to Science as applied to humanity."
Christian Science thus includes the operation of all spiritual law. Right thinking and right acting demonstrate this law in human experience. May we not, then, say with relation to men that the spiritual law of God, demonstrated in right living, is true Christianity? Jesus the Christ, that preeminent Metaphysician, practiced what he taught. Could Christian Science truly be termed Science unless it were Christian? Could Christianity really be Christian—Christlike— unless it were demonstrable? A Christian is one who thinks and lives according to the teachings of Christ Jesus. To think as Jesus teaches is to have the Mind of Christ. In order to do this one must think scientifically. To demonstrate Science as applied to humanity, one must love one's neighbor as one's self, in order that he may be enabled to help in meeting his neighbor's need.
Many centuries have passed since mankind witnessed the healing work of Christ Jesus, and humanity is still in need of the healing Christ; but humanity, including every Christian Scientist in the world, needs to appreciate Jesus' work better, and to get a fuller acquaintance with it. Mrs. Eddy, the truest Christian since Jesus' time, has written an entire chapter in Science and Health—that entitled "Atonement and Eucharist" —to that end. If one would inherit the kingdom prepared for him "from the foundation of the world," he too must be able to feed the hungry with the bread of heaven, and give to the thirsty freely from the water of Life. He must make ready his seamless robe of self-forgetfulness and purity, if he would clothe the naked. If he would heal the sick, he must needs sweep clean the chambers of his thinking, and allow honesty, obedience, and humility to abide therein. Naught but the Mind of Christ can visit the sin-bound prison and set the captive free. In short, if one would do the works, he must lay off materiality and put on spirituality.
If one would express the true Christ-nature which God has already bestowed upon man, His child, then he must become childlike. In the degree that one studies, thinks, and lives the truth does he lay aside mortal thinking and become truly childlike. When his disciples inquired of our great Way-shower, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" he answered, "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." To-day we find the same restless condition of thought running to and fro on the earth seeking popularity, health, riches, rest. Is it not true everywhere, in business, society, home, government, and—sad to relate—sometimes in church, that mortals are still asking who is the greatest? Why this ceaseless struggle? Why this insatiate desire for material gain and satisfaction?
Mortals, through belief of life in matter, substance in matter, intelligence in matter, are separated from God, the true Mind, the source of all life, substance, and intelligence. It is God who alone possesses true greatness and power, who alone is the originator of joy, health, and peace. Like the prodigal of old, looking through the lens of matter, mortals lose sight of Christ, Truth, and sooner or later find themselves feeding on the husks of materiality. The master Christian ever held his thought in the Mind of Christ.
In the thirteenth chapter of his Gospel, John relates that Jesus washed the disciples' feet. Laying off his beliefs of mortal selfhood, and loving his disciples as the Father had loved him, enabled Jesus on the eve of his betrayal to turn their thought from personality to Spirit. Only when self is thus lost in Love does one become lord and master of one's self. Only by loving as Jesus loved can one be truly scientific. The ceaseless prayer and pure thinking of Christ Jesus for humanity, and the selfless consecration of Mary Baker Eddy to the Christ, together with her knowledge of the invisible, perfect law of God and her discovery of scientific rules and practice whereby this law could be demonstrated, point the way of true Christianity. If one who is working for the salvation of mankind would emulate Christ Jesus, he too must be able to lose self in Love. If in honor one prefers another, then that one in a degree is fulfilling the law of Christ, and is practicing true Christianity.
It may be well sometimes to ask one's self, Am I really grateful when my neighbor improves his surroundings, when my competitor increases his sales and bank account, when I hear of another practitioner's successful healing work, or that a friend is making good in whatever field of labor he may be engaged? Gratitude and joy for a competitor's success will start the activity of good in one's own direction.
By loving as Jesus loved, one finds one's own prayers answered, and God's law working to supply his every need. Two practitioners, a man and his wife, once found themselves confronted with a sense of lack. They discovered, however, that their problem was lack of faith in God and in the understanding of His spiritual law; that their need had never really been material things, but spiritual ideas; that man's needs are never material, but spiritual. This broke the mesmerism of fear and limitation, and in a very short time they were successfully working in the practice of Christian Science. The ideas of infinite Mind are always waiting to be appropriated.
If one's pocketbook is empty, let him acknowledge God's love to man; let him give grateful praise to the Giver of all good. If he is in debt, let him get very busy loving his brother. Did you ever stop to think how much power, strength, vigor, force, activity a thought of love carries with it? Did you ever try to measure the length, breadth, and height of infinite Love? Its seeing capacity is wonderful. As Mrs. Eddy tells us (Science and Health, p. 454), it "inspires, illumines, designates, and leads the way."
According to Christian Science, if one will earnestly seek to understand the nature of God as divine Mind, he will immediately begin to express— yes, reflect in his thinking—the image or idea of that Mind. Just how is one to do this? If he is honest, obedient, and meek, the application of Christian Science to human experience becomes quite simple. One may hear it said that Christian Science is difficult to understand and apply. The only difficulty is that the so-called human mind is directly opposed to all that Christian Science teaches, and must therefore be overcome. This so-called mind is dishonest, disobedient, and egotistical; it is personal sense claiming life, substance, and intelligence to be where they are not.
Since God is Mind, one will readily recognize that the universe of Mind is a thought universe, composed of ideas which coexist forever with the infinite Mind that creates them. By the realization that all is Mind and its expression, the Christian Scientist learns to resolve all things into thoughts, and approaches a point in his thinking where matter begins to disappear. When it is recognized and acknowledged that the substance of true riches—joy, satisfaction, and life eternal—is ever present and always available in divine Mind, then it will be demonstrated in human experience that opportunity and understanding to meet every human need are present and available here and now. The realization of this truth makes it possible to utilize infinite good by making use of the right ideas just at hand. Since God is good, is Mind, is Life, is Principle, He is the source of all intelligence, all power, all action, all law; and the way to utilize these realities is to think truly.
If anyone will recognize health to be a mental state, will examine his own thinking and honestly seek the truth regarding health, as taught in the Christian Science textbook, with a willingness to obey its rules, he will find his health improving as fast as his false beliefs disappear. A true knowledge of God will displace the ignorance of mortal thinking; purity will take the place of impurity; and men will find themselves whole and upright in proportion as they forsake material belief and appropriate spiritual truth. This thinking will establish health. This right understanding of the relation of Mind to its idea, man, will demonstrate brotherly love in human affairs and, if persisted in, will destroy all desire to sin and efface every vestige of strife and competition, envy and greed, from human consciousness.
The Christian Scientist needs to know in whom he believes. He should be careful what he admits into consciousness. He must be instant in watchfulness, in season and out of season. He needs to watch, work, and pray that evil suggestion tempt him not to believe that he can lose that which is most necessary to his well-being, yes, his most precious possession—the Mind of Christ. In his Christian ministry Jesus handled error in no uncertain way. He wielded the sword of Spirit by recognizing that of himself he could do nothing. He knew that the Mind of Christ was the light that shineth in darkness; and with this Mind he proved the nothingness of all evil.
To-day it would seem that animal magnetism, or active evil, is running mad in its effort to counterfeit the divine Mind and its invariable scientific laws. Not satisfied with its counterfeit ethics of religion and medicine, so-called mortal mind, with all its various isms and psycho-isms, continues to add to its already worthless baggage, false and spurious presentations of Christian Science under new titles and by so-called authors. In the midst of this Babel of confusion Christian Science, revealed of God to Mary Baker Eddy in 1866, stands untouched and unmoved, as it rises above the adulterous smoke to the point of demonstration. The claims of commercialism, applied psychology, epidemics, disease, shortage, restriction in school, church, state, and political control—all claims of animal magnetism attempting to reverse divine Mind's control —are only phases of mortal belief to be overcome.
The Science of Christianity, founded so many centuries ago on the healing work of the master Christian, has been reinstated in this age through the life and work of Mrs. Eddy. The warfare is God's, and His army—the angels of God—is encamped in, around, and above. These angels (right ideas) of His presence are clearing away erroneous false beliefs, and healing human experience as fast as Christian Science is recognized, acknowledged, and appropriated through Christianly scientific thinking and living.
