THE world owes an overwhelming debt of gratitude to the beloved Leader of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, if only for her wonderful definition of God. The enrichment of mankind's thought through her inspired revelation of what God really is, makes her deserving of our grateful love and our most honest devotion to her teachings.
While the term "God" by itself may not enlighten us much on the nature of Deity, Mrs. Eddy's definition, "God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 465), immediately conveys the true concept. God is thus incorporeal and eternally present, being manifested in loving intelligence, supreme wisdom, and infinite goodness.
Christian Science healing takes place through the reflection of the divine qualities; and this reflection is made possible by gaining a higher sense of Deity through the spiritual meanings expressed by the seven synonyms given above. The sense of God as unlimited good unfetters human thought from fear, and makes possible the progressive unfolding of goodness in human lives.
As the truth is learned that God is altogether lovable and lovely, thought expands to grasp the fact that God's creation also must be lovable and lovely, and certain Bible passages regarding God and man take on new meanings. Gratefully and reverently we thank the one who revealed to this age an understandable God, who not only is divine Principle but our compassionate Father-Mother Love. Through the teachings of Science and Health we can obey the Scriptural command to "acquaint now thyself with him [God], and be at peace."
Christ Jesus, our Way-shower, who understood God more fully than has anyone else, was the only religious or ethical teacher who insisted on his followers' healing the sick, until Mrs. Eddy, through her discovery and elucidation of the Science of Christianity, brought again to the world's attention this important feature of Jesus' teaching and example.
It is sometimes thought that Christian Scientists pay too much attention to physical healing, but this is due to a misconception of the true purpose of Christian Science treatment, in which the endeavor is, primarily, to heal mental and moral ills, the physical benefits being the natural outcome and outward expression of an improved mental state. It is understood in Christian Science that every so-called material condition is mental, and that it can be controlled by spiritual understanding.
When one grasps the fact that God is Spirit and that His every manifestation must be spiritual, one sees that any worldliness, any personal or mercenary motive entering into practice, will prevent true Christian Science healing in the degree that such are entertained. If, through will-power or the patient's faith in the practitioner, the disease seems to go, this faulty mental process is as far removed from spiritual healing as are the systems of medicine.
Into Christian Science treatment no mental suggestion, no wrong manipulation of another's mentality, enters. The method of spiritual healing is to look away from matter and all bodily conditions to God, the infinite source of all good, for aid. Treatment is prayer, in the sense that prayer is communion with God. Every treatment should lift both practitioner and patient morally and spiritually. Mrs. Eddy describes the process of spiritual healing with great clarity on page 251 of Science and Health. She says: "The divine Mind makes perfect, acts upon the so-called human mind through truth, leads the human mind to relinquish all error, to find the divine Mind to be the only Mind, and the healer of sin, disease, death. This process of higher spiritual understanding improves mankind until error disappears, and nothing is left which deserves to perish or to be punished."
It is the desire of Christian Scientists so to grow in their understanding of God that they may unfold in themselves and their patients higher ideals and greater nobility of character. They wish to forsake all that is petty and unworthy of the highest humanhood. Thus, they will remove from their mental windowpanes that which would obscure the healing light of God's goodness and glory.
The hidden stores of wisdom and revelation in the Bible and Science and Health are as yet almost untouched. Human will and mere intellectual searching will not uncover them. The humble desire for more light brought to daily study, coupled with unselfish spiritual living, will open the door to deeper understanding of the things of God.
Everything in one's environment may be made a means of spiritual growth if one will take one's surroundings as Jesus took his. He did not accept the evidence of the material senses. To him the healing presence of God was more real than were the afflictions of those who came to be healed. He withdrew from the crowd, and even from his beloved disciples and friends, to the seaside or the hillside for communion with God and refreshment. His teachings are full of lessons drawn from the humbler, as well as from the grander, forms of nature.
Mrs. Eddy found in nature, so called, a delight that refreshed and uplifted her. Her "Voices of Spring" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 329) and her poem "The Oak on the Mountain's Summit" (ibid., p. 392; Poems, p. 20) give us some comprehension of the way she regarded it. She found inspiration in the lives of prophet and apostle also, and commended them to our study, and she spoke in highest terms of the brave men and women of later days whose lives stand out like mountain peaks above the lower levels of mortal thought.
The inclination of the beginner in Christian Science may be to sweep away much that is good and useful. The lives of the apostles may have seemed drab to onlookers, as they were seen living their simple, humble lives; but their true concept of God enabled them to heal the sick, and gave to their words a beauty and power that is handed down for all time.
We shall declare with John, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him: for we shall see him as he is;" and we shall work for the fulfillment of this, remembering Mrs. Eddy's inspired definition of God quoted at the beginning of this article.
