CHRISTIAN SCIENCE has been revealed to restore "the bond of perfectness," the spiritual understanding of divine Love and its constructive operation in human affairs. Its means are purely spiritual, and its results are necessarily humanly evidenced. Thus the sick are healed and sinners reformed. These are not the only works promoting the development of scientific Christianity for mankind. They also consist of all the lawful activities of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, and its branch churches. In fact, they consist of everything embraced in Mrs. Eddy's definition of "Church," namely, "that institution, which affords proof of its utility and is found elevating the race, rousing the dormant understanding from material beliefs to the apprehension of spiritual ideas and the demonstration of divine Science, thereby casting out devils, or error, and healing the sick" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, p. 583). There would be no need for a Christian Science organization if this elevation of the race were not its primary and ultimate purpose; and this organization will be necessary as long as this need persists.
The Christian Science movement is forwarded by those who are really entitled to call themselves Christian Scientists. A Christian Scientist comprehends the vital mission Christian Science has to fulfill in establishing the Christianization of mankind upon the rock, the understanding of God as divine Principle, Mind, Life, Love, and man as God's image and likeness. This, however, is not sufficient. In order to be a real Christian Scientist one has also to think and live in conformity with his spiritual understanding. It includes, further, a right apprehension of Mrs. Eddy as the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. Without this appreciation something is lacking, just as a misapprehension of Christ Jesus is fatal to the correct concept of Christianity.
Christ Jesus' significance is not to be found in his physical personality, nor in the human relationship with his family and friends. Indeed, such particulars were so entirely overshadowed by the grandeur of his immortal words and Christ-mission that his main biographers, the authors of the four Gospels, knew enough to leave the human items almost completely out of their narratives. These biographers were his followers too; and no Christian, for that reason, is willing to doubt the veracity of the Gospel records. His contemporary adversaries have not left any description of Christ Jesus' life and works; or, if they did, these writings have not survived. The Master's correct understanding of God, exemplified in the healings he performed and in the sublimity of his three years' recorded mission among mortals, is rightly considered the vital part of his biography.
