WHEN Truth has been revealed to us through the teachings of Christian Science, we must of necessity start out again, as into a new world; but we do not immediately realize the immense difference between God's ways and the ways of mortals. We may find, as one student did, that we work busily and to the best of our ability for some time before realizing our need for a further and clearer understanding of the meaning of Church. When this revelation comes to us, we see the meaning of the perfect, living, eternal Church, as defined in part on page 583 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, as "The structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle." This is the perfect idea, Church, the revelation of which to humanity is referred to by Paul when, in writing to the Colossians, he speaks of the Christ as "the head of the body, the church." With this illumination an entirely new field of thought is opened up to us.
It now becomes apparent that obedience to the Rules and By-Laws of the Manual of The Mother Church will help us to understand Church; and the question arises as to how we shall work for and build in consciousness this newly found truth of the unchanging, perfect Church. Plainly, we cannot so much build as discover Church.
We may find that our previous work has been chiefly based on a sense of human endeavor and human goodness—a method of work inculcated by early training and founded on false ecclesiastical beliefs. In fact, we probably find we have been trying to establish something, instead of bringing our thinking into unity with that which is forever established. Seeing this great fact makes it possible for us to approach the work in the institutional organization as an uncovering and discovering of more of the real Church, knowing that Mind will show us what is right for us to do. Even though agitation seems at times to sweep the arena of our experience, it can never again disturb our trust; for we see that the foundations of Church are not tottering, but that mortal mind with its methods is being displaced by the divine idea.
