The evidence that Christian Science treatment is singularly and satisfactorily efficacious in healing disease and in delivering men from sinful and debasing habits has become cumulatively conclusive. Hence there is increasingly widespread acknowledgment that Christian Science prayers are potent and practical. It is not so generally recognized, however, that Christian Science church services also are healing and redemptive in their nature, purpose, and effect. Nevertheless, this is true of all the services held in Christian Science churches, including the semiannual communion service, at which the subject of the Lesson-Sermon is "Sacrament." The practical nature and influence of all the Christian Science services may be easily and clearly seen and appreciated by considering each service a true communion service, for the same dominant spiritual motive and aim prevail in all.
Evidently Mrs. Eddy saw the vital necessity of establishing and maintaining a close relation between Christian Science church services and the practice of its teachings. Her words on page 40 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" are significant in this connection: "It is sad that the phrase divine service has come so generally to mean public worship instead of daily deeds." She, therefore, evidently designed the form and content of all Christian Science church services, including those on Communion Sundays, so that their influence and results might best be seen and measured in the daily lives of those who are following Christ Jesus in the way plainly indicated by Christian Science. For Christian Science is nothing other than the pure, practical religion of Christ Jesus, whose "divine service" to God was shown in his "daily deeds" for his fellow men, furnishing convincing evidence of God's presence and power. Thus Christian Science makes God's loving presence and healing power available today.
The discovery and divinely directed presentation of Christian Science in Science and Health have blessed mankind immeasurably, for thereby God's true nature and being are clearly revealed. The concept of God presented by Christian Science appeals to both reason and religious instinct, and coincides with that set forth implicitly and explicitly in the Bible. Something of the demonstrable truths about God is developed in every Lesson-Sermon read in Christian Science churches, so that students of these Lessons and other attendants at the services are becoming acquainted with "Him whom to know aright is Life eternal" (Science and Health, Pref., p. vii). The Christian Science declaration that God is both the Mother and Father of all real being coincides with and clarifies the inspired Bible statement that God is Love. Christian Science also logically declares that the infinite creator of the eternal universe is Truth, the source of all that is true, and is the one all-wise, all-knowing intelligence, divine Mind, the source of all true thoughts.
