The early history of the Christian church constitutes a thrilling, a glorious epoch in the history of the human race. The early Christians, following implicitly the teaching and practice of their Master, clearly demonstrated the great fact that through righteous prayer they could assert their God-given dominion over evil. Their religion was a religion of Truth, Life, and Love, which healed the sick, freed the sinner, and raised the dead. Theirs was a religion of joy, freedom, and mastery. These primitive Christians rejoiced in a religion of demonstration. They did not calculate future events or present possibilities, either for good or for evil, on the evidence of the physical senses. They did not base their security or happiness on any such unstable foundation. Their great Teacher, Christ Jesus, laid stress on the ability to prove his professions by tangible results; he taught that the healing works which he accomplished were concrete and convincing evidence of his understanding of God, and were more important than his words. No matter how threatening sense evidence appeared, or how alluring its promises, he repudiated its assumptions and relied wholly on spiritual power to establish by proof man's identity with the divine. He healed all manner of disease by spiritual means. He said: "If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him."
This triumphant, demonstrable Christianity, lost for centuries, was reinstated through the discovery of Christian Science by our beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy. The term "demonstration" looms large in the vocabulary of the Christian Scientist. Daily and hourly he turns away from false sense evidence and keeps his gaze fixed on the eternal verities of Spirit. He relies on no forecast of sequence and consequence from physical data. He makes no calculations about his career, based on the implications of numerology; he rejects the oracular dicta of astrology, which would hold men in the bonds of a mystic fatalism. He knows that the positions of the planets of our solar system do not control man nor determine his destiny, for his destiny is in the hands of God, not in masses of inert matter. The calculations of palmistry, voodooism, phrenology, occultism, spiritualism, the Christian Scientist repudiates utterly. These false beliefs are postulated upon the proposition that man is material and governed by material phenomena. Their use darkens spiritual perception. These false systems and cults ensnare the unwise who accept their baseless conclusions. The Christian Scientist strives to grasp the great facts of being, and realizes that these great facts, understood and applied, will enable him to triumph over all material assumption and preserve him harmoniously. He knows that God is All-in-all. Man, therefore, is perfect, immortal; and all calculations which mortal beliefs may present to the contrary are fictitious and illusory, and will fade away as spiritual understanding more fully illumines human consciousness.
As the Christian Scientist grows in the true knowledge of God, he learns to trust divine Love to supply all things needful for his daily use and enjoyment, and this includes food, clothing, shelter, educational activity, as well as the spiritual ministrations—even that spiritual bread and wine which feeds and inspires the Godlike thought. The Christian Scientist refuses to be anxious about the morrow; he realizes that infinite Love is indeed adequate to satisfy all his needs daily and hourly, whatever they may be. He makes provisions for the future only as wisdom directs. He strives to follow the leadings of divine intuition. He asks for God's guidance and protection each day, and his trust is based on the immutable rock of Truth and spiritual demonstration. He refuses to rely upon merely human support for his future security or happiness. Too frequently mortals calculate their future happiness and prosperity on things which have no safe foundations. They may estimate regarding the value of stocks, bonds, money, houses, land, cattle, position, power, or jewels which they may possess, and deem that by such means they are safely provided for. But how transitory is such a reliance; how often have these so-called securities against adversity proved unstable! How often have men and women found themselves desolate, who leaned upon them and forgot God! We should often recall the words of the beloved John: "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever."
