Christian Scientists are grateful, with much reason, for their churches. Many of them experienced on their first visit to one of these institutions a peace which they had not known before, and have seen it continue to unfold for them. It is safe to say that all who have taken full advantage of the opportunities offered by the church—The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and its branches—have been healed or strengthened, and have found their lives greatly enriched. Thus the Christian Scientist comes to regard his church as a light to himself and his neighbors—a sign that whatever is needed by anyone in the community is available. For he has usually seen proof many times in the experience of himself and others that health, employment, supply, safety, happy relationships—all that is commonly needful—can be had through the demonstration of Christian Science. Christ Jesus' statement, "If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it," has been thus practically confirmed for him. It is not strange after such experience that the Scientist should delight in serving his church and forwarding its work for mankind.
There is therefore no dearth of workers in the average Christian Science church. For the ushering, the committee work of various kinds, the board work, the reading, and other necessary tasks, members who will serve with thoroughness and love are, as a rule, readily found. But Christian Scientists know that the human activity evident in such service is not all or ever the main part of their work as church members. They understand indeed that if such activity is to accomplish anything of value, it must have back of it other work—the mental work of recognizing and maintaining the spiritually true concept of Church. For the human institution, vitally essential as it is, stands as but a measure of demonstration to human sense of something far better—the real Church, as revealed in Christian Science. This Church the beloved Leader of Christian Scientists, Mary Baker Eddy, has defined (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 583) as, "The structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle."
Now the value of knowing the spiritual truth about anything soon becomes obvious to the student of Christian Science. He is enabled to see that imperfection, limitation, and evil in any form are not real; that, being unlike God, the sole cause and creator, they represent a merely false sense of things. Therefore what is required to overcome them scientifically, wherever they appear, is the understanding and realization of spiritual truth—basically, the truth that what God has made is perfect, unlimited, and altogether good. It is such knowing of the truth that makes free from any false sense. If then a church seems limited or in any other difficulty, what is needed to help it is a clearer sense of the Church which perfectly and without measure shows forth the presence of God. Proportionally as this clearer sense is gained by those concerned, or even one of those concerned, the church, as it humanly seems, is improved, and its usefulness increased. In this manner human experience yields to divine reality.
