SILENT PRAYER IN CHURCH

So wrote the poet Whittier in his beautiful defense of the Quaker meeting; and he goes on to say:

Could there be a better or sweeter description of the sacred moments of silent prayer in the Christian Science church than this? Mrs. Eddy, the inspired Founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist, was led by divine wisdom to include in the order of services a period of silent prayer, before the Lord's Prayer is audibly repeated by Readers and congregations, and certainly there are no more holy and impressive moments than those in which each worshiper goes to the heavenly Father in his own way and communes with the divine Principle of his being.

Our Leader has stated in the Manual of The Mother Church that "the prayers in Christian Science churches shall be offered for the congregations collectively and exclusively" (Art. VIII, Sect. 5). During this particular period of sacred silence, therefore, one does not pray especially for oneself, nor the Christian Science practitioner for his patients, but each one strives for the larger, more impersonal vision of prayer which reaches out in blessing on all those gathered in His name. Mrs. Eddy elucidates the meaning of this important By-Law when she writes (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 189): "The silent prayers of our churches, resounding through the dim corridors of time, go forth in waves of sound, a diapason of heart-beats, vibrating from one pulpit to another and from one heart to another, till truth and love, commingling in one righteous prayer, shall encircle and cement the human race."

Many times the newcomer to Christian Science echoes the appeal of the apostles of old, "Lord, teach us to pray." He knows that he has left behind him as an outgrown garment the concept of a God who has to be argued with, pleaded with, and reminded of His duty to His creation; but just how should he use intelligently the moments of the period of silent prayer? How should he pray? "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" begins with a chapter on Prayer, which every unbiased reader must agree is one of the most beautiful and inspirational writings on the subject ever given; but a remarkable fact to be noted is that Mrs. Eddy does not put into the mouths of her readers any set formulas for prayer. With loving candor she shows the fallacy of that mode of petition which assumes that the Almighty grants or withholds blessings according to the fervor or persistence of the petitioner. True prayer, healing prayer, is revealed as scientific communion with the facts of being, a realization of God's presence and the omniaction of His law, and the consequent repudiation of everything unlike the divine nature.

While neither the great Leader of the Church of Christ, Scientist, nor any of her followers ever attempt to outline for another the precise form of one's communion with Truth and Love, Mrs. Eddy on one occasion gave her church a beautiful model for the beginning of one's prayer in the church services. At the close of her dedicatory sermon in "Pulpit and Press" she has written (p. 10): "Divine presence, breathe Thou Thy blessing on every heart in this house. Speak out, O soul!" Here then is indicated what might be called the keynote of a prayer "for the congregations collectively and exclusively." The Father of all is addressed as "Divine presence." Now every Christian Scientist has learned in his textbook that God is Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, and Love. He may therefore find himself dwelling in reverent communion with the great truth that since Mind is all-presence, the suggestion of minds many or a carnal mind is never present; that Spirit being ever present, good is present, and matter or the false sense of substance is not present; that Soul being omnipresent, painless, joyous, harmonious consciousness is present, while discordant, painful, sensual, material sense is not present; that Principle being ever present, law is present and lawlessness is never present; that Life being present, limitation, decrepitude, beginnings and endings are never present; that Truth being all present, harmony, light, and reality are present, and discord, disease, inharmony are never present; and lastly, Love being ever present, hate and fear, burden and despair, are not present.

Again and again one hears testimonies in churches or reads them in our periodicals wherein are related experiences of strangers coming to a Christian Science church and being healed of pain or sin or grief during the silent prayer. Surely when two or three are gathered together in His name—all communing with the divine presence, and therefore all striving to see as unreal the suggestions of fear or ignorance or so-called material law—every receptive heart coming within the radius of such uplifting consciousness must touch the hem of Christ's healing garment. May each worshiper in a Christian Science church approach the period of silent prayer with a sense of the greatest joy and expectation of good. No Reader should allow himself or herself hurriedly to bring this sacred silence to a close. Certainly it would seem that the least time which should be given to the silent prayer is that wherein every member of the congregation may be able to go to his Father-Mother God and ponder Mrs. Eddy's wonderful definitions of Deity. Seekers of Truth at our churches will find healing and comfort, Readers will be inspired, and the whole human family blessed by such intelligent, righteous communing with this healing presence. A much-loved hymn (Christian Science Hymnal, No. 151) gives the following beautiful picture: