EVERY navigator of the high seas uses a compass. Without a compass he could have no certainty of following his course or of reaching his port. A compass, because of its precision, enables a navigator to follow with perfect confidence the most direct route to his destination.
Likewise, every navigator of the sea of life rejoices when he discovers that Christian Science furnishes a compass, so that he need never drift aimlessly and fail to reach the port of heaven, the kingdom of God. This compass of the Christian Scientist is the Manual of The Mother Church. Mary Baker Eddy wisely and lovingly provides in it the Rules and By-Laws which, if obeyed, keep students of Christian Science true to the course of demonstration of Immanuel, "God with us."
Do we realize that Mrs. Eddy has provided over two hundred By-Laws in this Manual, which cover the essential points in Christian ethics and indicate the different ways in which we can live the Golden Rule? Do we appreciate that the thirty-one Rules or By-Laws under the heading of "Discipline" are our safeguards against the reefs and shallows of sense? How well Mrs. Eddy knew that the Manual is divine unfoldment! Obeying its letter and gaining its spirit, we are rewarded by divine guidance, protection, and other proofs of God's presence and power.
Our Church Manual is just as necessary to maintain the Cause of Christian Science amidst the storms and night of the diverse elements of mortal beliefs as a compass is to steer a ship through the darkness and storms of diverse weather elements. Mrs. Eddy explains in a letter, an extract of which appears on page 148 of "Miscellaneous Writings," that the Rules and By-Laws in the Manual are not personal, arbitrary opinions or dictatorial demands, but rather were impelled by a power not her own, and were written when occasion required. She says in fact, "They sprang from necessity, the logic of events,—from the immediate demand for them as a help that must be supplied to maintain the dignity and defense of our Cause." Then she sums up their vital value in these words: "Hence their simple, scientific basis, and detail so requisite to demonstrate genuine Christian Science, and which will do for the race what absolute doctrines destined for future generations might not accomplish."
Now every earnest student of Christian Science works and prays to demonstrate "genuine Christian Science." And his ability in this Christian service will grow in the ratio that the scientific basis and demands of each Rule and By-Law are understood and obeyed. He will do well to use this compass every day. Such wholehearted consecration to our Church Manual will then maintain in rich measure, as our Leader hoped, "the dignity and defense of our Cause."
Both the law and the gospel, both the letter and the spirit, must be unified and co-ordinated if one is to succeed in the practice of Christian Science and to demonstrate its healing and salvation. How imperative it is to keep out of consciousness the darkening animosities, the fettering personal attachments, the wasteful tendencies of wrong thinking, which would mesmerize and hypnotize the unalert thinker! Godlike thoughts keep one awake to God's blessings of health, happiness, success; they bring into human experience and daily living evidences of His economy of peace and plenty.
As he daily went about his Father's business, Christ Jesus constantly widened the streams of love through which he brought healing to others and demonstrated God as the divine Principle of all true being. We too can demonstrate, as did the Way-shower, that to express the Love which is Life is the great motive for action. Love for God and man, expressed, is the Golden Rule in action.
And was not the Christ which Jesus of Nazareth exemplified made apparent to mankind because he lived the Golden Rule in the way all men could understand? "Not my will, but thine, be done" (Luke 22:42) was the prayer which motivated all his thoughts, words, and deeds, hour after hour, day after day. By his works he proved that true love for God means good will toward men.
In our efforts to walk and work among men as Christ Jesus walked and worked, our compass will guide us past the shallows, the reefs of mortal mind to the harbor of divine safety, government by divine Principle. The Manual stabilizes our course amidst the fogs of foolish sense-testimony, the mists of mistaken human reasoning, the mirages of mortal opinions, and the storms of educated theories or willful aggression. Twofold is the activity of this divinely inspired Manual, for not only does it indicate the dangers that confront earth's pilgrims, but it also brings them the protection of God, which is all-encompassing and unfailing.
Earth's troubled seas demand that we resolve to keep our course true to the Manual, our compass, and not allow ourselves idly to drift, or to accept undisciplined piloting. We cannot afford, for example, to forget or to neglect to pray daily the prayer that our Leader designates as the "Daily Prayer" (Manual, Art. VIII, Sect. 4). This prayer embraces all mankind; it includes the Christ-desire to be good and to do good. Someone has said no one will ever know what you mean by saying "God is Love" unless you act it as well. The same is true of the Manual provisions. Only obedience to them will prove their worth. Those around us who are watching or may be following our course need our help. Scientists, if obedient to Article VIII, Section 1, of the Manual, will not then be impelled by either animosity or mere personal attachment. As members of The Mother Church they will not smoke or drink.
Of the rich rewards of obedience Mrs. Eddy writes (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 230), "Of this I am sure, that each Rule and By-law in this Manual will increase the spirituality of him who obeys it, invigorate his capacity to heal the sick, to comfort such as mourn, and to awaken the sinner." How thankful we should be for the protecting Rules and By-Laws of the Manual, given to us in words all can understand, in Rules all can prove, in By-Laws all can obey! This compass points always to God, and as we accept it we shall respond to its unerring spiritual attraction and find our lives God-directed and maintained.
