At this season the thoughts of Christian Scientists the world over are turning with eager interest and keen anticipation to the Annual Meeting of The Mother Church, expectantly awaiting the reports of its government and the fruition of its activities. Likewise are the thoughts of much of the world centered with close observation upon the internal politics of the United States, which during the coming months will carry on the presidential election campaigns, the results of which will play an important role in shaping world policies of stabilization and peace. Throughout the world, humanity's great need is to gain a truer sense of God's government and to reflect His government in individual lives.
To this end Mary Baker Eddy has given her followers certain daily admonitions which, if alertly and intelligently observed, will prove of inestimable value to the Christian Scientist in making him a more spiritually-minded church member and a better citizen. One student, through consulting the Concordance to Mrs. Eddy's writings other than the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," drew up for himself the following list of seven such admonitions, which he prefaced with daily prayerful pondering of the definition of Church (Science and Health, p. 583) and the requirements for joining the church as outlined on page 35 of the textbook, lines 20 through 25. In this reference our Leader makes it plain that uniting with the church is no mere outward form or ceremony, but spiritual regeneration—the new birth—expressed in bringing forth the healing fruits of Truth and Love.
The admonitions in the order in which the student listed them are as follows. The first four are in the Manual of The Mother Church: 1. Article VIII, Section 6, wherein is pointed out the duty of each member of the Church to be alert and defend himself each day against, the aggressive suggestions of evil; 2. Article VIII, Section 1, which gives him a rule to govern his motives and acts; 3. Article VIII, Section 4, which outlines the prayer that he shall pray each day for himself and for all mankind; 4. A sentence from Article XVII, Section 2, which gives this pertinent reminder: "Gratitude and love should abide in every heart each day of all the years." Obedience to this little sentence would banish doubt, discouragement, grief, or depression, for none of these can exist in the heart wherein gratitude and love actively abide each day. As one realizes that his daily experience mirrors forth his daily thinking, the priceless worth of this loving counsel of our Leader's is obvious. The Christian Scientist knows that gratitude is more than lip service. It is the continual acknowledgment of the spiritual fact of God's allness and of man's oneness with God, lived in our daily lives.
The fifth admonition was from "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany," page 128, lines 30 to 2. Here is set forth the daily need of searching self-examination, that no error shall find lodgment or take root in one's thinking. The sixth he found under the caption "Take Notice" on page 236 of Miscellany, and repeated for emphasis under the same caption on the following page, wherein the student is referred to page 442, line 30, of Science and Health with the admonition to give daily heed thereto. This passage admonishes the Christian Scientist to be a law to himself, an injunction which can be obeyed only as man is understood as reflecting God's law. And as the final admonition the student turned to "Miscellaneous Writings," page 127, the paragraph beginning on line 7, wherein our Leader tenderly enjoins upon her followers daily prayer for growth in spirituality.
It soon became clear to the student that the mere repetition of these passages each day did not of itself constitute obedience to them, but merely served as a reminder of what it was his duty to do; even as the parrot-like repetition of the multiplication table each day would be of little value to a mathematician if he did not actually put his knowledge to systematic use.
It also became clear that to think of oneself as a finite person who, through observance of these loving counsels, was trying to build around himself a wall of defense while ascribing reality to evil, was neither obedience to the admonitions nor defense against evil's supposititious power, for a wall can be broken down if there is in belief an enemy besieging it who is strong enough to do so. To acknowledge the existence of evil and believe the testimony of material sense breaks the First Commandment. Such acknowledgment is the idolatrous worship of more than one God.
Christian Science reveals God, good, Life, Truth, Love, as All-in-all, forever expressing Himself. God's idea, man, is wholly spiritual, ever one with his divine source, as incapable of experiencing sin, disease, death, imperfection, and want as God Himself is. Man has no underived power, no being separate from the Being which is God and His idea. God Himself is the Ego; man is His expression. This premise is the starting point of divine Science, the basis of its reasoning and demonstration.
Prayerful pondering of the oneness of God and His idea leads to scientific self-identification, wherein man is found as God's expression, unfallen and upright, unfettered and pure. In such realization evil in all its aggressive forms is proved to be illusion— nothingness—without power, entity, identification, or presence, and sin, disease, and death are recognized as deceptions of sense, not conditions of matter. Whatever would darken thought and obscure the truth and reality of being is aggressive mental suggestion, and man in God's likeness possesses no intelligence whereby he can be deceived.
In the definition of Church may be found the scientific definition of government, for that which rests upon divine Principle and proceeds from it expresses the action and law of Principle. A better world order must be founded upon a spiritually scientific understanding of Church, the Church which the Master described as built upon the Rock, Christ, and which does the works he did. Church is divine idea. It has no human political power or aspirations, but evidences the invincible power of God, Spirit, in its all-embracing universality. To be progressive, enduring, and satisfying, the structure of society must increasingly correspond with this structure of divine Truth and Love.
The Christian Scientist is not merely an observer; he is a doer. Thus in his evaluation of the affairs of his church, of the politics of his country, or of the state of the nations he is not satisfied to sit idly by and look on either approvingly, critically, fearfully, or rebelliously. Rather does he, through consecrated and alert obedience to the inspired admonitions of his Leader and through daily study of her writings in conjunction with the Scriptures, so enlarge his spiritual understanding and spiritualize his thought and outlook that he is found agreeing always with Truth, never with error, acknowledging God's allness, error's nothingness, and man's true self-identification or oneness with God.
In her interesting sermon, "The People's Idea of God," Mrs. Eddy emphasizes the fact that a nation's concept of God determines its progress and enlightenment and molds its government. Here she writes (p. 1): "Every step of progress is a step more spiritual. The great element of reform is not born of human wisdom; it draws not its life from human organizations; rather is it the crumbling away of material elements from reason, the translation of law back to its original language—Mind, and the final unity between man and God."
Furthermore, our Leader foresaw the final conflict with error and the spiritual mission of those who scientifically discern the power of the Christ, Truth, and live in obedience thereto. Thus she writes in Science and Health (pp. 96,97): "During this final conflict, wicked minds will endeavor to find means by which to accomplish more evil; but those who discern Christian Science will hold crime in check. They will aid in the ejection of error. They will maintain law and order, and cheerfully await the certainty of ultimate perfection."
In fulfilling the obligations of our citizenship and our church membership let us take to heart Paul's admonition to Timothy (II Tim. 2:15): "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." Thus shall we prove that God's government is come on earth as it is in heaven, and that man reflects God's government and shows forth His glory in eternal Science.
