THE opening chapter of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," is entitled "Prayer." In this remarkable chapter the author, Mary Baker Eddy, out of the fullness of her revelation, discloses the meaning and power of true prayer and the motives for praying. She concludes her discussion with the Lord's Prayer and her spiritual interpretation of it. "Only as we rise above all material sensuousness and sin," she writes on page 16, "can we reach the heaven-born aspiration and spiritual consciousness, which is indicated in the Lord's Prayer and which instantaneously heals the sick."
Her spiritual sense of Jesus' words (Matt. 6:9), "Hallowed be thy name," is "Adorable One" (Science and Health, p. 16). For many years the writer recognized that to regard the Supreme Being as one worthy of adoration was natural and in harmony with Christian Science, but she could not quite see how these words were an interpretation of the words of Jesus. Later, however, a fuller and more scientific sense unfolded, and it came in conjunction with an analysis of the seven synonyms for God which the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science has given on page 465 of the textbook.
To hallow is to make holy. The question then arises, How is God's name to be hallowed? Is not the answer, in the light of Christian Science, that His name is always to be regarded as one—one Mind, one Spirit, one Soul, one Principle, one Life, one Truth, one Love? It is essential that this fact of oneness be appreciated in our adoration of the one God. Let us consider these synonymous scientific terms for Deity to see how our prayer to hallow His name may be answered—how the holiness or spiritual perfection of being may be unveiled in human consciousness.
