Christian Science embraces every phase of human experience in its healing and regenerative ministry. That is why when an individual has been healed of sin or of sickness, he undergoes a definite change of thought. Oftentimes as a concomitant of healing, he feels a spiritual uplift, a calm peace which is indescribably lovely. Evil is seen as powerless and unreal. The individual has a new outlook as he finds himself basking in divine light, the loveliness of divine Love!
These glorious glimpses of divine reality are often referred to as "mountaintop" experiences. They mark the new birth in divine Science, which brings freedom, health, and peace. In his message to the church at Ephesus, John, the Revelator, used the term "first love" to describe the "mountaintop" experience of spiritual zeal and inspiration which comes when the healing Christ first appears in the hearts of men.
It is at this point of spiritual development that we feel the great urge to help spread the gospel of the kingdom, as revealed in Christian Science, and seek membership in a Church of Christ, Scientist. What wondrous joy there is when opportunities come to work with others on this great mission! As time goes on and problems arise which require greater love, patience, forbearance, and tolerance, we sometimes may feel our zeal and enthusiasm lessening. This is a time when watchfulness, alertness, and more consecration are needed. We can gain many beautiful lessons from the study of the Revelator's messages to the seven churches in Asia. One thing is certain, that many of the same basic problems with which those early Christians were confronted present themselves to us today as we endeavor to plant, water, and bring to a ripened fruitage the spiritual idea of Church and all that Church means to us.
John in his sweet and beautiful way of love warned the Ephesians not to let go of their first love, not to let material and transient things overshadow those things that are spiritual and abiding. Let us examine briefly some of the problems which confronted the church of Laodicea in those ancient times. Their problems were not unlike some of our own today. It is said by historians that Laodiceans were people of great material wealth. The city was a banking and manufacturing center, producing medicinal supplies, particularly an eyesalve supposed to cure blindness. There were factories making the finest of woolen cloth. There was little interest, if any, in spiritual things. Yet, a Christian church was established, one of the seven churches in Asia.
The message to the Laodiceans, as revealed to John through the angel, was this (Rev.3:15—18): "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot. . . . So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see."
Perhaps the error of indifference, of lukewarmness, together with indolence in relation to the things of Spirit, is the most subtle evil with which we are confronted today. This evil of indifference is referred to by our beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" in the chapter "Animal Magnetism Unmasked." On page 102 under the marginal heading "Hidden agents" is this significant statement: "So secret are the present methods of animal magnetism that they ensnare the age into indolence, and produce the very apathy on the subject which the criminal desires." Note that animal magnetism produces apathy and that the latter blinds our eyes to the handling of the former. We are sometimes prone to blame a church's discords on persons and therefore fail to see that the discords are altogether the workings of malicious animal magnetism. They are the impersonal activities of evil from without the temple of God.
It is truly significant that the message to the church at Sardis was to be watchful, for this church was suffering from lack of watchfulness. To be watchful was the activity which would shield it from the darts of evil. And what joy is ours that there was the church of Philadelphia, a symbol of the true Church, the structure of Love and Truth.
What zeal and inspiration are ours, what fidelity and purity fill our consciousness as we receive enlightenment from our Leader's words (Poems, p. 6):
"The arrow that doth wound the dove
Darts not from those who watch and love."
When Christ Jesus proclaimed (Luke 17:21), "The kingdom of God is within you," he truly revealed the mission of the Christ, namely to bring the light of Truth to human consciousness. The mission of the Christ is our mission as members of the Church of Christ, Scientist. Our consciousness of spiritual man, his perfection and immortal being, is that light of Truth. To maintain this consciousness requires keeping our own thought clear and clean.
The requirements of a Christian Scientist are no less great than when the Apostle James declared almost two thousand years ago (James 1:27), "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."
"Pure religion," not a shallow, popularity-courting sort, the fair-weather sort. Let us not lose our zeal, our first love. Our church needs us more than ever. The fields are ripe, are white for harvest, and still, as in the Master's time, "the labourers are few" (Luke 10:2). Mrs. Eddy says (Science and Health, p. 4), "What we most need is the prayer of fervent desire for growth in grace, expressed in patience, meekness, love, and good deeds." Here are the four requisites if we are to bless: patience, meekness, love, and good deeds. Our power to heal is in proportion to our reflection of divine Love. We must love, and we must love with the love that is of God.
How the world needs our light, our understanding that man is the expression of God! How all mankind needs to learn that they too are children of the light, children of the day! We must not permit any lack of inspiration, of unselfed love, or devotion of thought to the work of healing to become lessened by apathy and indifference. Instead, may it be said of each one of us as a Christian Scientist: Thou hast not left thy first love.
