As I rode through the snow-covered mountains one spring, it was beautiful, clear, sunshiny weather, with blue skies, and fleecy clouds floating above the mountains. The rivers and streams were flowing full, because a few days before there had been some warm weather and the snow had started to melt. What a delight to the eye were those snow-covered peaks; what beauty in those clear, flowing streams and rivers! Because the mountains gave of their white mantle of snow, rivers flowed, and there was water for the thirsty valleys, the farms, and the gardens.
I was told that only the week before, most of the streams were just trickling along with very little water in them, and now they were rushing torrents of clear, pure water. The snow was held until the time was ripe for its melting; then the water ran into the streams and rivers that the valleys might be refreshed.
And so it is in the valley of human thought: the redemptive mission of Christian Science, flowing from the mountaintop of spiritual inspiration, is needed. The thought thirsting for the clear waters of Truth is not reached until the pure letter of the Word is accompanied by the spirit, the warmth of divine Love. Our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, tells us in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 319), "The divine Science taught in the original language of the Bible came through inspiration, and needs inspiration to be understood."
It is well known that every active, alert student of Christian Science is putting into practice his understanding of this great truth. If he is refreshed by thoughtful study of this Science, the beautiful quality of inspiration is naturally expressed in his daily living. Unconsciously his thought, his acts, his spontaneous expression of practical Christianity, are bearing witness to the truth he has found in Christian Science. Mrs. Eddy says in "Unity of Good" (p. 46), "All Truth is from inspiration and revelation,—from Spirit, not from flesh."
Those who seek to climb the mountain peak of spiritual understanding and to stay there should see the value of bringing the truths they have glimpsed on the mountaintop down into the valleys of human thought and experience that others may be nourished and fed thereby. If the snow remained on the peaks, it would not refresh the valley. The mountaintop thinker needs to reflect divine Love in compassion in order that his inspiration may heal and bless others. Those whose streams seem to run dry or in shallow channels need to climb up to a mountaintop to gain greater inspiration.
The real man does not need to be saved and on that account does not need a process of salvation; but the human race does need one, and Christian Science supplies it. An outstanding statement of this process is given on page 251 of our textbook, Science and Health: "We must learn how mankind govern the body,—whether through faith in hygiene, in drugs, or in will-power. We should learn whether they govern the body through a belief in the necessity of sickness and death, sin and pardon, or govern it from the higher understanding that the divine Mind makes perfect, acts upon the so-called human mind through truth, leads the human mind to relinquish all error, to find the divine Mind to be the only Mind, and the healer of sin, disease, death. This process of higher spiritual understanding improves mankind until error disappears, and nothing is left which deserves to perish or to be punished."
In our healing work we start from perfection, from the fact "that the divine Mind makes perfect, acts upon the so-called human mind through truth." It is in this process that the divine Mind outshines the error in the so-called human mind; the error is thus eliminated or destroyed, and the result is healing, for the divine Mind is seen as the only Mind.
It is because we have climbed to a mountaintop of realization of some great truth of Christian Science that we are able to see the nothingness of an erroneous condition of thought which needs to be healed. Often a Christian Science practitioner's clear vision of reality when imparted to one who has come to him for help results in immediate healing of mental or physical discord.
Can we ever cease to be grateful to our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, for giving to the human race the result of her mountaintop visions of the truth of being? Her love for mankind led her through many a valley of human trouble, difficulty, sorrow, and sickness that she might bring to suffering humanity her revelation of the healing Christ, Truth.
The student of Christian Science is as grateful for the clear, explanatory statements in the textbook, showing the application of Truth, as he is for the great, vital, absolute truths this book contains. It is because these truths are so clearly explained by our Leader that we are able to understand them, use them, and demonstrate them.
Every activity of The Mother Church operates to bring the truth of Christian Science to humanity. If ever one is tempted to believe that there is no further need of organization, let him know that he is listening to temptation. He is losing sight of the great work that is being done by The Mother Church. Without organization, Christian Science would not be adequately available to mankind.
One could never be tempted to believe that organization is not a present necessity when he truly comprehends the completeness, the wonder, the glory of fulfillment of what the Christ really is—the divine nature, the divine manifestation of Truth, destroying error and bringing healing to mankind. We read in Isaiah (55:10, 11), "For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it."
