On page 91 of her book "Retrospection and Introspection," Mrs. Eddy, the Leader of the Christian Science movement, writes of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. In answer to the question, "Where did Jesus deliver this great lesson—or, rather, this series of great lessons—on humanity and divinity?" she replies, "On a hillside, near the sloping shores of the Lake of Galilee, where he spake primarily to his immediate disciples." Then in the next paragraph she adds this arresting observation: "To the students whom he had chosen, his immortal teaching was the bread of Life. When he was with them, a fishing-boat became a sanctuary, and the solitude was peopled with holy messages from the All-Father. The grove became his class-room, and nature's haunts were the Messiah's university."
How appropriate is Mrs. Eddy's use of the word "university" in this description, for it means education at the highest level! Indeed, where the Master taught is not half so important as what he taught, and whether he was among "nature's haunts," on the highways and byways, or in humble homes, he propounded metaphysics as opposed to physics. His message was one of spiritual truths, not material beliefs, of health, not disease, of life, not death. He urged a recognition of the true relationship of God and man as opposed to the proposition that God was some mystic sort of being, who, capable of good and evil, created man a miserable sinner and left him to try to save himself if he could.
Preparation for the spiritual training the Master offered his chosen students was both simple and profound. This is vividly illustrated in the Bible, where it is recorded that Jesus, seeing Peter and Andrew fishing, called to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men" (Matt. 4:19). As the Scriptural account continues, "They straightway left their nets, and followed him."
