"THE FIELD IS THE WORLD"

Matthew records that when his disciples asked Christ Jesus to explain to them the parable of the tares and wheat, "He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; the field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom" (13:37, 38). And then he spoke to them not of countries or races which might have a better claim than some others to the harvest of good, but of human beings everywhere. The universal presence and availability of "the good seed" of truth, like brotherly love, are fundamentals of his teachings.

The Master spoke of the kingdom not as a national or political entity but as a state of consciousness wherein, the tares of evil having been uprooted and burned, only good is garnered. This kingdom, he clearly implied, is open to the world's people.

It is significant that while Jesus, like other educated Jews of that period, must have known something of the far reaches of the Roman Empire, of the people of Greece, Assyria, Persia, perhaps of India, and of the teeming millions of North Africa, he himself was in his own time totally unknown beyond the towns and villages where he walked—a narrow strip of land barely a hundred and fifty miles long —and he must have known that too. Yet his love included all mankind, for did he not command his disciples (Mark 16:15), "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature"?

He must have realized too that his immediate disciples could make but a small beginning in the great apostolic work of sowing the seeds of his teachings throughout the world, for, after all, news spread from mouth to mouth, people traveled by caravan or by sailing ship, and a man usually lived out his life in the area in which he was born.

Although the Master may not have known the exact manner in which this great apostolic work would reach the far corners of the earth, he declared that it would, because, as he said (John 14:12), "I go unto my Father," that is, he would not personally remain with them, but the Christ, Truth, would forever remain in the divine Mind to be discerned and brought to humanity in due time.

Thousands whose lives have been regenerated and enriched by Christian Science during the past ninety years or more know that it is actually the follow-up in the apostolic field of Jesus' own work, for it has proved itself to be the promised Comforter, the sower throughout the world of the good seed of Truth and Love. Christian Science is indeed the impersonal Saviour from the mortal belief in a finite personal God, in evil power, and in living matter.

At the time Mrs. Eddy discovered Christian Science, and during the successive years in which she was writing Science and Health and laying the foundations of her Church, she too was unknown beyond the few acquaintances in the small New England towns where she had lived at various times. But her outgoing love inspired her with the desire to share the far-reaching benefits of her great revelation with the world, for she knew that Christian Science had the power to free human beings everywhere from the confusions, fears, and needless sufferings imposed by the false, material sense of life, intelligence, and causation. It was divine Love that both urged her on and showed her the means through which she could fulfill her Love-given mission.

Nowhere in her writings has our Leader set any limits—geographical, racial, or cultural—to the spread of her discovery, the actual Comforter, the healer of mankind. Nowhere does she prefer some countries or some races to others. Her teachings were for mankind, for the whole human family. Indeed, a basic point in Christian Science is the totally universal, timeless nature of the Christ, Truth, and its consequent availability to anyone at any time. In view of this sense of universality, and the love for mankind which her teachings impart, it was natural for our Leader to plan for the extension of Christian Science throughout the world.

Affirming her world-embracing purpose, which guides the attitudes and activities of the Christian Science movement, there appears on the cornice of the building of The Christian Science Publishing Society the inscription, "To Proclaim the Universal Activity and Availability of Truth." It is in these very words, given in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 353), that our Leader set the function of The Herald of Christian Science, and it is this high aim that continues to inspire the Herald to serve the human family in ever-broadening areas of the world.

When on July 16, 1904, the cornerstone of the extension of The Mother Church was laid, there were placed in it a copy of the Bible, a copy of each of the published writings of Mrs. Eddy, and, in addition, the current number of each periodical she had conceived and founded. Among these was "Der Herold der Christian Science," just one year old, the only non-English language publication of The Mother Church at that time. Its inclusion in the cornerstone indicates that to "go . . . into all the world" with the message of Christian Science, as the Herald is doing, is a fundamental activity of the Church of Christ, Scientist.

The next step in this direction which Mrs. Eddy took as Founder was the precedent-setting example of having the textbook translated into German. Today many of her writings are available in nineteen languages, in addition to the original English editions.

In 1918, the English text was added to the German Edition of the Herald; and the second edition of the Herald, in French and English, also appeared. In due time came ten more, in eight Western and two Asian tongues, as well as the English text. These and the one in English Braille make thirteen different editions at present.

To make spiritual ideas comprehensible through the medium of language is a difficult task at best. Mrs. Eddy speaks from her own pioneering experience where she writes in Science and Health (p. 115), "The great difficulty is to give the right impression, when translating material terms back into the original spiritual tongue." This difficulty is increased when the spiritual truths of Christian Science are presented in a language other than the one in which they were written. To lessen this obstruction to clear understanding, Mrs. Eddy provided that in any translation of her writings the English text should always appear on the page opposite to its translation and that in translations of Christian Science literature the English text should generally appear on the page opposite to its translation.

The purpose of the Herald is to awaken the non-English-speaking members of the human family to the recognition of the Christ, Truth, by placing the teachings of Christian Science before them. Therefore the Herald is more than a medium of communication between the Church of Christ, Scientist, and its followers; it is the Church's means of opening the door of human hearts and minds everywhere to the uplifting realization that it is possible, in this present state of existence, to become liberated from the mental, moral, and physical evils that assail human experience.

Each edition of the Herald is an individual issue. It presents the logical, scientific explanation of Christian Science, with special regard to the cultural, historical, racial, and religious background of the people to whom it goes. Thus the newcomer to Christian Science, of whatever background and temperament, can gain a view of the Supreme Being as divine Mind, or Love, and of himself as its individual spiritual reflection. He can come to understand that divine Love is Life itself, Life with its flawless goodness, hence with its freedom from all forms of evil. He can gain the sense that intelligence is inseparable from spiritual goodness and that these are Love's ever-present manifestations constantly available to him. And he can become convinced that his utilization of these qualities is, in absolute Truth, unresisted by anything real.

Christian Science, by imparting the understanding of the allpower of Mind and the illusory, hence totally powerless, nature of evil, has already brought a great measure of liberation to multitudes everywhere who had for thousands of years been accepting, habitually and without question, the ancient beliefs in a personal God and material causation, with uncertain good and unavoidable evil as their effects.

So long as men believe in material gods or in a physical creator, they cannot but believe in the reality of a flesh-and-blood mortal who exists within the time limits of birth and death and whose consciousness is the battleground of the forces of good and evil.

This world of erroneous concepts, Christian or pagan, this mesmeric dream claiming to burden all of human experience, cannot continue to hold one whose eyes Christian Science has opened to the utter falsity of the concept of a corporeal God—whether one or many—subject to human passions and creating or tolerating evil and mortality.

The understanding of Christian Science dissipates this entire false sense with its empty threats, needless sufferings, vain promises, and certain disappointments. By removing these obstacles to the spiritualization of character and so lifting the handicap of fear, the Science of Christ develops and enlightens the human intellect, improves the human body, which is but the phenomenon of the human mind, liberates and happifies human experience.

The recognition that Christian Science is the truth of being brings to view its truly-universal significance, a universality that transcends geographic, political, and ethnic boundaries. Christian Science, by teaching the spiritual kinship of all men, prompts human beings to rise above their national and racial prejudices. It recognizes mankind's common reaching out for spiritual enlightenment and affirms the God-given ability of all to partake of it. The Herald, appealing to the reader in his mother tongue, opens the door of human consciousness that the textbook, the full explanation of Christian Science, may be welcomed in.

The writer of Acts recognized the fundamental kinship of all men everywhere and their common need for spiritual un-foldment when he declared that God "hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, . . . that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring" (17:26-28).

The thirteen editions of The Herald of Christian Science are important means in the fulfillment of our Leader's Loveinspired desire, fully shared by her followers, to give the saving truth to all the world's peoples. How beautifully is this high aim expressed in one of the hymns in the Christian Science Hymnal (No. 394):