DEEP troubles have turned people to God throughout many generations. Frequently individuals have consulted the pastor of their church, the pastor being considered an understanding person dedicated to comforting weary mortals and ministering to their spiritual needs. Yet, however devoted such personal pastors may be, they cannot always be present when needed, nor do personal ministrations provide the exact and healing answer to each need.
After Mrs. Eddy had discovered Christian Science and had founded her Church, a need arose for something more dependable than human endeavor and more reliable than human opinions for preaching the gospel of Christian Science. Our Leader saw the individual's need of looking to God and to the demonstrable Science of divine Principle for understanding, comfort, healing, and salvation. She discontinued the practice of having ordained personal pastors and officially ordained the Holy Bible and Science and Health, of which she is author, as the pastor for all Churches of Christ, Scientist.
Article XIV, Section 1, in the Manual by Mrs. Eddy reads: "I, Mary Baker Eddy, ordain the Bible, and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Pastor over The Mother Church,—The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass.,—and they will continue to preach for this Church and the world."
The Bible contains the liberating and healing truths of God and man. As set forth in the King James Version of the Bible these unerring and proven truths of perfect God and perfect man are demonstrable, and they never change. Science and Health reveals the healing Science of Christianity taught and demonstrated by Christ Jesus. Through divine revelation Mrs. Eddy discovered the scientific meaning of Jesus' teachings and presented the healing Science of his message in the Christian Science textbook for all mankind to comprehend and utilize, now and always.
From the Bible and Science and Health a powerful weekly Lesson-Sermon is compiled and published in the Christian Science Quarterly. It is studied during the week by Christian Scientists and read at Sunday services in all Christian Science churches. These Lesson-Sermons are free from personal opinion or interpretation. Instead, they enable one to listen to the still small voice of Truth. In these impersonal Lesson-Sermons there are unlimited healing possibilities. Because the student has studied them well during the week, he listens to them on Sunday with joy and expectancy.
It is sometimes said by those who are not students of Christian Science that the Sunday services seem repetitious and uninteresting. This should not and need not be the case when thoughtful, unselfed, and sincere Readers in Churches of Christ, Scientist, constantly strive for self-improvement and perfection. They should work earnestly to understand what they read, to read correctly, and to inspire the listener spiritually. They should diligently refer to our inspired Leader's counsel in regard to the most effective and healing way of presenting our impersonal pastor to the congregation. In "We Knew Mary Baker Eddy," First Series, one who had been a member of our Leader's household wrote of her reading of one of her poems (p. 15), "It was beautiful, so full of toneful expression and inflection;" and he added that her listeners felt that they "had had a baptism in Spirit, and were cleansed of much personal sense, self-consciousness, and fear."
Surely the beneficent and healing power of our impersonal pastor can be better felt and realized when we look to divine Principle than when we look to material personality for understanding. Our impersonal pastor is spiritual, universal, inexhaustible, and eternal. It is ever at hand, ready to purify and elevate the lives of troubled individuals and of all mankind. When the people cried out to God for help, the Psalmist recorded (Ps. 107:20), "He sent his word, and healed them."
A Christian Scientist who had devoted many years to faithful study of the Bible and our Leader's writings became ill with a malady which seemed to threaten her life. For many months she was confined to her home. Discouraged with her seemingly slow progress, she mentioned to the Christian Science practitioner who was helping her that her daily study of the Lesson-Sermons had come to lack inspiration, and she seemed to have a longing to hear some person speak who could stir her thought to a change of base, as the personal ministry of Christ Jesus would have done.
Lovingly, the practitioner rebuked this suggestion with Mrs. Eddy's words from "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 322): "Your dual and impersonal pastor, the Bible, and 'Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,' is with you; and the Life these give, the Truth they illustrate, the Love they demonstrate, is the great Shepherd that feedeth my flock, and leadeth them 'beside the still waters.'" The practitioner also reminded her of the comforting assurance given in the Epistle to the Hebrews (4:12): "The word of God is quick, and powerful."
With this reawakening the patient was refreshed and revitalized. She promptly realized that through her impersonal pastor the words and works of Christ Jesus and the writings of Mrs. Eddy were capable of lovingly ministering to her needs. Thereupon, she vigorously returned to her books, the Bible and Science and Health, with a deep desire to give full attention to every word contained in the current Lesson-Sermon. Gratitude for God's nearness and ever-presence flooded her consciousness. That moment proved to be the turning point. In a very short time she was again joyously active, healed, and regenerated.
The Bible and Science and Health contain the healing truths that can meet every human need. If we listen as attentively to this impersonal pastor as we would to an eloquent personal speaker, we shall indeed hear the pure healing gospel proclaiming that the power of God is with men and is available here and now, because man is not a fallen mortal; he is the perfect and beloved child of God. Our impersonal but powerful pastor is healing all manner of disease, sin, and discord by illuminating the human consciousness with the truth of perfect God and perfect man.
This impersonal pastor ever assures the student and the listener of pure spiritual nourishment pouring forth from the same healing and sustaining Truth yesterday, today, and forever. The infinite unfoldment of spiritual reality never becomes hackneyed or stale. It never fails to rouse the hungry and receptive heart. Through our inspired Leader, our pastor is truly ordained by God to bring deliverance from evil of every sort, to comfort, and to heal. Divine Love's gracious gift to all mankind is the Christ, the powerful Truth, which imparts health, happiness, and life to mankind. A verse in one of our loved hymns in the Christian Science Hymnal (No. 131) reads,
To point that living way, to speak
The truth that makes men free,
To bring that quick'ning life from heaven,
Is highest ministry.
