Articles

To every one the Ten Commandments should be both guide and guard. Mankind has been commanded to obey them, not because obedience could in any way render a favor to or bestow a blessing upon God, but because such obedience opens consciousness to the realization of the blessings which God's love bestows upon men.

The ever recurring season of preparation for the presentation, under the auspices of a branch church or society, of a free public lecture on Christian Science by a member of the Board of Lectureship of The Mother Church, brings with it the joyful opportunity for right thinking concerning the various problems incident to such preparation. Right thinking is not alone the duty of those to whom specific work may fall under the particular method adopted for the handling of the plans for the lecture, but rather it is the duty of every member of the church; for without unified right thinking, the spiritual or mental structure of Truth and Love cannot be manifested, or its healing and redemptive power be fully demonstrated.

The spiritual illumination which Christian Science throws upon the nature and office of angels not only opens, with new meaning, the Scriptural records of these celestial influences, but also brings comfort to Christian Scientists, by showing that all who in some measure understand divine Mind may realize the companionship and the protecting guidance of angels. No longer does one who understands the teachings of Christian Science superstitiously think of angels as semimaterial beings whose visitations are, possibly, more to be dreaded than desired.

In the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," on page 269 , Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science and the revelator of Truth to this age, has written: "Metaphysics resolves things into thoughts, and exchanges the objects of sense for the ideas of Soul. These ideas are perfectly real and tangible to spiritual consciousness, and they have this advantage over the objects and thoughts of material sense,—they are good and eternal.

" Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. " The writer has received much comfort and healing, upon more than one occasion, through using the twenty-third psalm.

On page 372 of "Miscellaneous Writings" Mrs. Eddy says, "The art of Christian Science, with true hue and character of the living God, is akin to its Science.

To the thought of the individual just entering into the larger concept of life and being, as revealed in Christian Science, the statement that as a man "thinketh in his heart, so is he," gives food for meditation. Can it be, he reasons, that one's life, one's happiness or sadness, success or failure, one's friendships or loneliness, can depend on the way one "thinketh in his heart"? Hitherto, probably, he has cherished a very different view of the matter.

At the present time, when so-called mortal mind theories are coming to the front with all their attempts to maintain belief in the reality of matter, it is expedient for the Christian Scientist to search well his habits of thought to see whether or not he is maintaining the line of demarcation between the spiritual universe of thought—God's creation— and a so-called physical or material universe. In recent years many a system of mental gymnastics has found protection and apparently sturdy growth under the label "metaphysical"; and it is not to be wondered at that much has claimed to be Christian Science which will not measure up to the standard of Christian metaphysics.

Much earnest consideration is given by Christian Scientists to what is termed "work" in Christian Science. Devout students in every part of the world are endeavoring by means of spiritual right thinking to establish the kingdom of God on earth.

How constantly to-day arises the demand for something constructive—not for mere theory, but for proof-positive methods! And surely it is being more widely realized in the marts of the world, as well as in the councils of diplomatists, that a system of ruthless competition—the greed and grasp method —is wholly destructive, and can never build up permanent business or friendly international relations. In the realm of art and education, are not insincerities, sprung from servile adherence to empty conventions, now more often swept aside by the urge for constructive criticism and a truly serviceable culture? In the world of religion, he who runs may read that dogmatic shibboleth and cant are going down before the more insistent cry for something constructive and practical, for a religion that works, which can be none other than a religion of works.