Articles

THERE is not a more important factor in experience than thought. Indeed, experience without thought would not be experience, for the very term implies thinking or being conscious of something.

AMONG the various healing activities of the Church of Christ, Scientist, one which stands out with unmistakable prominence, possibly because it is unique in the Christian churches of the world, is the giving of testimonies of healing of sin and sickness, either verbally at the Wednesday evening testimony meetings or in the official Christian Science periodicals. Careful observation of the published testimonies reveals that their origin, nature, and results have been subjected to a scrutiny which assures us that these brief but comprehensive statements are actual records of fact, and as such worthy of respectful attention and of credence, wiping out incredulity, replacing doubt with hope, and leading into the bright paths of health and healing.

IN Ecclesiastes we read, "Every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God. " How many times we have heard it said that an enjoyable situation, an unexpected gift, a long period of good health or remarkable success, seemed too good to be true! Such a statement has behind it a hint of superstition, an implication that good may be variable or reversed.

THE burden of proof, as the phrase is used in judicial procedure, signifies the duty which rests upon him who affirms, to prove the truth of his contention. This eminently just rule should, it would seem, have the same application to the practice of religion as it has to the observance of the laws of the land; for the Bible plainly tells us that "faith without works is dead.

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE comes to disheartened, tired humanity with its brow crowned with promise, bearing aloft the inextinguishable torch of spiritual understanding, by whose light may be interpreted the pitfalls of the past, and in whose radiance may be revealed the unsealed heights of the future. The truth of Christian Science is as a lens of powerful magnitude which can pierce the density of material sense and bring to light the otherwise undiscovered reality of existence.

TO beginners in the study of Christian Science a saying that keeps recurring is: "One is giving power to evil. " But if God is in reality omnipotent, the only power, how can one give power to evil? Is it not self-evident, some may however reason, that in these days of discord and disaster, evil does exert a terrible influence in the affairs of men? In the face of such material evidence, and regardless of its claims, Christian Scientists are learning the wisdom of relying absolutely upon the truth taught by Christ Jesus.

WE find in the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, as well as in her other writings, many references to the illusions under which mortals labor, or to the illusory nature of the various forms under which so-called mortal mind attempts to simulate reality. We learn from the study of Science and Health that these illusions masquerade under many different names; that whatever they call themselves, whether beliefs in sickness, sin, lack, discord, or even death itself, they are all claims of the one evil or evil one, and that they will all be finally destroyed by Truth.

MANY people who have just come into Christian Science, and even some who have known of it for years, have problems from which they desire to be delivered. Many times their hearts are heavy with fear, bitterness, and depression.

THOSE who investigate the teachings of Christian Science soon learn to accept, as a basis for all right reasoning, the perfection of God and of man in God's likeness. The revelation of this truth is like a foretaste of heaven to the one who receives it; for he gains a glimpse of his true identity as God's child, untouched by the bondage and the sorrows of material beliefs.

OUR understanding of supply, either as a church or as individuals, is in direct ratio to our understanding of God, who is infinite good, infinite intelligence, infinite substance. Jesus said, "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.