Articles

The garden of Eden is often used as synonymous with an earthly paradise, a garden of delight, wherein are found beauty, temperate air, and endless ease from struggle. This concept of a happy isle is a common one in heroic song.

The day when peter in the tanner's house at Joppa was taught through a vision not to despise the Gentiles, may well be described as one of the turning points in the world's history. It was from that time forward that the early Christian church carried the teachings of Jesus the Christ outside the confines of J in lea and Galilee.

There seems to be a certain mesmerism about mistakes, which is of course, entirely foreign to the truth and to that which intelligently bears witness to this truth. A teacher, writing on the blackboard examples in mathematics, to test the children's understanding of mathematics may sometimes write the wrong figures simply to see which of the pupils are sufficiently awake to detect the mistake, and it may happen that students who themselves know how to work out the problem, lazily respond to the suggestion and accept the mistake as correct.

Throughout the centuries poets, philosophers, religionists, and lexicographers have attempted to define prayer with more or less indifferent success because nearly all have regarded it and its effects inversely; that is to say, most of these definitions are based upon a belief in a Supreme Being whose intentions and activities may be changed to conform to the material wishes or demands of the supplicant. Through such misapprehension importunate prayer, synonymous with repetition, savoring largely of self-will and fear, has been justified and offered to hungry hearts yearning to find the way to true communion.

The perception that reality is spiritual and not material was clear to Jesus the Christ, and he showed by word and deed that he did not deem it at all impossible that it should be so to others as well. He even chided his immediate disciples for their lack of spiritual perception, shown in many instances, as when they failed to heal the epileptic boy.

A Considerable portion of the average human being's time is spent in wondering "why things happen. " To most of us life is apt to present a bewildering succession of incidents without a perceptible law of sequence.

The struggle of the human race to attain liberty and lasting peace is a constant exertion of a belief in an intelligence or power superior to itself, and not only separate therefrom but actually opposed thereto. The purposes of the efforts of the peoples in the dawn of civilization to appease the wrath or tempt the vanity of their gods, to whom they attributed the power of blessing or blasting the products of the earth and of men's labor, were in no wise different from the inherent fear in the human mind and its efforts to dominate or avoid the domination of matter, in this the twentieth century.

The account of creation as given in the first chapter of Genesis and the first few verses of the second chapter, ending with "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good," and, "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them," is accepted by the student of Christian Science as the complete record of all that really has existence. Instead of accepting the suggestion of the so-called human mind when he wishes to test the validity of any concept, he endeavors to find whether it is included in this "very good" and only creation.

On page 252 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy we read, "A knowledge of error and of its operations must precede that understanding of Truth which destroys error, until the entire mortal, material error finally disappears, and the eternal verity, man created by and of Spirit, is understood and recognized as the true likeness of his Maker. " This shows that when an effort is made to understand Truth, exposure of the error which is claiming to hide Truth is also necessary.

What constitutes true prayer, the kind that removes mountains; that says, "Take up thy bed and walk;" that heals and saves from all discordant conditions, both mental and physical, is a question that is well worth consideration, for many Scriptural promises are based thereon. On page 1 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, we read, "The prayer that reforms the sinner and heals the sick is an absolute faith that all things are possible to God,—a spiritual understanding of Him, an unselfed love.