Articles

It sometimes takes a great crisis in life to make one realize the true meaning of expressions which have been familiar to him and on his lips for years. In the humdrum sameness of unalert mortal mind there is a tendency to accept, without investigation or proof, metaphysical statements which may be no more understood than prayers which, are made out of lip service to public opinion or conventionality.

Of all the wolves parading in sheep's clothing, perhaps the most subtle and seemingly successful is human sympathy. Even among students of Christian Science who have demonstrated the allness of good and the consequent nothingness of evil in instance after instance, the suggestion may intrude and find lodgment that human sympathy is a virtue and not a quality of the "old man" which the Scriptures warn us must be "put off.

Of the multitude of beliefs emanating from a so-called mortal mind, that of grief is one of the most subtle and mesmeric. Throughout the ages it has been looked upon with the greatest pity and solicitude.

On page 271 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy writes, "Christ's Christianity is the chain of scientific being reappearing in all ages, maintaining its obvious correspondence with the Scriptures and uniting all periods in the design of God.

In all ages there has come to noble-hearted men and women some knowledge of the eternal harmony, lifting them above the discords of sense. They have not been limited to the membership of one religion, far less to that of any one sect.

The curse on Adam was, that in the sweat of his face he should eat bread. In this pronouncement of mortal mind has originated the age-old conviction that man works for a living, and that he has to make money in order to exist.

Under the marginal heading "The great question," on page 308 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy, in ringing tones, arouses humanity to the need of recognizing man's true status and his relationship to God.

Mrs. Eddy has written of the Rules and By-laws of The Mother Church, on page 148 of "Miscellaneous Writings": "They were not arbitrary opinions nor dictatorial demands, such as one person might impose on another.

So perfectly was Christ Jesus' thought attuned to the one Mind, his Father, that every object became a subject for a lesson, every obstacle manifest as sin disease, or death an opportunity to reveal the nature of God. With parables aglow with the wonderful teachings that became waymarks to God for those who had ears to hear, and through his healing works, a marvel to the human thought which so long had been bound by its belief in the reality of evil, he taught and demonstrated the truth.

In explaining the various steps which led up to her final discovery of Christian Science, Mrs. Eddy tells us in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" ( p.