Articles

ONE of the points of widest divergence between Christian Science and other Christian faiths is the method of accepting and applying the phrase "Thy will be done" of the Lord's Prayer. The more usual attitude is one of almost hopeless though half-rebellious resignation; the Christian Science attitude is one of expectant joy.

WHEN Mrs. Eddy affixed the name Christian Science to Christianity, she roused the world to the fact that there had never been, since the early Christian era, a frank acceptance of spiritual truth as definitely knowable, practically demonstrable, susceptible of proof.

CHRIST JESUS at one time declared that "the kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you. " At another time he said, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

IN social intercourse pride of place and power is all too often the master of ceremonies. Self-seeking motives and the attitude of "I am holier than thou" would shut out from social circles the natural expression of individualized good.

THERE is in every man an inherent desire to be free, and the abiding conviction that freedom in the fullest and broadest sense of the word is his divine right, impels him to strive for that which he believes is essential to his present and future well-being. While the desire for freedom is universal, all are not agreed as to just how this freedom is to be attained; neither is it understood, as it should be, that true freedom is not to be gained at the expense of others.

THERE is an old-time children's story respecting a contest of strength between the wind and the sun which affords wholesome food for thought, because it illustrates this subtle but vital truth that real power is to be recognized not so much in the gain of a given end as in the method of its achievement. So long as the desire for or belief in error is allowed to influence thought, the necromancers of Egypt are apt to try to seduce men by imitations of the divine power demonstrated by Moses.

QUESTIONS of law are constantly confronting us, for all human association and action are based upon law. While state legislatures and the Federal Congress are law-making bodies, the courts interpret these laws.

TO the onlooker, Christian Science appears no better in any community than the Christian Scientists themselves appear. He who knows little or nothing of the teaching of Christian Science is very likely to judge it by the conduct of its adherents.

First Church of Christ, Scientist, San Jose, Cal. In the last decades of the nineteenth century, when Christian Science was becoming established in all the principal eastern cities, the far West was not behind in the investigation of this new teaching.

THERE arc many ways in which the Bible can be and has been read, and during the last fifty years the human mind, or at least that phase of it known as the Anglo-Saxon mind, has gone through many vicissitudes in its attitude toward the Book of books. Fifty years ago it was the secret if not openly expressed conviction of every religiously minded person of English origin, that the Bible was written word for word in heaven, and that to question any of its statements was to be in league with the powers of darkness.