"You render the divine law of healing obscure and void, when you weigh the human in the scale with the divine, or limit in any direction of thought the omnipresence and omnipotence of God." These words of Mary Baker Eddy's in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 445) point out to her followers, indeed, to all mankind, how they themselves can prove and experience God's infinite goodness and power. With unceasing effort she sought to set forth the divine law of healing so clearly that it could never seem to be obscure or void to anyone, never appear to be undefined, intricate, or without effect. Her words may be taken as a warning not to measure a limited, human sense of good in the scale with the divine, not to mentally accept conclusions which fail to acknowledge the all-presence and all-power of God.
The annals of Christian Science include indubitable proofs that when the omnipresence and omnipotence of God are unreservedly acknowledged, and His law is permitted to operate in human affairs unimpeded and unrestricted by mortal belief, results are at once decisive and satisfactory. Conclusive evidence concerning the power, availability, and willingness of divine Love to meet whatever the human need may be is daily multiplying.
In ancient times as in ours, when earnest workers sought with unselfish loyalty to serve God and man, demonstration was certain, and good was upheld. The account of the three Hebrews, who were threatened by the king with fiery destruction if they did not fall down and worship the golden image, tells us that they said to the king (Dan. 3:16-18): "We are not careful to answer thee in this matter.... Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not ... we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up." With courage and decision they refused to permit the human exigency to outweigh their determination to be faithful to their highest sense of God.
To rely radically on Truth, to uphold the right of the individual to worship according to the leading of his own conscience, to prove the availability and power of divine law to sustain one in so worthy a cause, surely these spiritual impulsions motivated Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in their stand for righteousness. And how great was their reward! They walked forth free and unharmed from the burning, fiery furnace—proof irrefragable to those present and to us now of the omnipresence and omnipotence of God, regardless of how extreme the human circumstance may seem to be.
To those who demonstrate the truth of being, life is not just a sense of existence, sometimes stable and happy, sometimes unstable and miserable, but it is a sense of conscious dominion, of conscious might and power in the proving of good in human experience. Mrs. Eddy writes (Science and Health, p. 14), "Entirely separate from the belief and dream of material living, is the Life divine, revealing spiritual understanding and the consciousness of man's dominion over the whole earth." Each day we are either realizing, utilizing, and enjoying this spiritual dominion or we are yielding to the burdensome bondage of materialism. It requires resolute spiritualization of thought and unremitting effort to be and do good, in order to secure and stabilize human consciousness through acknowledgment and proof of the dominion of Truth over error.
Without spirituality one cannot comprehend, much less demonstrate, the omnipresence and omnipotence of God. Spirituality does not mean merely an intellectual sense of being incorporeal or spiritual. It means far more than this. The graces of Spirit—purity, unselfishness, love, constancy, honesty, and the like—must be demonstrated as evidence of our spirituality. Indeed, only through the ascendancy of spiritual love in human consciousness can the nothingness of matter and the allness of God be understood and demonstrated.
Do we long to say with the surety of fulfillment (John 4:50), "Go thy way; thy son liveth"? Would we supply the human need of the underprivileged, feed those hungering for righteousness, and save the sinful from their sins? Increased spirituality is the only way to attain increased power in the demonstration of Christian Science. Love of Spirit is the only way to exercise the power of Spirit.
Spirituality is evidenced by demonstration, by fruitage attesting the goodness and power of God. Pretentiousness has no place in the Science of Christianity. When Jesus came upon the fig tree, showy with leaves but barren of fruit, he said (Matt. 21: 19), "Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever." God's law does not sanction a lack of spiritual responsibility and productivity. Obeying conscience and doing one's part is an indispensable rule if one would have the fulfillment of hope and purpose.
The world has come slowly to what it now understands and manifests of spiritual love and co-operation. The human mind, under the spell of animal magnetism consciously or unconsciously, is reluctant to yield up its error. Often it seeks to serve two masters: to cultivate spirituality in a degree and at the same time to possess the kingdoms of the world.
Today the eyes of the world are wide with wonder at its own material inventions. But looking deep into the secrets of matter does not increase spirituality. Only in increased spirituality does the world gain that which it seeks—dominion over human woes. Forces which may be used to serve mankind, but which can be used to further the purposes of evil, such as the much-discussed material atomic forces, are not the forces of Spirit. Having harnessed in some degree so-called material forces, the divine elements in human thought must control these forces through spiritual poise and authority. The admonition (Rev. 6:6), "See thou hurt not the oil and the wine," must be heeded that the good so laboriously built up through the centuries may be preserved.
In a world of materialism, how great is the need for spirituality to abound. Only as spirituality increases do crime, war, and disaster diminish in scope and power. The path to the world's welfare lies not in the advancing modes of materialism, in uncertain politics, or in physical research and its findings. The path is spiritual and is kept open and free by the persistent advancement of progressively enlightened thought. It is only by the promotion of spiritual truth that the freedom and dominion of each nation can be established.
In the midst of the world's divergent viewpoints universal safety, prosperity, and blessing can be attained and guaranteed only through a right understanding of and response to God. World harmony will ultimately prevail, but not through human bargaining. The omniscience of God must be seen as superseding every aspect of so-called physical science, the omnipresence of God must be acknowledged as wholly precluding the presence of evil, and the omnipotence of God must be conceded to be the one and only power.
Omni means all. Then what room is there for a presence not included in omnipresence, for an impulsion not proceding from omnipotence, or for a science outside the omniscience of God? Not material force or law but the omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience of God holds the universe in its rhythmic rounds and man in eternally unfolding good. It was this threefold might, understood and utilized by our untiring Leader, that established our great movement and now preserves it in its ever-widening influence and beneficence. It is the demonstration of this power in human thought that will bring mankind to the attainment of higher and more worthy achievement.
May a grateful sense of God's all-power, all-presence, and all-Science grow in our hearts and outweigh every false argument which presents itself. May we clear from our vision the dust of materialism, come closer to God, and hear with John "as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth" (Rev. 19:6).
