Christian Science Meets Humanity’s Needs
Neil H. Bowles, C.S.B., of
Member of the Board of Lectureship of The
Introduction
Delivered in Tulsa Municipal Theatre,
The Lecture
The lecturer spoke substantially
as follows:
Tonight we are going to discuss
how Christian Science meets human needs and how it meets the challenges of the
changing times. Of course, humanly, times have always been changing. But the
real significance of the changing times is that the people of the world are
being forced to give up their restrictive, friction-producing concepts of life.
Today, we are witnessing the rapid awakening of the dormant, the slumbering
thought in many parts of the world. This awakening will irresistibly lead those
who are receptive to Truth on a search for a more spiritual sense of life. Why
a more spiritual sense of life? Because it is being proved that the true facts
and harmonies of life are gathered only from an understanding of spiritual
reality.
In the common parlance of today,
we often hear of a new discovery referred to as a break-through. What, of
course, is meant is that some mystery of the physical universe has yielded its
secret to the expanding thought of some researcher. In other words,
intelligently directed thought is breaking through the unknown and discovering
much useful knowledge.
Well, the discovery of Christian
Science by Mary Baker Eddy in the year 1866 was the greatest break-through of
all times. It was a break-through that affects every aspect of human existence.
What did it break through? It broke
through the veil of mystery or spiritual ignorance that had seemed to obscure
the real nature of the origin of man and the universe. It broke through every
belief in hazardous, limited, discordant, and perishable life, and revealed
that God, the only real Life, is harmonious and eternal. It revealed that every
aspect of Life is wholly spiritual, and that therefore the real man and the
real universe are wholly spiritual. It revealed that true Science is divine,
that Deity is understandable, and that true medicine is divine Mind, God, not
matter.
Because Christian Science is a
religion, and affirms that the spiritual is the only reality of being, that
does not mean that it is antagonistic to other religious groups, to human
research and invention, or to materia medica. It stands by itself, on its own
merit, a complete and demonstrable system of divine metaphysics. Because Mrs.
Eddy was always deeply interested in spiritual things, she spent many years of
her life in searching the Bible. She was convinced that the Bible contained the
answer to life's problems. Of this period in her life, when she was searching
for the truth, she writes in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and
Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 109): "The search was sweet,
calm, and buoyant with hope, not selfish nor depressing. I knew the Principle
of all harmonious Mind-action to be God, and that cures were produced in
primitive Christian healing by holy, uplifting faith; but I must know the
Science of this healing, and I won my way to absolute conclusions through
divine revelation, reason, and demonstration." Thus the true nature of
God, man, and the universe dawned in Mrs. Eddy's waiting and receptive thought,
and the true meaning of spiritual reality was revealed to her. She named her
discovery Christian because it coincides with the teachings of Christ Jesus,
and Science because it is demonstrable, or provable.
So the purpose of this lecture is
to explain why, according to the revelation of Christian Science, the realties
of Life are wholly spiritual and how the spiritual can be demonstrated as real
and tangible here and now.
The Nature of God
In order to understand the meaning
of spiritual reality, an intelligent explanation must be made of the source or
cause of man and the universe.
The Bible has named that source
God and declares that He made all things, – man and the universe. Over the
period of recorded history people have believed in many gods and have given
them special offices. This belief in many gods created a conflict of powers.
Some gods were thought to be at war with others. But Moses perceived that there
could be but one supreme God and commanded the Hebrew people that they should
worship no other. He gave them the First Commandment of the Hebrew Decalogue,
"Thou shalt have no other gods before me" (Ex. 20:3). With this
commandment came monotheism or the worship of one God.
There was Science involved in
Moses' teaching, and Mrs. Eddy discovered it. She saw, and has explained in
her teachings, that there is but one creative Principle, cause or source. Order
and harmony are maintained in man and the universe, by Principle, just as one
principle or rule governs in mathematics. She saw too that the Bible teaches
that God is All-in-all. She explains with scientific reasoning that the supreme
cause or power of the universe is one, is all-inclusive in its nature, and is
therefore omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent.
On the basis of scientific
reasoning, she discovered that harmony and eternality are facts of existence,
that harmony is always the effect of Principle and is eternally so. She saw too
that creative Principle is the only Life, substance, and Mind of the universe,
indeed the only consciousness, Truth, and Love of the universe. She saw that
God is Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, and Love, and that He would
have to be thus defined to be All-in-all.
Now let us reason about God's
allness. If the all-inclusive cause or Principle is omnipresent Spirit, then
the emanation of Spirit must be spiritual. It can be nothing else. From this
description of God or the creative cause and Principle of the universe, we can
understand the supremacy of Spirit; we can understand that the spiritual is
eternal and indestructible, it is divinely intelligent and infinitely
harmonious.
Christian Science claims with
scientific reasoning that that which is supreme is actually unopposed. So
Christian Science teaches that God or Spirit, supreme substance, does not know
life, substance, or intelligence opposed to Himself. God does not know
materiality or a man as carnal. We are told in the Bible, in the book of
Habakkuk (
Spiritual-mindedness versus Carnal-mindedness
The world's most urgent need is to
reach a willingness to learn to reason from a spiritual, scientific basis. It
needs to learn what spiritual reality means. The businessman needs to know it.
The politician needs to know it. The teacher needs to know it. The doctor
needs to know it. Everybody needs to know it. So let us reason further on what
it does mean.
The Apostle Paul explained it this
way. He said (Romans 8:6,7), "To be carnally minded is death; but to be
spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God." A
dictionary defines the word "carnal" as the opposite of spiritual.
Now Paul's statement is clear and understandable. He plainly indicates that the
spiritually minded and the carnally minded are in opposite states of thought.
The carnal state he said is enmity against God, Spirit, while the spiritual
state is in compliance with God's law, and is life and peace.
There is no mystery about what the
word "spiritual" means. It describes a state of perfect, harmonious
consciousness, an immortal condition of thought. We do not have to go anywhere
to attain spirituality. It is present and attainable here and now.
The carnally minded see life as
material and physical. What they see is finite and perishable; it can be
destroyed. The carnally minded dishonor God by believing that He created mortal
life and its suffering. The spiritually minded recognize that true and perfect
Life is harmonious, and that it cannot be destroyed because God Himself is
Life, the source of all the manifestations of Life.
Jesus the Way-shower
Earlier I said that the teachings
of Christian Science are Christian because they coincide with the teachings of
Jesus. I think it should be an acceptable statement to every Christian to say
that Jesus certainly understood spiritual reality. His ministry was based on it. His
demonstrations of divine power were the evidence that he understood God and His
spiritual idea, man.
Christian Science makes a strong
point of Jesus being the Way-shower, which Christ, the divine idea of God, is
the way. It teaches that the facts of Life, God, are understandable, and it
proves by its works of healing that Christian Science is in strict accord with
the teachings of Christ Jesus. Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health, (p. 98),
"Mystery does not enshroud Christ's teachings, and they are not
theoretical and fragmentary, but practical and complete; and being practical
and complete, they are not deprived of their essential vitality. The way
through which immortality and life are learned is not ecclesiastical but
Christian, not human but divine, not physical but metaphysical, not material
but scientifically spiritual."
Now Jesus was endowed with a
transcendent spiritual understanding of God and this understanding was
demonstrated throughout his earthly ministry. This spiritual understanding enabled
him to perceive the true nature of existence as wholly spiritual. With this
understanding of spiritual reality Jesus met and mastered every form of error
that confronted him. You may recall that even he was tempted to believe that
materiality and human power are desirable. We are told in Hebrews (4:15),
"For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling
of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without
sin." When he was tempted to believe in a substance and power opposed to
Spirit, God, Jesus gave that reply which has been the Christian's watchword
ever since. He said (Matt.
Christian Science teaches that the
Christ, Truth, which Jesus understood and taught, we can grow to understand;
that the works he performed, we can learn to perform, and it insists that all
this is supported by Jesus' own statement, where he said (John 14:12),
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I
do shall he do also." If Jesus' ministry is to be of practical value to us
we must stand on the reasonable assumption that we can understand and utilize
the same truths which he understood and used.
Matter Unknown to God
I have said that Christian Science
teaches that God does not know materiality or man as carnal. That raises the
question, "How can God help humanity if He knows nothing about matter,
the condition in which humans appear to live?" Christian Science answers
this question by explaining that matter and all its effects are of the carnal
state of consciousness which Paul referred to as "enmity against
God." It explains that matter is not real, but is the objectification of
the carnal mind. Let me illustrate. Did you ever have a dream that so impressed
you that the memory of it lingered with you all day, yes, even for many days?
In this dream you may have believed that you saw people, places, and things.
But did you? Just how real were these people or objects? While the dream lasted
they doubtless seemed very real, solid, and tangible to you. But were they
actually real? Your reason tells you they were not real. They were only as real
as your dream made them.
Let me give you another
illustration. Suppose you attended a movie with a friend. While there you went
to sleep and dreamt while your friend stayed awake. Physically you were present
with him and in the same surroundings. But because you were in one state of
consciousness and he in another, your experiences were entirely different. Taking
into consciousness what was being portrayed on the screen, your friend may have
laughed, wept, experienced great joy or fright while you saw nothing of it.
Whose experience was nearest to being real? Neither was actually real, but both
seemed to be genuine to the individual.
Now remember, I told you Christian
Science teaches that God as Spirit or Soul is the source of all true
consciousness. Well, there is a great difference between the consciousness of
spiritual reality and the so-called consciousness which involves mortal
existence. You have seen in the illustrations I have just given you that the
human being seems to be capable of dwelling in more than one state or stage of
consciousness, although not at the same time. Even though he may have dreams or
flights of fancy, he always manages to get back to the state of consciousness
that is most solid and real to him. Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health (p.
397), "Mortals are no more material in their waking hours than when they
act, walk, see, hear, enjoy, or suffer in dreams."
So true consciousness is wholly
spiritual. It is the reflection of the infinite consciousness, or Mind. But
there seem to be many other dream states of consciousness. However these are
never actually real – never really substantive. While they may, and do at
times, express something of the hues of spiritual consciousness, yet to
whatever degree they include the inharmonious beliefs of the so-called mortal
consciousness, they are unreal and mythological, – substanceless, like the
dream. In Jeremiah (
All forms of matter are actually
destructible. Yet mortals continue to classify matter as substance. But the
true meaning of the word "substance" is that which is indestructible.
Nobody who believes that matter is substantial can give a satisfying explanation
of its origin or nature. Some physicists think that the original and primitive
form of matter was hydrogen gas, and that through certain pressures and
combustions the various planets were formed. Then through eons of time came the
various forms of animate and inanimate life upon the earth. In the past some
physicists have held to the theory that the universe is wearing itself out, –
that there will be a time when it will cease to exist. More recently, there
have been those that have contended that the universe had no beginning, and
that it will have no ending. They think that the universe is constantly
expanding, and as certain gases and forces spend themselves, these are replaced
by newly created gases and forces. But they still consider the universe to be
material and believe in perishable life within the universe.
These speculations, and they are
entirely speculations, represent the gropings of human thought endeavoring to
explain existence and the universe on a wholly material and physical basis. But
so long as matter is the basis of research, mankind will remain in ignorance of
true substance. Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health (p. 293), "The
material so-called gases and forces are counterfeits of the spiritual forces of
divine Mind, whose potency is Truth, whose attraction is Love, whose adhesion
and cohesion are Life, perpetuating the eternal facts of being."
As long as one holds to the false
belief that man and the universe are material, his whole basis of reasoning is
fallacious. Christian Science shows that a false sense of life and
consciousness is all there is to the so-called material universe. It teaches
that matter, materiality, the belief in perishable substance, is nothing more
than a mistaken sense of the imperishable, the indestructible substance which
is God Himself. As this fact is seen, even in small part, human consciousness
begins to expand and to comprehend the spiritual nature of being. The allness
of Spirit and the unreality of matter was Mrs. Eddy's discovery, her saving
revelation to this age.
Mrs. Eddy's
When Mrs. Eddy discovered
Christian Science in 1866 and presented it to the world through Science and
Health in 1875, and announced that Spirit is the only reality and that matter
is unreal or a dream state, she stirred considerable opposition from the
pulpit, the press, and the medical profession. But she also won the support of
some of the most advanced thinkers of her time. She lifted the theological
veil of mystery from God and His creation; she defined Science as divine; and
she proved Mind or God to be the only true medicine or healing power. The
proofs of healing her metaphysical system has provided bear eloquent testimony
to the truth of her discovery.
The Church of Christ, Scientist,
which Mrs. Eddy established, has grown into world-wide proportions. It could
only have prospered on the basis of the reasonableness of her teachings and on
the proof of its healing effect. Christian Science has appealed to the sick,
but it has also appealed to the advanced thinker interested in spiritual
reality. Christian Scientists are to be found among the successful men and
women everywhere Christian Science is known. As human thought has been
expanding, under the constant leavening influence of the teaching of this
religion, many clear-thinking people are coming to accept the Science and truth
of Mrs. Eddy's teachings.
Mrs. Eddy was a deep and
discerning thinker. She was made so by her great love of God and man and her
deep desire for spirituality. She has defined God as Mind and has indicated
that intelligence is a quality of Mind. She has explained, with scientific
reasoning, the Bible teaching that God, who is All-in-all, is the only source
of true intelligence. On the basis of scientific reasoning, Mrs. Eddy has
introduced to the world the conclusion that what appears as finite, discordant,
and perishable life is only a false concept of carnal mindedness which, of
course, is always based on ignorance of God or Spirit. The spiritual
understanding of God as the only real source of intelligence is the only answer
to the disturbing challenges of this age. Recognizing God as the source of all
true intelligence is expansive to human thought. Christian Scientists have
proved this in abundant measure for themselves and for others who have turned
to Christian Science to solve their human problems.
So under the leadership of Mary
Baker Eddy, whose leadership will forever continue, because it is found in her
inspired writings, Christian Scientists meet the challenges of the times with
the calm and joyous assurance that their understanding of God, as the one
infinite source of intelligence, is indeed adequate to solve every human
problem.
Spiritual Man Explained
Have you ever asked yourself,
"What am I, why am I here, and what is my real purpose in life?" The
answers to these questions are obtainable in the Bible and Mrs. Eddy's
spiritual and scientific revelation of spiritual truths. Let me explain. Mrs.
Eddy has scientifically explained the first two terms used in the Bible to
describe the nature of man. These terms are "image" and
"likeness." Remember, it say in Genesis (
Christian Science scientifically
explains man's true nature. It shows that man, being the perfect likeness of
God, is wholly and completely the likeness of Spirit. He is not made up of
matter or mortality, but he is wholly and completely the perfect likeness of
the one divine consciousness or Soul. He cannot be governed by a false sense of
law because he is wholly and completely the perfect likeness of divine
Principle, the source of absolute law. He cannot be mortal or destructible
because he is wholly and completely the perfect likeness of eternal Life. He
cannot be inharmonious, discordant, and untruthful because he is wholly and
completely the perfect likeness of infinite Truth. He cannot be unloving,
hateful, and revengeful because he is wholly and completely the perfect image
and likeness of divine Love.
You may rightly ask, but what
about the obvious? What about the people we see as flesh and blood mortals?
Are they the likeness of Spirit? Certainly not! What we behold as mortal
existence is the dream state of consciousness, the carnally minded state that
falsely believes man to be something other than God's perfect image and
likeness. Remember, Paul tells us that that sort of thinking is enmity against
God. You have seen how solidly a dream can be believed. You have also seen how
what you know to have been a dream can linger in thought for a long time after
you have awakened. But the fact remains, that no matter how real the dream may
seem, it is still nothing more than a dream. Well, the mortal sense of man is
only a dream sense of the man who is the image and likeness of God and who is
wholly spiritual and harmonious. Paul, understanding something of this dream
state or physical sense of man, caught glorious glimpses of man's wholly
spiritual nature. He said (I Cor. 13:9-12): "For we know in part, and we
prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in
part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood
as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish
things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I
know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known."
Man, as Christian Science reveals
him, is not a mortal and material being becoming immortal and spiritual. The
only fact of man's being is his perfect and eternal nature as the image or
reflection of God. It includes his spiritual pre-existence, his present
spiritual existence, and his eternal spiritual existence. Since man is the
image and likeness of God, as the Bible says he is, then man is inseparably
related to God. This fact was revealed to Mrs. Eddy, and she supports it with
scientific reasoning. She says in Science and Health (p. 470), "Man is the
expression of God's being. If there ever was a moment when man did not express
the divine perfection, then there was a moment when man did not express God,
and consequently a time when Deity was unexpressed – that is, without
entity."
So if we accept the fact that man
is the image of God and is inseparably related to God, then we can accept the
fact that man was never born into mortality or materiality, nor does he, nor
can he, live in it or die out of it.
It is a fact of nature that like
produces like. Therefore man, being the likeness of God, he is and must be as
eternal as God. Man, the true likeness of God, never had a beginning, nor will
he ever have an ending. Man's divine sonship is not a personal gift from God;
it is his spiritual relationship to God, – his scientific relationship as
perfect, indispensable effect of perfect Cause. Man's sonship is his unity with
God, good, with divine Truth, Life, and Love.
Spiritual Healing
Now how does a spiritual or
correct view of God and man serve to meet the human need? Why, by healing the
sick on a wholly spiritual basis, by healing human conflicts, and by
destroying the belief in limited supply. I am going to tell you of two cases in
which Christian Science met human needs through prayer or spiritual means.
First was the case of a bitter
conflict between two business partners. Their activities were quite expensive,
but they literally hated each other because of rivalry, jealously, greed, and
selfishness. There was a third man, a Christian Scientist, with whom they had
done a considerable amount of business and with whom they had not always been
entirely fair. But he faithfully held to the truth that man is God-like; that
the spiritual qualities of integrity, unselfishness, and justice are man's true
qualities, and that the carnal manifestations of hatred and dishonesty were
really no part of man but were only a false sense of man, like the dream of
discord one has in sleep.
These troubled relationships went
on for some time. But one day one of the partners went to see the Christian
Scientist, and what do you think he wanted? He wanted the Christian Scientist
to use his efforts to settle the differences between his partner and himself.
The spiritual truths of God and
man the Christian Scientist had been maintaining had become a leavening, a
purifying influence to the disturbed mental atmosphere in which he had been
included with these partners. The partners' differences were soon settled
through the prayerful efforts of the Christian Scientist.
My friends, the conflicts and the
upheavals we see intensified in the world today will be met as the power of
spiritual understanding is recognized as the only saving influence for mankind.
Only through the spiritual understanding of God and His perfect creation can
the carnal beliefs of hatred, malice, envy, revenge, jealousy, anger, and fear
be destroyed. As these errors are destroyed we shall see the establishment of "peace
on earth good will toward men." Those who understand the power of prayer
in Christian Science have a special obligation and responsibility to mankind
to be faithful in the practice of its leavening teachings.
The second case I want to tell you
about was that of the healing of a woman who sustained a broken collarbone and
a badly shattered arm socket. Christian Science treatment was started at once.
After several days a son became alarmed and insisted on taking his mother to
have the condition X-rayed. After thoroughly studying the prints, the
technician and the doctor in attendance assured the mother and son that all
bones were perfectly set and the knitting was well under way. The Christian
Science treatment given had caused the bones to be perfectly set without the
use of material means.
How did the practitioner treat
this case or pray for the woman? Well, he did not address God and ask Him to
heal her. Why? Because his concept of prayer, as he had learned of it in Christian
Science, did not hold God to be a personalized deity whom we must implore to
help us. Actually God's work is already done and it is perfect and complete.
The practitioner started reasoning
from the spiritual facts of Life. He reasoned that since God is Life, really
the only Life there is, and that man is the image and likeness of God, man's
being could not be endangered or damaged. He reasoned and mentally argued that
since real Life is Spirit and man is wholly spiritual, there could be no breakage
or matter in Life, or in man. The practitioner saw that inharmony or discord of
any nature, is but a phrase of the dream state we have been discussing. The
dream state disappears when the true spiritual facts of Life become established
in human consciousness. So his treatment was designed to correct with the truth
of real being the error of belief that the image and likeness of God could be
injured. This brought the woman's consciousness into accord with the ever
operative law of God. The truth operated effectively as a law of adjustment and
healing to the discordant condition.
Is this an isolated case? Indeed
not! I could tell you of many other cases of broken bones that have been healed
in this same way, by spiritual means alone without medical aid, and where no
splints or slings were used while the healing was going on.
Prayer or treatment in Christian
Science always starts with the knowing or spiritual understanding of infinite
perfection. Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health (p. 259), "The Christlike
understanding of scientific being and divine healing includes a perfect
Principle, and idea, – perfect God and perfect man, – as the basis of thought
and demonstration." There is nothing supernatural about healing in
Christian Science any more than Jesus' healing works were supernatural. Healing
in Christian Science comes about as the result of understanding that which is
spiritual and real and seeing the discords of mortal existence as errors of
belief, not realities. Some who have not understood the terminology of
Christian Science have objected to the statement that discord and suffering are
errors of belief. But Christian Science does not teach that these discords
should be ignored – that we heal them merely by turning our backs on them. The
point to understand is that they are errors of belief because they are the
opposite of the perfect facts of Life. By rejecting these errors and turning
thought to the contemplation of the true, the spiritual facts of perfect God
and perfect man, the perfect law of God becomes operative in human
consciousness and healing follows. Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health (p.
447), "The recuperative action of the system, when mentally sustained by
Truth, goes on naturally."
Because the human mentality
classifies discord as either simple or difficult, they seem to be so. For
example, usually a little scratch on the finger does not overly concern the
average person. He pays little or no attention to it and expects it to heal,
and it does. But take a broken bone or one of the so-called serious diseases,
and the attitude toward it is different. The human mind tries to picture the
physical processes that must take place in order for the healing to come about
and doubts the power of divine law to make the adjustment and do the healing
work. But Mrs. Eddy proved that a spiritual understanding of God and His
perfect law applicable universally is adequate to heal the scratched finger,
the malignant disease, or to adjust the broken bone.
The Necessity and Power of Prayer
Christian Science gives to the
world a spiritual, scientific sense of prayer. It lifts prayer out of the realm
of ignorance and superstition and reveals the Science of it. Yes, the Science
of prayer! The prayer of the Christian Scientist is no less devout or reverent
because it departs from the sense of God as a personal deity, who may or may
not hear our prayers, or who may or may not be willing to heal us. The
Christian Scientist stands before the majesty of God with complete confidence
in His omnipresence and omnipotence.
Christian Scientists have no doubt
that prayers are answered because they have been healed by praying. They have
proved that by the method of understanding God's goodness and omnipotence and
rejecting the discordant mortal beliefs, instead of merely imploring God's
mercy, they can spiritualize their thoughts. This process corrects the errors
of belief and establishes harmony in human consciousness. Then healing
naturally follows.
Christian Science is available to
meet the whole world's needs. Yes, when utilized, it meets every human need. It
meets that need in the consciousness of humanity, for it is only in the
consciousness of humanity that any need exists. Christian Science is bringing
the leaven of spiritual Truth to human consciousness. Unnumbered people have
seen sickness, poverty, and strife healed in their experience as they have been
spiritually enlightened through the study of Christian Science. The leaven of
Truth is twofold in its purpose. It redeems as well as spiritually instructs.
It teaches that the infinite resources of good are available to every man
through a spiritual understanding of Life, substance, and intelligence. In the
infinitude of substance, there is no poverty, no lack, no error or evil of any
kind. An understanding of the infinite nature of God, man's creator, is redemptive
because it destroys friction, selfishness, jealousy, and envy. It unfolds the
spiritualizing influence of divine Love. It answers the questions, "Why
are we here, and what is our purpose here?" The answers are, of course, to
glorify the allness of God, good, to recognize the perfection of man, to
contribute our efforts to furthering the leavening process of Truth in world
consciousness. If you have ever longed for success, you can find it in
understanding and obeying God. We can all gauge the measure of our own stature
as spiritually minded thinkers by our willingness to lend our full measure of
unselfish service in making the leaven of Truth increasingly available to the
people of the world. No human achievement is more rewarding or satisfying than
that of rendering unselfish service to God and our fellowmen.
Summary
So the problems, the upheavals,
the strifes, the sickness, the sin, and discord that confront the people of the
world do not appear as troublous days to the Christian Scientist. He does not
fear the future. He rests assured that through mankind's increasing spiritual
understanding, humanity's problems will ultimately all be solved and harmony
will be fully established.
He looks upon the challenges of
these times with a joyful sense of expectancy, – expectancy of good, of course.
He keeps this sense of joy in the midst of the disturbance and dismay expressed
by those who have not come to realize the power of spiritual understanding. He
knows that his salvation, as well as the salvation of mankind, comes through
the continuous spiritualizing process that is so clearly and understandably
explained in the teachings of Christian Science. He sees and understands that
Christian Science is the Comforter or spirit of Truth promised by Jesus. He finds
his joy and happiness in making the truths of divine Science available to the
people of all the world.
Tulsa (Oklahoma) County News (September 24, 1962)