Article August 10, 1946 Issue

Our Chart and Our Compass

[Of Special Interest to Young People]

WALTER E. SMITH

From a vantage point overlooking the beautiful Golden Gate straits of San Francisco Bay, a boy of high school age watched a small vessel as it sailed out toward the vast Pacific. The youth, noting how unswervingly the boat held to its course past dangerous shoals and swirling currents, sensed something of the courage of mariners who set out in tiny vessels to cross trackless oceans, guided to their destinations by undeviating adherence to charts and compasses.

While he was thus engaged in thought, it occurred to the lad that as a student of Christian Science he was not unlike the very sailors his thoughts had been following. Soon he was to leave the shelter of his home and set forth upon a new experience in the service of his country. And was not the Bible "the chart of life, where the buoys and healing currents of Truth are pointed out"? Mary Baker Eddy uses this description of the Bible in a paragraph entitled "Life's healing currents." There she writes (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 24): "Acquaintance with the original texts, and willingness to give up human beliefs (established by hierarchies, and instigated sometimes by the worst passions of men), open the way for Christian Science to be understood, and make the Bible the chart of life, where the buoys and healing currents of Truth are pointed out." And Science and Health, he reflected, might well be compared to an unswerving compass whose truths would always point the way of Principle regardless of how fiercely the suggestions of mortal mind might tempt one to sway from his course.

Comforted by these thoughts, for he had been somewhat apprehensive of the trials that lay ahead, the boy endeavored to find additional assurances of God's guidance and care. Once again his thoughts went back to the little boat which had just left the safety of its harbor. Suppose, the youth conjectured, that as the vessel neared its goal thunderous storms broke loose. Could the mariners remain confident and unafraid? Yes, for a friendly lighthouse would beckon them on to safety. Swiftly it came to the boy that one might think of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, as the lighthouse of the Christian Science movement, for through its many activities beams of light and love are sent throughout the world to those sincerely endeavoring to follow in the way outlined by the Master, Christ Jesus.

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