Article July 1, 1905 Issue

To the Beginner

BLANCHE H. HOGUE.

Christian Science , in its divine ministration, offers all unfailing remedy to every mortal. Because it is in very nature and office remedial, its message is most heeded by those most sorely in need of help. With healing in its wings, it seeks the threshold of every heavy heart, and its entrance offers ultimate release from all the oppression of sin and its attendant suffering. Wherever Christian Science is welcomed, wherever its divine agency is sought and cherished, there begins at once a reconstruction of the thought and life. The man who is in trouble is shown a way of escape from his trouble, and if his love for righteousness exceed ever so little his desire for sin, or his fear of evil, he is inspired to begin under a new dispensation the practical working out of his salvation.

The one clear demand of Christian Science is that evil shall be overcome with good. The exponent of Christian Science may have much to say to others, by way of metaphysical analysis, but unless righteousness is dominating his daily living, his explanations are valueless. The Christian element is the vital element. The student who begins his investigation of Christian Science with this point clearly in view, has discerned the highway of salvation, and walks therein. The one who seeks Christian Science with selfish motives, struggles in the hedges and byways of selfish thinking, and fails to find the path of the redeemed until this selfishness so pierces itself that a purified nature appears. It must not be forgotten that the great Master said the meek shall inherit the earth. Many who cry out in protest because their individual healing is slow, or because the besetments of evil are not immediately silenced, may perhaps have their eyes upon the inheritance, and be overlooking the footsteps thereto. Christianity has always declared that the way of the cross is the way of salvation, and Christian Science offers no other way of deliverance than that demanded by Jesus when he said, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it: but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it."

Traditional Christianity has carried the cross while looking to a distant and far-away heaven for its crown. Christian Science adds to this hope the knowledge that, under the law of God, there is no interval between the sacrifice and the reward, and that the cross of selfless effort, rightly carried, crowns immediate experience with blessing. Righteousness not only inherits the kingdom of heaven, but meekness inherits the earth; and with the further acceptance of Jesus' statement, "The kingdom of God is within you," is it not reasonable to conclude that the inheritance of heaven can come here and now upon earth, when meekness has prepared a fitting place therefor? It is not an interval of time wherein to wait, but an amount of work to be done, which fits one for the reception of the heavenly heritage. And because there are no empty places in consciousness, inasmuch as consciousness must be conscious of something, healing and gladness must flow into human lives just in the degree that ignorance and selfishness go out. The crown abides with the cross.

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