Article July 7, 1906 Issue

The Christian Science Text-book

E. M. B.

ONE who takes up the Christian Science text-book for the first time must be impressed by its simplicity. One does not need book knowledge nor dictionary to help him understand what he reads, for what he reads is drawn out in words so simple it is easily understood. One's attention is not diverted from what is written to consider the time and work it cost to write it well. The style is forceful and clear, and there is no attempt to impress us with a show of learning or to dazzle us with fine writing. It is thought, not its dress; great themes of eternal moment, not pen fumed phrases, that is ever uppermost. We sometimes see a painting where the workmanship is so brilliant that we lose the idea. We sometimes hear a sermon of which many say, "How beautiful;" but in fact the sermon is a failure. Its real object, the purpose for which it should have been prepared, is buried beneath rhetorical brilliancy. The real test of an address is not its entertaining quality, but results; the changes wrought out in the hearts and deeds of men. We never ask if a lawyer made a beautiful plea. We always ask, "Did he win his case?" In this book there is a wealth of ideas and suggestiveness. And what is written is so plain and interesting we might regard it a product of the highest art were it not that we know it to be the logical outcome of a clear apprehension of spiritual truth.

Strong men, men of culture, tell us that they have been over this book in reverent study for years, and have not exhausted its depth of meaning. New revelations come to them daily. The book contains seed-thoughts that the most conscientious student has not yet mastered. Those who come after will discover meanings and applications not yet disclosed. There are germs of development to be unfolded as time goes on; to be unfolded in future years, possibly future ages; but not unfolded till the circumstances come up to which they apply. These are the deep things of the book, for they are the deep things of God which the book is commissioned to reveal to mankind. Truly wonderful in simplicity, in depth, in far-reaching significance! The book declares God to be all. Your little girl understands this, and God bends the very heavens to recognize her understanding. This explains how your child can be instrumental in healing the sick. How simple! simple enough to engage the understanding of an angel.

It is well enough to try, but probably no one of our time will be able to sound the depths of this book. Thor, the peasant god of Scandinavian mythology, was stronger than Hercules. He was challenged to drain dry a simple cup. He put it to his lips but the water did not sink below the rim. He tried again with the same result. Then he addressed himself to the task with all his godlike strength, but the water did not recede. Why? The cup was invisibly connected with the ocean, from which it drew a constant supply. No god Thor can drain dry this cup, no Hercules in intellect of our time can sound its depths, for it is invisibly connected with the great ocean of infinite Truth.

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