Article June 18, 1910 Issue

KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FIRST AIM

JULIAN KUNE

Only as we learn to understand God and His relation to man, His idea, His image and likeness, can we intelligently appreciate the manifold blessings which our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, has conferred upon mankind by her discovery and statement of scientific Christianity. While still babes in Christian Science, even after being healed of various ills, we are apt to imagine that physical healing is its chief and only aim; but as we advance in the study of our text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," and other Christian Science literature, we soon realize the fact that physical healing in Christian Science is but the outward manifestation of the progress made in our mental and moral reform. It is, in the language of our Master, the "signs following;" it is the fruitage of our correct understanding of God and His idea.

The spiritual work which eradicates our evil propensities and supplants them with watchful prayer, with right thinking and good deeds, with love to God and His idea, with humility, meekness, and charity, enables us to understand God and to put off the old man with his deeds and put on the new man. Christian Science, if rightly understood and lived up to, reveals to us the correct purport of our Master's words: "And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."

The diligent and faithful study of Christian Science further reveals to us that in order to be healed ourselves, or to heal others of discordant mental or physical disorders, we must take up the cross and follow the path our Master took, for only then shall we be able to "cast out devils" (evil thoughts), "speak with new tongues" (possess spiritual discernment), to "take up serpents" (overcome subtle material temptations); and to "lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." This phase in Christian Science work is the crowning effect and substantial evidence of our correct understanding of God and divine Science, and if we but firmly anchor our faith in this understanding, it will enable us to reform all sinful proclivities and heal the sick as our Master did nineteen centuries ago, for we are taught in Christian Science that "God will heal the sick through man, whenever man is governed by God" (Science and Health, p. 495).

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