Article January 21, 1911 ISSUE

THE CHRISTIAN SCIENTIST AND HIS CHURCH

SAMUEL GREENWOOD

A student's love for Christian Science can safely be measured by his love for The Mother Church and its branches, and this love will find natural expression and activity in the particular branch to which he belongs. Loyalty to Christian Science includes loyalty to the movement which represents it. Indeed, a disloyal Christian Scientist is a misnomer, for even a partial understanding of Christian Science precludes disloyalty to its teachings, to its Discoverer, or to the church which she has established to declare and to demonstrate the Science of Christian healing. We are members of the Church of Christ, Scientist, because we are Christian Scientists; and our fidelity to Truth, and our love for one another and for mankind, will decide the prosperity, harmony, and helpfulness of our church.

The design of church-membership is not only for the member's individual benefit, but also to support the organization and increase its capacity for usefulness; hence the best church-member is one who thinks least of himself and most of the cause he professes to serve. Working to promote personal interest, without regard for the general good, is unworthy of one who "has enlisted to lessen evil" (Science and Health, p. 450). St. Paul admonished the Christians at Philippi to "look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others." We do not live to ourselves. Man, all being, is expressed by reflection, not absorption; he shares with all men the bounty of infinite good, but he cannot monopolize it. This spirit of unselfed love is the life of the Christian Science church, and it cannot thrive or exist except as it is nourished therewith.

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