Article November 29, 1913 Issue

Learning to Pray Aright

ROBERT C. BRYANT

Christian Science brings the knowledge which enables us to pray aright, and to pray aright means to have prayer answered. Every Christian Scientist is working to gain this knowledge, and is thereby coming into man's true inheritance of wisdom and power as a child of God. Many thoughtful persons are asking why the Christian Science church is growing so rapidly and why its adherents are so loyal and enthusiastic. The answer is found in the testimony given by Christian Scientists the world over, that they have learned how to pray aright, and that their prayers have been answered, so that they now approach the throne of grace with confidence and boldness. The people are echoing the words of the psalmist: "O Lord my God, I cried unto thee, and thou has healed me." "This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles."

In personal relations, in business, in every condition and experience, Christian Scientists have seen the salvation of God. The answers to prayer are actual demonstrations here and now of healing and regeneration, of prosperity, peace, and power. And this is the secret of the progress of Christian Science. Who would not be loyal and enthusiastic when he has come know that God is really "a very present help in trouble"? True religion is based on faith in God, who will help men if they turn to Him aright. Jesus taught that God is our Father, and that if we pray to Him aright, we may ask what we will and it shall be given unto us. He also taught that if we have faith in God, we shall be endowed with the power of divine Truth to remove mountains, to work righteousness, to heal the sick, to do even greater works than Jesus himself did. He taught that the world is thus to be saved.

Because prayer has not been answered, the church has almost ceased to believe in its practical value. Christian leaders and teachers are saying that in these days of enlightenment and progress material means have taken the place of the direct power of God; that men must answer their own prayers by using common sense and the means at hand. They accept the saying that "God helps them that help themselves." If they are sick, they are wont to call for a doctor to administer drugs. If they are in darkness or trouble, they look to the wisdom of men and books. Even sin is reduced to physical weakness or deficiency, which is to be healed by education or environment or medical treatment, or even the knife. Thus men, good men, are coming to think that the world is to be saved by material science and human philosophy, and that education, not prayer, is the hope of the race. But if the world is to be saved by education in material knowledge and by scholarship, the university is far better equipped to teach saving truth than is the church. And this is one of the secrets of present-day conditions, the waning power of professional Christianity.

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