Editorial July 18, 1914 Issue

"In spirit and in truth"

Archibald McLellan

There is a good deal of what the world calls human nature in the feeling which prompts Christian Scientists to look with great satisfaction upon the constantly increasing number of members of The Mother Church and of the branch churches in the larger cities. This feeling should not, however, lead them to ignore or minimize what is being done in the smaller communities "where two or three are gathered together" in Christ's name. To go into a small town or village and find a little band of faithful workers, in many cases people of very moderate means, maintaining church services and a reading-room, giving a lecture at least once each year, as required by the Church Manual, distributing authorized literature, and healing the sick, is inspiring to the traveler.

We can, of course, and frequently do, get such information from the columns of the Sentinel and Journal, but we cannot get from any printed page the sense of peace and joy which thrills the visitor from one of the larger city churches, as he takes part in the service of a small church where the Lesson-Sermon is simply and reverently read, the singing is spontaneous and hearty, and the welcome extended to the stranger is cordial and sincere. After such an experience the visitor, if he is at all thoughtful, is much inclined to reflect that neither numbers nor material resources constitute a Christian Science church, but that wherever the love of Truth prevails, God Himself has tabernacled with men. He may also recall that in his reading of the Sentinel and Journal he has noticed testimonies of healing signed by persons living in similar small towns,—some so small and obscure that he has never even heard of them before, and he thus realizes that it is not through numbers, nor through pomp and ceremony, that the gospel is preached "with signs following." He realizes as never before that Christian Science is a religion for all mankind, and that the God who is worshiped by Christian Scientists is not afar off, but, as Mrs. Eddy has written on page 336 of Science and Health, "God, the divine Principle of man, and man in God's likeness are inseparable, harmonious, and eternal."

It is this clear sense of the omnipresence and omnipotence of divine Love which differentiates Christian Science from other religious teachings. The Church of Christ, Scientist, organized "to commemorate the word and works of our Master, which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing" (Manual, p. 17), has for thirty-five years been demonstrating to the world that God does hear and answer prayer, in that the sick are healed as in the days of the great Teacher, in fulfilment of his promise, "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also."

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