Article April 24, 1915 Issue

A Universal Sermon

REV. WILLIAM P. MC KENZIE

A Sermon is a discourse based upon a Scripture passage, and if successful, gives both instruction and inspiration. The preacher is usually trained for his work, no one in his audience assuming to be equal to the task. He then is the assumed thinker and the church-goers are the listeners. The fact that there are many sects, shows that preachers do not think alike, and that audiences therefore listen to diversified teachings. Could there be one preacher—but who could dream of such a possibility—how feeble would one human voice be to reach mankind, how insignificant the strength of a human life before such a task! But the things impossible to human sense are possible to Mind. Sunday by Sunday throughout the world today one sermon is preached, and the listeners are the thinkers who, it may be said, preach the sermon to themselves. Through the week, day by day, they have been students of the sermon, and while the teaching is made audible at the service by the voices of readers, they who listen are thinking in accord with the teaching, and by it are truly edified.

The students of the weekly Lesson-Sermons published in The Christian Science Quarterly, form regiment after regiment of thinkers who, without visible bond or control, are coming into a unity no army on earth ever acquired, namely, "the unity of the faith." There is the multitude apparent, assembling on the Sabbath day in halls and churches throughout the world to hear a preaching of the gospel which is unencumbered with traditional dogmas, philosophic guesses, and caste theories. But there is also a great multitude who are students in private, listening to this teaching as individuals, and finding themselves guided and inspired thereby. This is the truly democratic preaching, available "for all peoples." To be rich or poor, to be high or low, does not count in this new era, for, as Mrs. Eddy announces in her Preface to Science and Health (p. vii), "the time for thinkers has come."

In an address delivered in 1895 Mrs. Eddy said, "The Christianity that is merely of sects, the pulpit, and fashionable society, is brief; but the Word of God abideth." In the same address she made this statement: "Our Publishing Society, and our Sunday Lessons, are of inestimable value to all seekers after Truth. The Committee on Sunday School Lessons cannot give too much time and attention to their task, and should spare no research in the preparation of the Quarterly as an educational branch" (Miscellaneous Writings, pp. 111, 114).

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