Article September 11, 1915 Issue

Start Out

ANNE JONES GEARY

Those who know nothing of Christian Science and who make no effort to know anything about it, sometimes offer the plea, "But I do not understand how these things can be; I cannot believe that they are true." This happened in my experience lately, as it has happened many times before, and I said to a doubter: "Suppose we both wanted to see and know about something very desirable, which was at a considerable distance from where we were and required a good deal of effort to attain, and that you were willing to take the necessary steps to reach the place where you could get a clear vision and better knowledge. After various steps, perhaps including a trip underground, you finally reached the place of your desire, where you found things far more beautiful than you had dreamed,—treasures of priceless value, yours for the taking. Then on your return you found me just where you had left me, sitting in the same chair, but still wishing I could see those things of which you were speaking so enthusiastically, and still claiming that they could not be true because I myself had not seen them or even made an attempt to do so. What, may I ask, would you say to me? Would you not tell me if I would go where you had gone, make the effort you had made, I would have to believe, for I would see for myself?"

So it is in Christian Science. Those who wish to know of its teaching must start out. If they are unwilling to read a line of Christian Science literature or make the first effort toward research and understanding, how can they blame Science for being something beyond the grasp of all save a comparative few? On the contrary, if any one is willing to start out on the journey and go a step at a time, willing to become as a little child and learn, there is no reason why he should not finally know as much as there is to know. It is not, however, the work of a minute; it calls for daily and hourly striving, to be continued each day and every day, until gradually one finds that spiritual understanding destroys the false evidence of material sense and replaces it with truth.

On page 298 of Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy says: "Spiritual sense, contradicting the material senses, involves intuition, hope, faith, understanding, fruition, reality. . . . Spiritual ideas lead up to their divine origin, God, and to the spiritual sense of being."

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