Article December 6, 1919 Issue

In the ninety-fifth psalm, the writer says, "To day if ye...

The Christian Science Monitor

In the ninety-fifth psalm, the writer says, "To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your heart," and Paul, in Hebrews, refers to this counsel, in two different instances. Centuries have passed, but while many would fain hear that divine voice, not always do they know it. Whether it is the suffering of self or of another, whether earthly hopes fail or perplexities multiply, or even if material prosperity continues, still eventually a sense of emptiness causes the heart to seek outside of itself some sign of that not found in human life. Then one would indeed "hear his voice," but the heavens seem of brass and no sign is given. In the textbook of Christian Science, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy says on page 186, "If mortal mind knew how to be better, it would be better." In this sentence the reason is given why, even when the world longs to hear and to obey the spiritual admonition, yet it continues to harden its heart. The foolish absorptions in the idle round, the submission to false or wrong habits of work or play, the putting off from day to day of the effort to be in earnest,—who has not indulged in these ways of hardening the heart?

We read of those who, in times before the present, in their hours of tribulation heard the message of hope and deliverance. It is significant to note that not always did this come in the way expected. Moses, for instance, in the desert, beheld an extraordinary radiance, and then received the command to set about his rightful mission. Elijah heard not the admonition of God in the storm, or in the earthquake, or in the fire, but later, as in a great quietness, the "still small voice." Generations before these two, Jacob, upon his pillow of stone, saw and heard that which caused him to say, "Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not." In this age it would seem that the Word of God has come in a way which was not looked for and in a way that many resist. Christian Science might well ask of its detractors, as did the master Christian centuries ago, "For which of those works do ye stone me?" The fact of the matter is that those who fancy themselves offended at Christian Science are offended at their own mistaken concept of Christian Science. This is proved when they come to read genuine Christian Science, not what is said about it or of it, for in thousands of cases, upon honest investigation, such prejudice vanishes.

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, descended of sturdy and respectable New England parentage, was all her life deeply religious and given to works of love and charity. Sorrow and sickness were intermingled in her experience until she understood the divine voice. It seemed to come, as it did to that other Mary in past times, in the garden where there was "a new sepulchre." It bade her look up, away from sin, materiality, and death, to understand a risen Savior, the great healing Principle or Life. She heard and heeded the command, and straightway her bodily illness and weakness left her and she was healed. She says in Science and Health (p. 285): "By interpreting God as a corporeal Saviour but not as the saving Principle, or divine Love, we shall continue to seek salvation through pardon and not through reform, and resort to matter instead of Spirit for the cure of the sick."

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