That a man's true status is determined by his thought of God, becomes a commonplace in the light of religious history. In thought-building, not only does the structure erected rest upon its foundations, but its character is given form, its worth measure, by its foundations; and this for the reason that in all logical procedure there is a necessary governing relation between one's premises and his life-shaping conclusions. It is therefore in what we are, what we do, what we aspire to, that we disclose our knowledge of or our beliefs about God, and thus, as Mrs. Eddy says (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 170), "we make our own heavens and our own hells, by right and wise, or wrong and foolish, conceptions of God and our fellow-men." The words from Jeremiah, "Thou shalt call me, My father," show the need of a clear recognition of the divine fatherhood.

A list of these concepts which men have held of the overruling power would disclose the most astonishing contradictions. Every phase of thought as to the divine character and will, every degree of superstition and fear as well as of spiritual apprehension, has appeared in the rites and sacrifices by which men have sought to appease or honor Him. Moreover these contradictions are come upon not only when various religious beliefs are contrasted, but in individual concepts. As compared with other ancient peoples, the Hebrews were peculiarly well instructed about God; nevertheless in reading the Old Testament from a material viewpoint, one finds that its writers, though they declare God to be wholly righteous, yet speak of Him as punishing the innocent in violation of even a human sense of mercy. They refer to Him as supremely just, and yet as the author of laws which are iniquitous in their effects; as patient and loving, yet irritable and apparently vindictive.

Of the greatest representative of the Hebrew nation, however, it is said that he taught "as one having authority, and not as the scribes," and this is distinctively true in that he constantly affirmed and made manifest the integrity and consistency of the divine nature,—that it is entirely free from contradictions, without variableness, or "shadow of turning." Moreover, he taught that this God not only is perfect but is perfect Love; that He is the ideal Father, forever kind and dear, and that He is to become for each an abiding comforter and joy. Jesus' recognition of the fatherliness of God, his tenderness toward even the stumbling and wayward, was continuous, and nothing could exceed the naturalness and directness with which he approached the Supreme Being, and encouraged all who were humble and well meaning to look to Him. Indeed, he taught that we can get near to God only as we are sincere, simple, childlike, ready to take Him, fully and unhesitatingly, at His word; that the spiritual idea is to be gained, not through intellectual perception or the finespun analyses of dogmatic theology, but rather as a vision of light, as the dawning of the day to the open-hearted who have been waiting for the morning.

Now Christian Science has come to reaffirm and advance this teaching of the Master. Its purpose, end, and effect is to make God truly demonstrably known, to awaken and establish not only a consistent but a comforting thought of Him. It has come to minister to the hearts of men by leading them to recognize God as the ever near, all-loving, all-protecting Father-Mother. Thought of Him is to come to an ideal blossoming and bear the perennial fruitage of fearlessness, inspiration, and joy. As revealed in Christian Science, this spirit of joyous, childlike confidence and restfulness in God is not spontaneous in the sense that it is unthinking, nor is it an ecstatic emotion. It is rather the natural fruitage of spiritual quest and discovery, of truth finding. It is gained by those who define orthodoxy as Christlikeness. and who believe in the naturalness of the spiritual. "What the person of the infinite is," writes Mrs. Eddy, "we know not; but we are gratefully and lovingly conscious of the fatherliness of this Supreme Being" (No and Yes, p. 19). And how the aspirations of all the ages have reached out for such a heart-happifying experience, for entry into that spiritual understanding in which a realization of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man shall redeem the daily living, give "beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness"!

Here we need to remember that like all other apprehensions, or points of view, the concept of God is, for the most part, a product of human education; that a right feeling toward Him is to be acquired by a spiritual understanding of Him; and that those of us who from our association with wise and loving parents gained a glimpse of the divine fatherliness have been blessed indeed. How vividly do we recall the days when a chubby hand found its way into our earthly father's strong grip, and we went with him out into the big world. How safe we felt, how assured of the availability of his protection and help, his wisdom and strength, his sympathy and goodness. To him we unhesitatingly brought all our questionings, made known all our wants. He was our nestor, our hero, our priest, our earthly all. We remember too how pleased he seemed to have us thus trust in and look to him; how readily he answered our ceaseless and ofttimes foolish questions; how promptly he repressed our unwisdoms and stayed our hazardous impulses. He was everything to us, and who shall measure our love for him, our pride in his possession.

Those were the golden days of native child-faith not only in those we loved but, as well, in the great God of whom they first told us. It was a faith that was filled with the expectation of good. It was easy and natural then to think of God in terms of the wisdom and power and goodness which were made known to us through the loving-kindness of father and mother, and we could go to Him with the same unreserve and assurance. For the most of us, however, those halcyon days of dawing faith speedily passed away. So-called religious instruction soon dispelled our sweet visions of the infinite good. The simplicity and sunshine of awakening religious sense was obscured by the darkening mists of creedal belief. We were taught that God was the author of that material law which we had already found to be, ofttimes, so unspeakably cruel; that He afflicted those who were most dear to us, and whom we knew to be loving and good; that He had planned to punish some of His children eternally; in short, that He had to do with the most dreadful tragedies of life. And then, inevitably, the loving child-thought of Him, and faith in Him, gave place to that sense of confusion, of fear, and of protest, from which there are many who find no escape, but who live all their lives "without God in the world."

The Master found the people of his time altogether enslaved by this same false sense of God, and his whole ministry might be said to have been an effort to get men to think lovingly and trustingly of God and to know man aright, that the naturalness of the tender family relation might appear. In all his sayings, and especially in his prayers, he disclosed his own intimacy with the Father, and he ever counseled his followers to have a kindred childlike love and venturesomeness of faith. Indeed, he said to them that except they thus became as little children, they could in no wise "enter into the kingdom of heaven," and that this appeal was effective is revealed throughout the New Testament, but especially in the words of his faithful disciple, who wrote, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God."

The love that clasps firmly and for aye the Father's hand, and finds in it that assurance of strength, of safety, and of happiness which prompts to unfaltering trust; that looks to Him for light upon every question; that identifies Him as the source whence cometh every good gift; and that in weariness and distress looks ever and unreservedly to Him as the omnipresent Truth and Love,—this is what men most need to-day; and Christian Science is awakening and enlarging this capacity for all who open their hearts and minds to its revelation of a loving and wholly lovable God. The intuition of a pure and artless affection becomes a disclosure of the divine will, and it is here that it gains its authority and it power. It leaves the irremediable past to bury its own dead, and goes on to gladden life and heal the sick; for in dispelling depression and fear it strikes at the root of disease, as well as of unhappiness.

Standing frankly and unequivocally for the practical verity of the divine fatherliness, Christian Science leads thought out of the deserts of creedal mechanism and mystery, and back to that undoubting and undisturbed faith which is theirs only who have come to know God as infinite Love. Our greatest need is supplied, our greatest joy is found, in such an understanding and acceptance of His ever presence and all-power, and in such a realization of our kinship to Him as will impel us to claim and exercise, with ever enlarging expectation, the fullness of our privilege in Christ, thus freeing us from all fear that we shall offend our Father when we ask largely that our joy may be full.

Copyright, 1919, by The Christian Science Publishing Society, Falmouth and St. Paul Streets, Boston, Massachusetts. Entered at Boston post office as second-class matter. Acceptance for mailing at a special rate of postage provided for in section 1103, Act of October 3, 1917, authorized on July 11, 1918.