Article June 21, 1919 Issue

"The Book of Life"

EMMA A. STANGLAND

"The Scriptures are very sacred," the author of Science and Health writes on page 547 of that book. All through the centuries religionists have agreed more or less on this point. Many Christian parents have told their children that every word of the Bible was sacred. The Jew has been accustomed to commit to memory chapters of the Old Testament; and although religion was in many instances limited to reverence for its historical value, he has in hours of distress found a degree of comfort in turning to the words of the prophets and again reading the promises of deliverance, the words of which have become familiarly dear and sacred. What Christian is there who has not, in times of fear, grief, and sorrow, turned to the Bible for light and comfort?

At a time when a big fire swept down the main street of a small town, a little girl living a few doors from the fire was told to help get things out of the house, but instead she walked the floor with a Bible in her hands. Amid the fear and excitement, she knew that somewhere in the Bible were promises of help and escape from all sorts of evil. The fire was held in check and put out before it reached the house where the child lived, but the very ones who had told her that the Bible was the most sacred book in the world later teased her for relying on its promises in a time of danger; nevertheless this experience strengthened the child's faith in the sacredness of the Bible, although then and for many years thereafter the book was to her a mystery.

Mrs. Eddy did not write anything startling when she declared the Scriptures to be very sacred; and yet through her discovery of Christian Science and her writings, especially "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," the Bible has become more truly sacred, in the larger sense of the word, to both Jew and Gentile in these latter days. The same words are there, but the light which Science and Health has thrown upon them is the marvelous light to which Peter referred when he urged the people to lay aside all malice and guile and to desire "the sincere milk of the word."

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