Article September 27, 1919 Issue

Faith

MABEL REED

"As  adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life." To every faithful student of Christian Science, the above quoted sentence from "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 497) means much. The Bible has been found to be an exhaustive textbook on every phase of human experience, and has proved to be a "sufficient guide" all along the way. That our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, constantly leaned upon this same "inspired Word" to guide, direct, and strengthen her is apparent in all of her works and throughout her life. Because of this firm foundation for the teachings of Christian Science which she gave us, the Christian Science movement has proved to be a house founded "upon a rock," and the judgment of future generations will be summed up in the words, "It fell not."

Several yeas ago a teacher of Christian Science closed a term of primary class teaching by quoting the following: "The prayer that reforms the sinner and heals the sick is an absolute faith that all things are possible to God,—a spiritual understanding of Him, an unselfed love" (Science and Health, p. 1). To one student who heard those words at that time, a new inspiration was born, and in an earnest endeavor to achieve that "absolute faith" the Bible as illumined by the revelation of Christian Science has indeed become a "sufficient guide" by which an ever increasing understanding of "eternal Life" is being gained.

Faith is defined in our textbook (p. 297) as "a chrysalis state of human thought, in which spiritual evidence, contradicting the testimony of material sense, begins to appear, and Truth, the ever-present, is becoming understood." Surely every demonstration of Christian Science, and the solution of every problem according to its rules, is begun in that chrysalis state which includes the beginning of the transformation from the belief in error to the understanding of ever present Truth, which is the unfolding of faith.

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