Article February 12, 1921 Issue

Understanding and Obedience Necessary

THOMAS W. HATTEN

As students and demonstrators of this great and wonderful practical truth, Christian Science, our real desires, efforts, and purposes are one, and that one is to gain an understanding of the truth that will make us free and enable us to work out our own salvation in the way appointed, and there is no other way. Our revered and beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, God's chosen messenger to this age, has shown us this way, and God through her has made the way plain in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" and her other published works. She has fully explained the Principle and rules, and our part and work is to make this truth practical in our lives, gain more understanding of God, divine Love, and live it in our daily lives.

Christian Science is a living, practical reality, something for us to make use of each day, and we are Christian Scientists only in so far as we do so and are furnishing real, tangible evidence in the spiritualization of our thought. Understanding of and obedience to divine Principle are necessary, and we cannot demonstrate Christian Science through faith and belief alone any more than the student of music or mathematics can. Of what avail would it be to the student of music to say: "Oh yes, I believe in music; I love it, and I have a great deal of faith in it. I think it is beautiful. I have my own ideas and I just love to talk about music," but when called upon to manifest or express it in a practical demonstration he fails in his effort to do so because of his wrong thinking and lack of understanding and obedience. May we not ask ourselves the question, Do we understand the Principle of Christian Science, divine Love, and are we obedient to this Principle? If we are we cannot and will not allow thoughts of strife and contention and division to govern us or to be our mentality. We know that in unity and harmony and brotherly love is our safe abiding place. It is not destructive but constructive thought that is needed to-day. The beautiful sentiment expressed in the words of one of our hymns, sung so many times in our churches throughout the world, should be a fixed fact and a practical reality in our thought and experience:—

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