["Face to Face"—The Christian Science Monitor, Boston, U.S.A., Feb. 3, 1921]

Christian Science may be said to be a religion of seeing face to face. Through an application of its teachings all phenomena are scientifically traced to their true source. All false beliefs, which are responsible for the bondage in which humanity finds itself, are dissolved by an understanding of the truth. Sickness is thus replaced by health, sin by holiness, and discord by harmony. Thus does the light of true knowledge, born of the divine Mind, dispel the darkness of mortal beliefs. And one sees, perhaps for the first time, that success in Christian Science is to be gained in the measure that one abandons the utterly false beliefs, predicated on life in and of matter, and puts on the new man, "which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." Thus does a man strip off his disguise, as of the earth earthy, and he sees himself as man, the perfect image or reflection of God who is infinite Mind, Principle, and therefore not subject to any of the ills and limitations imposed by the so-called carnal mind. He is commencing to see face to face, to maintain his knowledge of God as infinite Spirit and man as the expression of Spirit, and therefore wholly spiritual. Scientific discernment alone lifts him into spiritual understanding, which he supports by actual demonstration. This true knowledge enables him to detect the chaff of ignorance, or materiality, and to separate it from the wheat of spiritual perception. Thus he finds that God is the sole activity, the one and only cause. He will rejoice, for he will have awakened to see himself as man, spiritual, and not material, created in the likeness of Mind, God, not theoretically, but actually and practically. He will recognize further what he previously failed to grasp, while accepting the testimony of material sense,—that, being a spiritual idea, man has always dwelt, is now dwelling, and will forever dwell in the domain of divine consciousness or Mind, and nowhere else. Through this metaphysical knowledge, or direct seeing, he will soon behold the fruits of the Spirit, expressed through love, peace, contentment, health, and harmony. He will know, for all time to come, that in reality the kingdom of heaven is here and now, on earth "as it is in heaven." And all the beliefs that have hampered his growth Spiritward, he will see, have no existence, in fact, for they must be outside of the realm of infinity, the one reality, which is impossible.

It is little wonder, therefore, that those who have been taught to believe that God is anthropomorphic, an enlarged material personality, should "see through a glass, darkly," and that their entire vision of God, or Principle, who is infinite, invisible, and incorporeal, should have been obscured. From the beginning of his study of Christian Science, the student is immeasurably helped by its elucidation of the fact that the Bible must be spiritually discerned. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, has made this extremely simple, and has pointed out this realization as a prerequisite to all healing. "The Bible teaches transformation of the body by the renewal of Spirit," writes Mrs. Eddy in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 241). Then follow these significant words: "Take away the spiritual signification of Scripture, and that compilation can do no more for mortals than can moonbeams to melt a river of ice." And thus the Christian Scientist is ever at work gleaning from the Bible its spiritual meaning. In this connection as in all others the Christian Science textbook and Mrs. Eddy's other writings are of inestimable value.

This struggle to improve a man's spiritual vision, until he finally sees God face to face, is by no means peculiar to this day and generation. It is as ancient as the ancient of days, and can be traced throughout the entire Bible record. It is described in many incidents, and wherever men's vision was elevated to a better understanding of God, strength and spiritual power measurably increased. And similarly, he who has gained the loftiest vision of Truth is proving most abundantly that the Christ is as available now as when the master Metaphysician preached and practiced, through healing, among the multitudes in the streets of Capernaum and in Jerusalem.

It will be remembered that when Jacob wrestled with the angel, his name was changed to Israel, and he called the place Peniel, "for," he said, "I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved." He had caught a vision of the Christ, or Truth. The significance of this incident is completely lost unless the incorporeality of God, infinite Mind, is clearly recognized. For without this realization one would fail to understand what the experience of Jacob was designed to reveal, that is, the struggle of the human mind in overcoming its own beliefs and the ultimate recognition of the ever presence and infinite power of Mind, divine Love. Mrs. Eddy writes, "Jacob was alone, wrestling with error,—struggling with a mortal sense of life, substance, and intelligence as existent in matter with its false pleasures and pains,—when an angel, a message from Truth and Love, appeared to him and smote the sinew, or strength, of his error, till he saw its unreality; and Truth, being thereby understood, gave him spiritual strength in this Peniel of divine Science" (Science and Health, p. 308), and finally, we read on the next page: "The result of Jacob's struggle thus appeared. He had conquered material error with the understanding of Spirit and of spiritual power. This changed the man."

And thus the experience of Jacob typifies the continuous effort of mankind, daily striving to work out of the flesh and its enslavements. And in some degree, at least, every one is struggling to put off the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts. That is to say, every one is laboring, consciously or otherwise, to put on the Mind of Christ. He will, at length, put on the new man, clad in the vestment of immortality, fully conscious of his unity with Principle. And there will be great joy, for he will have awakened from the dream of life in matter, by the rejection of every suggestion of imperfection and impotence. He will rejoice, for he will see God face to face.

[From President Harding's Inaugural Address]

Mankind needs a world-wide benediction of understanding. It is needed among individuals, among peoples, among governments, and it will inaugurate an era of good feeling to mark the birth of a new order. In such understanding men will strike confidently for the promotion of their better relationships, and nations will promote the comities so essential to peace. . . . The earth is thirsting for the cup of good will. Understanding is its fountain source. I would like to acclaim an era of good feeling amid dependable prosperity and all the blessings which attend. . . . There is no short cut to the making of these ideals into glad realities. The world has witnessed, again and again, the futility and the mischief of ill-considered remedies for social and economic disorders. But we are mindful to-day, as never before, of the friction of modern industrialism and we must learn its causes and reduce its evil consequences by sober and tested methods. Where genius has made for great possibilities, justice and happiness must be reflected in a greater common welfare.

Service is the supreme commitment of life. I would rejoice to acclaim the era of the Golden Rule and crown it with the autocracy of service. I pledge an administration wherein all the agencies of government are called to serve and ever promote an understanding of government purely as an expression of the popular will. One cannot stand in this presence and be unmindful of the tremendous responsibility. The world upheaval has added heavily to our tasks, but with the realization comes the surge of high resolve, and there is reassurance in belief in the God-given destiny of our Republic. If I felt that there is to be sole responsibility in the Executive for the America of to-morrow, I should shrink from the burden. But here are 100,000,000, with common concern and shared responsibility, answerable to God and country. The Republic summons them to their duty and I invite cooperation.

I accept my part with single-mindedness of purpose and humility of spirit and implore the favor and guidance of God in His heaven. With these I am unafraid and confidently face the future. I have taken the solemn oath of office on that passage of Holy Writ wherein it is asked, "What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" (Micah 6:8.) This I plight to God and country.

[From Kolnische Zeitung, as Reprinted in The Living Age]

Our old materialistic philosophy has departed with the brilliance of the imperial era. Our faith in what is merely earthly, in what we call "real," in liberal dividends and modern sanitation, as the true view of life, has been shaken like many other of our convictions. We have overturned not only thrones, but also what seemed securely rooted creeds. People are filled with a longing for things which are not of the visible world—things which we cannot see, but whose power we feel. . . . Christian Science, which had some vogue here before the war, gathers many adherents in quiet West End meeting rooms.

[From "Foundations of Faith," Anniversary Address at Union Theological Seminary, by the Rev. John Kelman, D.D.]

Materialistic scientists had supposed that their foundations were secure down to the very bottom of things, and that believers in spiritual realities had no such foundations beneath their convictions. Yet, when we come to think of it, no claim could be less valid than this. Take matter itself, of which people speak as if they knew all about it, and let us try to define it. The attempt takes us back through many successive theories which have arisen and subsided, even within a lifetime. The atoms have journeyed through a longer course than the Israelites, and have encountered more adventures than Ulysses, without reaching a promised land of definition. Even to-day they elude all search, and indeed Bishop Berkeley, who denied the objective reality of matter altogether, has never yet been finally and convincingly answered. Force is in no better position, nor motion. Electricity is known simply so far as the utilizing of it for practical purposes goes, but no one knows what it is in itself. Until recently the law of gravitation seemed to be a matter thoroughly understood and probed to the bottom, until Einstein suddenly arose and relegated gravitation to the same category of insoluble mystery as the rest. We can utilize them all but we cannot know them, and we seem to be no nearer the knowledge of their ultimate nature than our fathers were.

The problem of life is in no better case. Biology has given us wonderful accounts of the facts as they present themselves to the observer, and physiology has disclosed the marvels of the mechanism which lies behind all these phenomena; but when a definition of the ultimate meaning of the fact of life is demanded of it, science is no nearer a solution to-day than it was of old. Indeed, Herbert Spencer's word remains still as good as any that has been spoken, defining life merely as the sum of the forces that resist death. . . . Hugh Benson has translated the scientific confession into popular form when he says that . . . "the highest possible outcome of human knowledge, in any line almost, consists in this—that one can state with something like correctness, not the key to the mystery, the answer to the riddle, but the riddle itself." . . .

There are times when the anxious believer discovers that faith's foundations are out of sight and have apparently vanished. At such times it is not surprising if he should be tempted to ask, What if it be not true after all? Nor will it be surprising if, in his attempt to answer that question, he should discover that he has no argument by which he may effectually silence doubt. At such a time there is but one thing for it. He must fall back upon his own experience and find there a sufficient ground for believing. Whatever floods of mystery the doctrines of Christianity are ultimately founded on, here in actual present experience there is solid ground beneath them, a sufficient platform for faith to stand upon. Religion does not mean that we profess to know what God is and are able to define Him. It means that we know God as an actual potent factor in our own lives. . . . All human faith ultimately rests on experience, either direct or transmitted, and the real strength of the faith is measured by the directness and immediacy of its connection with the believer's own experience.

[George Eastman, as Quoted in The American Magazine]

The man who thinks he has done everything he can do, has merely stopped thinking. He is what might be called "up and out," and excepting that he has more money his case is not really very different from that of the man who is "down and out."

[From The Lewis Bulletins Published by Campbell-Ewald Co.]

There is nothing to efficiency but truth at work—and there is nothing so practical and profitable as truth.