Article November 1, 1922 Issue

Purging the Temple

EILA FOSTER

How grateful should we, who are students of Christian Science, be to our dear Leader, Mrs. Eddy, for revealing to us the many pearls of great price which lie hidden all through the Bible! One may be quite familiar with certain stories and incidents therein, when suddenly, perhaps in a moment of need and as the result of our awakened understanding, they stand out before us in a new light, and we grasp their meaning as never before.

One such experience came to a student in connection with the story of the purging of the temple by Jesus. For some time she had been trying to bring her understanding of Christian Science to bear upon a certain problem without, however, any very satisfactory results. Then one day the import of this story dawned on her with startling significance. As given in Matthew's gospel, it states that after Jesus had cast out those that bought and sold in the temple, "the blind and the lame came to him in the temple; and he healed them." In the Glossary of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 595), Mrs. Eddy gives, as part of the metaphysical interpretation of the word "temple," the following: "The superstructure of Truth; the shrine of Love." This student then saw quite clearly that in order to accomplish healing for herself or others her own consciousness must first be purged of wrong concepts regarding God and man; that by giving power or presence, intelligence or action, in thought, to anything apart from God, she was harboring false beliefs typified by the buyers and sellers in the temple; and that only as "any thing that defileth . . . or maketh a lie" was cast out, could the Christ, Truth, appear, and eliminate every phase of discord or disease that seemed to human consciousness to separate man from God, good. The effect of patient work along these lines brought healing, and a deeper sense of gratitude for Christian Science.

The sick, the sinning, and the sorrowing are irresistibly drawn to a consciousness purged of belief in materiality; and therein is fulfilled one of the greatest blessings open to humanity,—that of doing the works of the Master, bringing health and harmony to a suffering world, and thus into one's own experience; or, as Science and Health so beautifully expresses it (p. 261): "Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts."

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