Article August 19, 1922 Issue

The "Key to the Scriptures"

ELLIOT HOWARD GILKEY

One coming to the study of Christian Science after having held the usual attitude of Christian toward the sacred Scriptures enters upon many new experiences. To such a one who had believed that the Bible is to be accepted as it reads upon its face, and that any attempt to give other than the literal meaning is in a sense unorthodox and to be deplored,—to one also much mystified by certain passages in the Bible and unable to understand its language,—the declaration that a "Key to the Scriptures" had been found, and that this "Key" was set forth in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, presented a lively hope that something more tangible in the way of Bible interpretation than had been met with before was being made known to mankind.

Every Bible student is familiar with the human hunger for the Word of God. Wherever Christian Science is not understood there is heard the despairing cry of those who, being the best Christians they know how to be, realize in their extremity that the Bible does not yield up its secrets to them, as their hope has led them to feel it should. Millions of earnest Christians have searched the Scriptures for light along the human pathway, feeling that God's Word is intended to be that light, only to turn away with the mistaken feeling that it is God's will that His children should suffer! Many earnest and faithful men and women find themselves driven into a corner from which they know the truth can deliver them, if they can only understand it. Many, too, have suffered losses which were needless and humanly afflictive, simply because they had no reliable key with which to unlock the treasures of the Bible.

On page 99 of Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy tells all who care to heed her words that "Truth has furnished the key to the kingdom, and with this key Christian Science has opened the door of the human understanding." She also adds, out of her ripe experience and spiritual understanding of the statement she was making, "None may pick the lock nor enter by some other door." Unfortunately for the happiness of mankind there have been many who have tried some other door than the door opened by the Word of God; and the wilderness is tracked with their wandering and fruitless footsteps. It is good to know, however, that after all their wanderings in the mist of human theories and mistaken concepts, there comes a day for every wanderer when the light of divine Love and Truth will dawn upon him and drive the mist away.

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