Article February 10, 1923 Issue

There is no other teaching which emphasizes more what...

Marie C. Hartman, Committee on Publication for Holland,—The Hague (translation)

Eenheid

There is no other teaching which emphasizes more what Jesus has taught, and which enables men better to fulfill exactly what Jesus commanded, than does Christian Science. Did Jesus not say, "Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils"? Christian Science considers physical healing as a sign of being better spiritually; and every one acquainted with this teaching knows that true Christian Science healing can be reached only through the renewing of the mind, of which Paul speaks. The primary object of Christian Science is not to heal sickness, but to enable one so to understand God that he may experience all the blessings of a child of God. Christian Scientists have learned that sickness, even if expressed in the human body, does not originate there, but in the unenlightened human mind. They see how futile is the striving to heal effects without destroying their cause, and thus they seek such help as can reach the cause of the difficulty, namely, wrong thinking and belief in the power of evil. As Christian Science unfolds to them they find salvation in the realization of God's all-potent love, which ever protects from all evil. The real self—God's image and likeness—has never fallen. It can no more be overcome by the Adam-dream of materiality, of sin, sickness, and death than can God Himself. It is to this real self that Jesus referred when he said, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect;" and his command extended to men and women, here and now. Christian Science explains how to let the Mind of Christ overcome all that is unlike God, all that does not belong to fundamental Truth.

Mrs. Eddy did not remain satisfied with having herself experienced God's saving love. Her first thought was how and in what way she might bring something of the light which had shone upon her to seeking, suffering humanity. She was faithful to the light which she had seen, and thereby she was able to lead her followers to our Father-Mother God. Just imagine what it means to have found a religion which unfailingly can make one experience God's love and guidance under all circumstances, which satisfactorily answers all the questions arising in the human heart, which lifts one out of deepest misery and doubt and fear,—a religion which makes it possible here and now to fulfill more and more what Christ Jesus taught and commanded! It is strange, then, that Christian Scientists are grateful to Mrs. Eddy? Each one has to fill his own place; and Mrs. Eddy's is that of Leader of the Christian Science movement,—a movement bringing to the world of to-day the blessings of primitive Christianity; and as we see how she has diverted her students' interest from her personality and fixed it on divine Principle and the Christ-idea, we cannot fail to remember her with profound reverence and gratitude and love.

As regards the blessedness of not seeing and yet of believing, this must undoubtedly mean that Jesus called those blessed who do not rely on sense-testimony but on faith and spiritual understanding, and in this way experience the blessedness of the truth and reality of spiritual facts. Throughout his entire career on earth, Jesus demonstrated God's allness,—an experience which with the help of Christian Science every child of God can make more and more his own. Mrs. Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 150): "To-day the healing power of Truth is widely demonstrated as an immanent, eternal Science, instead of a phenomenal exhibition. Its appearing is the coming anew of the gospel of 'on earth peace, good-will toward men.' This coming, as was promised by the Master, is for its establishment as a permanent dispensation among men; but the mission of Christian Science now, as in the time of its earlier demonstration, is not primarily one of physical healing. Now, as then, signs and wonders are wrought in the metaphysical healing of physical disease; but these signs are only to demonstrate its divine origin,—to attest the reality of the higher mission of the Christ-power to take away the sins of the world."

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