Article February 23, 1924 Issue

Hungering and Thirsting after Righteousness

MATTIE E. COTTRELL RHOADS

In the chapter Admonition and Counsel, on page 210 of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany," Mrs. Eddy says: "Beloved Christian Scientists, keep your minds so filled with Truth and Love, that sin, disease, and death cannot enter them. It is plain that nothing can be added to the mind already full." And she goes on to say further: "Good thoughts are an impervious armor; clad therewith you are completely shielded from the attacks of error of every sort. And not only yourselves are safe, but all whom your thoughts rest upon are thereby benefited." Jesus also declared in his Sermon on the Mount, "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled."

While it is plain that it was the spiritual consciousness,—the understanding of the enduring substance of God, good,—which both Jesus and Mrs. Eddy were pleading for, and for which a great reward was promised, yet is it not true that humanity still largely seems to be striving and fighting for the material alone? Are there not thousands in every walk of life, many of whom have already been healed by Christian Science, who are failing to embrace the opportunity to learn more about God and man's relation to Him? How many who profess to be Jesus' followers are still looking to matter to supply their needs! And yet, when he was talking to his disciples about their wealth, health, life, labor, stature, growth, raiment, food, drink, and even faith, he said, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."

Any one who is honestly and earnestly following the teachings of Christian Science soon learns—at least to some extent—that God is responsible for the supplying of his every need, and that the all-loving Mind is abundantly able to do so. As one grows into the understanding of God and His great all-sufficient loving-kindness to His whole creation, he finds he is growing into the right understanding of the teachings of the Master, Jesus the Christ, and of Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. He also finds that as his consciousness is filled with the understanding of the infinitude and oneness of Soul, Spirit, his needs are supplied. Grand lessons, learned by experiences, of the unity and inseparability of God and man, as Father and son, may sometimes seem bitter and costly, but they lead us to see that were we to try to go by some other way than the straight and only course marked out by infinite Spirit, divine Love, sooner or later we should indeed be found wanting—"a well left empty."

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