Editorial March 29, 1924 Issue

Our Church Edifices

Ella W. Hoag

When God said to Solomon, "I have hallowed this house, which thou hast built, to put my name there for ever; and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually," He pronounced a blessing which all churches, built to honor His name, hope to inherit. Such favor, however, was only to follow as certain conditions which accompanied the benediction were fulfilled. God's perpetual presence in the house could only be known as the house was filled with upright hearts of perfect integrity, and as God's statutes and judgments were faithfully kept.

Christian Scientists, in the revelation of the Science of Life, have definite rules whereby the houses they build for God's worship may be erected as the result of spirituality understood and demonstrated. The right thinking and living which obedience to the teachings of Christian Science inculcates cannot fail to bring forth fruits in such present manifestation as shall prove to all who have eyes to see that God does indeed dwell among His people. While Christian Scientists believe this is true, they are being constantly called upon to demonstrate it in ever increasing measure.

Even as in the ancient time God's followers loved to build houses which were dedicated exclusively to His service, so to-day no band of earnest Christian Scientists, however small in number, but begins almost immediately to look forward to the time when it shall erect a building which will in appropriate fashion speak of loyalty to God and His Cause as operative in Christian Science. It is right at this beginning that thoughts must be guarded if the building of the temple is to go forward under the direct guidance of divine Principle. Our beloved Leader sounds the keynote of this necessity when in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 195), in speaking of the successful erection of a branch church building, she writes: "The praiseworthy success of this church, and its united efforts to build an edifice in which to worship the infinite, sprang from the temples erected first in the hearts of its members—the unselfed love that builds without hands, eternal in the heaven of Spirit."

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