Article August 30, 1924 Issue

"Spiritual living and blessedness"

CLARA SCHRADER STREETER

Those who had the rare privilege of close association with the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, tell us that in her presence one was ever conscious that she did truly live with God, and that in all the events of her busy days she humbly and trustingly depended upon divine wisdom for guidance. One has only to recall her gentle voice, gracious words, and courteous manner, they tell us, to feel that she had fully proved the truth of a remarkable statement made in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 264), in which she says, "Spiritual living and blessedness are the only evidences, by which we can recognize true existence and feel the unspeakable peace which comes from an all-absorbing spiritual love."

This "spiritual living and blessedness" is, possibly, what Emerson sought to describe in a certain word picture which he has set midway in his jeweled essay, "Self-Reliance," where he states that "when a man lives with God, his voice shall be as sweet as the murmur of the brook and the rustle of the corn." It is like "the cool of the day" in Paradise; like the "bow in the cloud" after the deluge; like telling the number of the "stars" shining over Hebron's valley! It is as though it were possible, even now, to climb to the cloud-enveloped summit of some new Sinai of God's presence, or to stand in humility on Horeb while the "still small voice" whispers courage and strength for daily needs. "The Soul-inspired patriarchs," Mrs. Eddy writes on page 308 of the above-mentioned work, "heard the voice of Truth, and talked with God as consciously as man talks with man."

Is it possible to hear the voice of Truth to-day so clearly that one may feel intuitively that he is living with God? Christian Science claims that this state is possible here and now, and that to live in the consciousness of Truth and Love is man's natural and true existence. Men at present recognize the accents of Truth chiefly as mental impressions, which first touch the thoughts and the emotions, and then objectify themselves in impulses of loving obedience, in healing, and in gratitude. One of the ways in which we may become aware of God's presence is beautifully told in a well-known hymn:—

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