Article March 17, 1928 Issue

Workers and Works

ALGERNON HERVEY BATHURST

How frequently the expression, "I must do some work," or, "I have work to do," is heard among students of Christian Science! What is meant by work or working? How is work of any description ever done? Never, primarily, by the physical body. Suppose the work to be accomplished is tree-felling—the physical body does not do it of itself; it does it because it is controlled by thought. The deed or act must first be thought before it can be accomplished; and every student of Christian Science is alive to the great necessity for watching his thinking. But here comes in the all-important point revealed by Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, in her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," namely, that the so-called mind which believes in evil and death is no mind. In that remarkable definition of "God" to be found on page 465 of Science and Health, one of the terms used is "Mind," divine Mind. Now divine Mind must be infinite, and consequently the only Mind; and none would ever admit that God, divine Mind, knows or includes evil.

Then true working includes right thinking. And since there is one infinite divine Mind, what is the student of Christian Science doing when he works? He is affirming the truth, declaring the omnipresence of God, or good, refusing to accept the suggestion that there is a mind other than the divine, infinite Mind. He is refusing to believe that anything is, or is true, which has the appearance of emanating from a source other than the infinite divine Mind, God, the creator. Then, when is a Christian Scientist praying or working? When he is obeying the injunction to "pray without ceasing," to the extent that he is, through spiritual discernment, conscious of God's—good's—omnipresence. In other words, he should be continually dwelling "in the secret place of the most High;" and from that standpoint—or looking out from divine Mind—he will not accept the suggestions of the carnal mind, which is but a counterfeit. The suggestions of evil should do no more than turn him to the truth. Thus, working or praying does not consist of a perpetual battle or struggle with evil or error. Each temptation, each suggestion, to believe in evil as real, gives the Christian Scientist a further opportunity to prove the truth of the presence, power, and government of God, good—divine Mind.

Many, perhaps the majority of people, come to Christian Science because they are in need of physical healing, and they find it; but wonderful, beautiful, and inspiring as is the experience of being healed through Christian Science treatment, physical healing is by no means the whole of Christian Science. The magnitude, vastness, majesty—the infinite scope of Christian Science—can be but faintly described in words. In "Rudimental Divine Science" (p. 2) Mrs. Eddy says: "Healing physical sickness is the smallest part of Christian Science. It is only the bugle-call to thought and action, in the higher range of infinite goodness."

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