Article April 14, 1928 Issue

Our Wonderful God

ALFRED MARSHALL VAUGHN

"For 'who is so great a God as our God!' unchangeable, all-wise, all-just, all-merciful; the ever-loving, ever-living Life, Truth, Love: comforting such as mourn, opening the prison doors to the captive, marking the unwinged bird, pitying with more than a father's pity; healing the sick, cleansing the leper, raising the dead, saving sinners," writes Mrs. Eddy in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 124). What a wonderful vision of the nature of God comes to us as we study these inspired words of our beloved Leader! Who would not trust in such a Being? What a sense of the Father's tender care is unfolded to us in the words, "pitying with more than a father's pity"! A human father in his pity is compassionate, and wishes he could take away what is troubling the one he loves, but most of the time he has so great a feeling of helplessness that he thinks he can hardly help at all. The pity of our Father, God, knows no helplessness. As we gain some sense of His power and presence, our problem ceases to seem real; for God is "of purer eyes than to behold evil," and cannot "look on iniquity." As we therefore become conscious of man's at-one-ment with the infinite Mind that knows no evil or discord, we experience freedom and peace.

What a contrast between the false concept of God as a stern ruler, waiting to judge everyone at the "judgment day" from the record of each one's good or evil deeds done during his life on earth, and the wonderful revelation of God's nature given at the beginning of this article! What a difference between the understanding of the "great First Cause," whom we reverently call God, "the ever-loving, ever-living Life, Truth, Love: ... healing the sick, cleansing the leper, raising the dead, saving sinners," and the belief that God sends sickness and death, and permits evil to exist in multifarious forms, keeping men from happiness and success! We are very grateful that half a century of the teaching and practice of Christian Science has done so much to change the world's concept of God.

In "Pulpit and Press" (p. 22) Mrs. Eddy has given us a wonderful goal for the twentieth century. She says, "If the lives of Christian Scientists attest their fidelity to Truth, I predict that in the twentieth century every Christian church in our land, and a few in far-off lands, will approximate the understanding of Christian Science sufficiently to heal the sick in his name." Such a hope as this should inspire every Christian Scientist to try to bring out in daily life the understanding of God's nature, which our Leader has revealed to us, by being more just, loving, and cheerful, and ever ready to give a smile, to speak a kind word, or to tell someone in need of God's omnipotent power how that power is being demonstrated through Christian Science to heal and to save.

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