Article September 1, 1928 Issue

Class Instruction

HILDA MARY STEPHENSON

The history of the human race shows that it has always been in need of instruction; and throughout the ages inspired leaders and teachers have arisen who have given the particular age in which they have appeared just such leadership and teaching as it was able to receive and understand. The Old Testament shows that Moses lived close enough to God to hear His voice, and so was the means of giving the Hebrews the law, or Ten Commandments, for their instruction and guidance to a better way of living, and to lead them out of the bondage of the Pharaohs into the promised land. Jesus the Christ came as the promised Messiah leading men to God as the source of their being. In our age came the divinely appointed Leader and teacher, Mary Baker Eddy, revealing also in fulfillment of prophecy through her words and works the divine Principle of all reality, God Himself.

A dictionary gives the following as a meaning of "lead": "To show the way, esp. by going with; ... to precede." It was his going first to God in thought which enabled Moses to give utterance to the immortal words, "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord." All at that time who were ready for instruction, listened and heard. Their sense of having other gods was rebuked, and they were thereby enabled to come into better health and morals. Jesus drew still nearer to God. He could declare, "I and my Father are one;" and those ready for this teaching were led in thought to grasp something of their divine sonship, and so experienced deliverance from many evils, giving God, their heavenly Father, the glory. Mary Baker Eddy made it possible for humanity to apprehend God by revealing Him to be both Father and Mother; and she interprets spiritually in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 16) the first words of the Lord's Prayer thus: "Our Father-Mother God, all-harmonious."

Our Leader's recognition of God as Mother as well as Father has brought to light God's perfect provision for His image and likeness, man, which is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. God, in His infinite tenderness, has given to this age, in a way it can understand, His perfect plan for salvation through Christian Science. No one need ever be in doubt as to what God is, for Christian Science has fully revealed Him. And The Mother Church with its divinely appointed government through its Church Manual has safeguarded for all time that perfect plan of salvation.

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