Article November 30, 1929 Issue

Our Textbooks

JAMES DOUGLAS GOSNEY

When a student of Christian Science starts on the path so clearly defined by our beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, to investigate the teachings of Christian Science, he will do well to remember that the Bible contains the healing truth, as revealed in Christian Science, and that in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" is presented the result of Mrs. Eddy's patient, loving search of the Scriptures. Having clearly seen this, the student will at once recognize that he must study the Bible together with the Christian Science textbook, if he would himself find the truth which Christ Jesus declared would make men free!

With her unfailing perspicacity and foresight, our Leader frequently refers to this necessity. In "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 103) she speaks of the Bible and Science and Health as our textbooks. In the Manual of The Mother Church (Art. VIII, Sect. 7) she again refers precisely to "the Christian Science textbooks,—the Bible, and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures;" and she says concerning qualification for membership (ibid., Art. IV, Sect. 1), "The Bible, together with Science and Health and other works by Mrs. Eddy, shall be his only textbooks for self-instruction in Christian Science, and for teaching and practising metaphysical healing." It is thus clear that for instruction in Christian Science one does not require to study any works by anybody else.

In this study there are no short cuts, no formulas; but there must be patient, prayerful study, making what we learn our own by demonstration, in the healing of ourselves and others of sin, sickness, and all else that would claim to be contrary to man in God's image and likeness. And as we are loyal to our high calling, learning how good it is to love God understandingly and realizing something more of God's love for us than we had ever before appreciated, we shall be ready in shop or school, field or factory, office or home, to share the joy of our new-found peace, which comes from obedience and the understanding of ever present good.

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Healing Sympathy
November 30, 1929
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