Article March 29, 1930 Issue

"My Father's house"

JOHN HURLE HOAGLAND

What an inspiration to consecration and purification of thought is the reference to "church" given to mankind by Christ Jesus when, in rebuking the misuse of the temple at Jerusalem, he speaks of "my Father's house." As recorded in the second chapter of John, his stinging rebuke of materialism in driving the money changers and sellers of doves from the temple is crowned with the memorable admonition, "Make not my Father's house an house of merchandise."

Even the gross materialism of the time, even the man-made temple of which he prophesied, "There shall not be left here one stone upon another," could not deter him from giving to the world this new meaning of "church," a meaning that sounds the depths of spiritualized worship and points to the need of all mankind for a consecrated, purified concept of the real Church, exemplified in daily living.

"My Father's house"! Christian Scientists discover the full significance of these words of Jesus in the spiritual definition of "Church," given by Mrs. Eddy in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 583) as "the structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle." Thus we become aware that Church is "the structure of Truth and Love," which has always existed in divine Mind, and is therefore expressed through spiritual man, the reflection of God, Mind. Church, therefore, unfolds to the earnest student of Christian Science as the temple of spiritual consciousness, open only to "whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle," and closed to whatever would make the Father's house "an house of merchandise."

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