Article May 16, 1931 Issue

"The house of the Lord"

ALICE MARSHALL

At the time of the feast of the Passover, when the people came from all parts of the country to worship at Jerusalem, a great many sheep, and oxen, and doves were sold for sacrifices, and the changers of money were a necessity. These merchants, instead of remaining in their shops or at their stalls, had gradually pushed their way into the very precincts of the temple itself, no doubt thinking they would do better business there, until our Master took the drastic step of sweeping them all out, at the same time uttering the never-to-be-forgotten words, "Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise."

May not these words have some meaning applicable to our day also? We do not buy and sell, or change money, in our churches. But are not our thoughts sometimes busy with the affairs of this world, with the result that some part of the service passes unheard, and perhaps the very message which we most needed to help us solve some difficulty is missed? How often do these merchandising thoughts find their way into our mental temple; and how difficult it seems to get them out! They need the whip "of small cords," the drastic treatment which the Master meted out long ago.

In her rendering of the twenty-third Psalm, on page 578 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy defines "the house of the Lord" as the consciousness of Love; and it is this "house of the Lord" which must be kept free from the merchandise of selfish and material thinking during our church services, as indeed at all times. Only constant watchfulness and energetic overturning of the tables of material thinking will enable us to dwell in "the structure of Truth and Love" (ibid., p. 583). Having accomplished this mental purification, shall we not find ourselves less likely to think or talk of secular things either immediately before or after the service?

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