Article July 11, 1931 Issue

In reply to a clergyman writing in your issue of November 15,...

Charles W. J. Tennant, District Manager of Committees on Publication for Great Britain and Ireland,—Weymouth, England

Southern Times

In reply to a clergyman writing in your issue of November 15, one is surprised that he declares that it is not a Christian belief that God is All-in-all. If it is not, it should be, for Paul makes it very clear in I Corinthians 15:28, that "when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all." God is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, and God is infinite Spirit; therefore His manifestation must be spiritual. The mistake our critic makes is in accepting the material sense of things as real; that is, as the creation of God, Spirit. In the Scriptures we are told that the material heavens and earth must vanish before the face of Him that sitteth on the throne. This points to the unreality of these conditions.

Christ Jesus was aware of the temporal and false nature of all materiality, and in the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew he tells us clearly of its destruction through the gaining of spirituality. There are those who think the spiritual viewpoint fantastic, transcendental, and impossible, and they are in opposition to those who have experienced the new birth and therefore have spiritual discernment. A very good illustration is that given in Revelation 21, where John declares that he saw "a new heaven and a new earth." Why did other people not see this vision? Simply because they were not in the exalted state of consciousness of John. Mrs. Eddy explains this experience on page 573 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," where she writes: "The Revelator was on our plane of existence, while yet beholding what the eye cannot see,—that which is invisible to the uninspired thought.... This shows unmistakably that what the human mind terms matter and spirit indicates states and stages of consciousness."

That the signs which Jesus said should follow them that believe are not being fully demonstrated to-day is not due to any fault or flaw in the Science of Christianity or Christian Science; it is because of the lack of sufficient spiritual understanding on the part of the demonstrators. However, it is only just to say that there is an ever increasing number of people who, through the study of Christian Science, are gaining in spiritual understanding; and the quality of their healing is in proportion to their understanding.

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