Article January 7, 1933 Issue

"Our only preachers"

[Original article in German]

FRIEDRICH PRELLER

The student of Christian Science often asks wonderingly what is the source of the difficulties confronting him, or what is the cause of the apparent standstill in the solution of such difficulties. An answer to this question may sometimes be found in a lack of attention or insufficient attention to the various aids through which the student is helped to understand Christian Science. Such an aid, for example, is found in the Bible Lessons, which are compiled from the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, and issued in the Christian Science Quarterly. "The Bible and the Christian Science textbook" are designated by Mrs. Eddy in the "Explanatory Note" (Christian Science Quarterly, p. ii) as "our only preachers."

The messages of these impersonal and impartial preachers are of far-reaching importance. It is a great and wonderful fact that these Lessons unite all Christian Scientists in the atmosphere of spiritual thinking, for throughout the world the Lessons are read by earnest students, and each Sunday by the Readers in every Christian Science church. Like a tide of true spirituality, these clarifying truths are flowing out to the whole world and helping to correct false beliefs which have been held about the subjects unfolded in the several Lessons. The world shares this blessing; it hears "the sound thereof," as Jesus said, even though it cannot "tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth." But the Christian Scientist, who is familiar with the source and effect of this blessing, finds in the study of the Lessons untold treasure.

The world is ever seeking new and more modern means for enhancing its well-being, means through which to gain so-called strength and beauty, health and bodily development. The human mind hungers and thirsts after spiritual food, but from its own methods it receives a stone instead of bread; and this is due to the false belief that man lives in a material body and that he can be benefited by material hygiene. Mrs. Eddy says (Science and Health, p. 382), "If half the attention given to hygiene were given to the study of Christian Science and to the spiritualization of thought, this alone would usher in the millennium." And Paul writes, "Whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: ... we are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord."

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