Article August 5, 1933 Issue

Standards of Christian Science

GEORGIA-DENT MC KAY

The world today needs Christian Science, and this is being recognized to a marked extent. For many years Christian Scientists have been noted for their happiness, good health, and loving-kindness, conditions which they have experienced in proportion as they have put their religion into practice. Many people are seeking a practical religion and are asking: What of the standards of Christian Science? Are they difficult, visionary, too idealistic to be practical? One of the most insidious arguments of mortal mind is that Truth's standard is so high as to be impossible of attainment. It is said that Christian Science demands too much when it teaches, as did Jesus, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." One learns in Christian Science that man as God's likeness has never fallen from his original perfection.

Christian Science, or the Science of Christ, shows that perfection is not to be found in mortals. It requires, however, that its adherents strive to mold their lives to the highest ideals, a task which God demands them to "accept lovingly to-day," as Mrs. Eddy states in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 254), "and to abandon so fast as practical the material, and to work out the spiritual which determines the outward and actual." By abandoning practices and traits of character that impede progress, we may prepare the "highway for our God" spoken of in the fortieth chapter of Isaiah. By a process of leveling up obedience to precept, "here a little, and there a little," we learn how imperfect were our former concepts of pleasure and profit, and how beautiful for joyous travel is the highway which is being discovered.

Most persons know the difference between right and wrong, and find it natural to love the right. Human selfhood comes nearer the expression of the divine as it turns more and more exclusively to the right and away from the wrong. In Christian Science the latter is seen as unreal, and false claims lose their seeming sway as we learn to love good supremely. The wise men of old taught the importance of right affections. In Proverbs we read, for instance, "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life." Mary Baker Eddy has given to Christian Scientists a "Daily Prayer" (Manual, Art. VIII, Sect. 4) which reads in Part, "And may Thy Word enrich the affections of all mankind, and govern them!" The Word of God does indeed enrich and govern, bless and protect.

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