Article September 30, 1933 Issue

Church Membership According to the Pattern

EZRA W. PALMER

CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS love The Mother Church, and they never tire of expressing their deep gratitude for its beneficent activities which are bringing to the nations of the earth the true knowledge of God. They joyfully recognize that The Mother Church with its branches is founded on a spiritual basis. It is well, therefore, to consider what our Leader accomplished when she founded it.

When we study the deeds and utterances of the great spiritual seers of the Bible we find that they glimpsed somewhat of the eternal verities of being and strove to conform their lives and their deeds to this sublime ideal. Samuel, for example, from childhood grew in spiritual power and confidence in God. As the great facts of being began to dawn on patriarch and prophet they naturally and normally instructed their people, and struggled to express in their human relationships the spiritual vision which was ever their guiding light. Moses, under divine guidance, led the children of Israel out of bondage into freedom; his vision of the everpresence of God was typified by the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night.

Of Jesus the boy it is said that he "increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man." In his later ministry, through parable and precept, Jesus taught men to rely not upon matter but upon Spirit. He healed their diseases and did all things according as he was taught by the Father. His every thought and word was governed by this vision of God and His Christ. That vision illumined his path and guided his action. In the present age the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, through gaining the spiritual import of the Scriptures, saw the ever-presence and all-inclusiveness of divine Spirit and the unreality of evil and matter. She had the vision of God and His perfect creation, even the same light which had illumined Moses and the prophets, and which Christ Jesus had perfectly revealed. After this spiritual revelation came to her, Mrs. Eddy diligently prayed and labored to reduce it to human language so that men could grasp and understand the truth and prove it practical in meeting all human needs.

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