Article May 11, 1935 Issue

Learning to Use the Concordances

EMMA H. SAYLES

In addition to the daily study of the Lesson-Sermons, given in the Christian Science Quarterly, students may find much help in the use of the Concordances to "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" and other works by Mrs. Eddy in conjuction with a Bible Concordance. Some students may not as yet have awakened to the joy and uplifting that follow a right use of them. They may feel that the Concordances are intended merely to assist in the locating of quotations or to aid in the preparing of references on a prescribed subject. This use of them is most helpful; but there is a broader, fuller mission for these books, given to us in accordance with our Leader's wish, and intelligently prepared by those to whom the work was assigned. In the Concordance to Science and Health there appears a preface by Mrs. Eddy, also one by the compiler, who says, "In the hope that this work may be of service to the many thousand students of our beloved textbook, and an incentive to a more profound study of the life-giving Science elucidated therein, and in grateful acknowledgment of the loving wisdom of its Founder and our Leader, which has alone made this book a possibility, the following pages are committed to the public."

As the student turns to the Concordances for instruction on the working out of his own or another's problem, he finds sure escape from the confusion and inattention of material thinking to the quiet realm of pure Mind, where the ideas of God unfold; and thus the answers to his prayers may be found in guidance, correction, inspiration, and instruction. One who was endeavoring to realize a greater sense of honesty for another was led to seek more light on this subject with the aid of the Concordances. That afternoon she took a trolley car to the city, and having in her hands several packages inadvertently left her bag, containing a purse and other valuables, on the car seat. As she stepped from the car to the pavement her attention was arrested by the voice of one who called to her, "You've left your bag," and smilingly handed it to her from the car door. Thus the thought of honesty, so diligently studied through the Concordances for another, was operative in her own experience.

The beginner in Christian Science is often desirous that he be told just what subjects he should study. But as he learns to lean more on the guidance of divine Mind he finds his thought being directed to that which will best meet his individual need. His daily prayers will unfold to him the specific subjects he should study, and he will turn naturally and spontaneously to the textbooks and Concordances, and assimilate the great truths of spiritual being set forth in our Leader's writings as well as in the Holy Scriptures.

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