Article June 13, 1936 Issue

Education

ALBERT F. ENGEL

In his great Sermon on the Mount our Master, Jesus the Christ, clearly contrasts mental light and darkness, concluding his statements on the point with these words: "If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!" Christian Science accepts the Master's teaching, and shows that true education is spiritual enlightenment—conscious, practical realization of the omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence of God, good. Moreover, it is presenting to human thought a clear concept of evil or error as not of God's creating, and therefore as unreal, lawless, and powerless. The Psalmist sang, "Teach me to do thy will; for thou art my God: thy spirit is good; lead me into the land of uprightness." How clearly would the paths of progress unfold before us, did we but learn, through spiritual enlightenment, to accept without excuse or subterfuge the blessings of the divine will, made manifest through spiritual understanding and righteousness, or uprightness. Assuredly, we may agree with Shakespeare: "There is no darkness but ignorance."

Reluctance to make dearly bought material education subservient to the higher revelation of spiritual law and its healing effects, no doubt hinders spiritual demonstration and its triumph over the falsities of material sense. To gain eternal harmony mankind must be educated to love God, good, supremely, and drop the material sense of things. Divine Science demands that merely material erudition yield its accustomed place; that the human affections likewise learn, through higher education, to banish the theories of matter and mortality and accept the vital, spiritual facts of being.

And what are the spiritual facts of being? Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, has clearly answered this question in the opening sentences of "the scientific statement of being," on page 468 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." There we read: "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all." Through the study of Christian Science thought is deepened, enlarged, augmented, and the Science and perfection of these statements are made plain.

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Spiritual Treasure
June 13, 1936
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