Article October 9, 1937 Issue

The Prayer That Covers Human Needs

ELSIE A. KOEFOED

Throughout the ages God has been recognized as Father, and our Master, Christ Jesus, taught his disciples this fact in the prayer known as the Lord's Prayer, that prayer which Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, tells us "covers all human needs" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 16). The first three clauses of this prayer answer the question as to how human needs are met.

The first, according to Mrs. Eddy's interpretation, recognizes the one God as Father-Mother, consicious only of harmony; the second teaches that the name, character, or nature of the Father is to be hallowed and reverenced; while the third clause, "Thy kingdom come," the spiritual sense of which Mrs. Eddy gives as, "Thy kingdom is come; Thou art ever-present," shows us that the kingdom of harmony is present, now and always. So understandingly did Christ Jesus recognize God as Spirit, and himself as the Son of God, therefore spiritual, that he was able to say to the woman of Samaria, "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." To understand God, therefore, and to hallow His name, everything must be perceived on a spiritual basis. The spiritual of God can only be known through the spiritual senses. How could the divine nature of God be understood without a witness? The words "image and likeness," "witnesses," "sons," repeatedly used in the Bible, and throughout the works of Mary Baker Eddy, refer to man today as well as in the past, for man is now and always the son of God. The spiritual nature of the Father is expressed through spiritual man, the son of God.

Perhaps someone might say, This is intangible! How can the nature of God be hallowed and reverenced? Man, as the expression of God, presents His nature in spiritual qualities, in gratitude, in joyfulness, in happy service. These qualities, together with many others, are abundantly present, and the opportunity is ever and everywhere present to hallow the divine nature by expressing the divine qualities.

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