Article April 27, 1940 Issue

"Teach us to pray"

WILLIAM LEROY CURTIS

The disciples had seen Jesus feed the hungry multitude in the wilderness, when only a few loaves and fishes were at hand, and they had likewise witnessed many other miracles performed by him through his understanding of God. They recognized that his prayer included a comprehension of God and His beneficence which they did not yet understand. At a certain place, when he had ceased praying, one of them said to him, "Teach us to pray."

Mortals, blinded by sin and material beliefs, have long since concluded that the power by which Jesus was able to perform miracles was a special dispensation of divine Providence and belonged to an age now ended. They have also made the mistake of looking to matter as the source from which may be derived the things deemed necessary to sustain life. These material things are often obtained by such tiresome effort and painful struggle on their part as to lead them to believe that what they get must be obtained by their own unaided efforts. This tends to beget a feeling of insecurity, jealousy, and fear. Viewed from this standpoint alone, one is forced to the conclusion that poverty, trials, and failures, with their attendant suffering, sickness, and death, are inevitable. Consequently, men are under constant fear of these evils, with little hope of finding a way to escape.

Here Christian Science is of invaluable service to humanity. All who will earnestly study the Christian Science text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, may gain the true understanding of God and man and find freedom from these fears and false beliefs and the evils which they engender. The opening chapter of her textbook is a comprehensive discussion of prayer, in the first sentence of which she declares, "The prayer that reforms the sinner and heals the sick is an absolute faith that all things are possible to God,—a spiritual understanding of Him, an unselfed love."

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