Article March 9, 1946 Issue

Benefits of Organized Church Activity

DAISETTE D. S. MC KENZIE

Even at the risk of too frequent repetition, this enlightening quotation from a letter written by our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, to a student is offered again to be earnestly pondered (We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, p. 40): "All the people need to love and adopt Christian Science, is a true sense of its founder. In proportion as they have found it, will our Cause advance." The question naturally comes to us. Why did our Leader use the word "founder" instead of "discoverer" in pointing out what would advance our Cause? It may be that it was to bring our appreciation of her as Founder of our movement to a level equal in importance to that of Discoverer. Without the establishing of The Mother Church and its activities, her discovery might have existed for herself only or at best for a chosen few and not have been available for universal practice and benefit.

The Bible records many glimpses of the Son of God. Abraham was visited by Melchizedek, whose spiritual nature was later referred to as "without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God (Hebr. 7:3). Abraham, however, did not reveal how others might be guided to understand this spiritual nature of man. Enoch pleased God and was translated, but he left no record of his spiritual experiences by which others could profit. Elijah's victory over death was the reward of a lifetime of service to God, but we have from him no spiritual teaching by which his experience could be understood and repeated.

Our Master, Christ Jesus, was the first to found a system of spiritual education, of which he could say, "If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death" (John 8:51), and, "All things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you" (John 15:15). He was in a certain sense a discoverer, and he certainly was a founder. Establishing his religion in human thought, he realized, was as important to the world as his spiritual discoveries. It was as needful to impart what he had heard from the Father as to have heard it in the first place. He demonstrated these truths to show their efficacy in human affairs, until he could say to his Father (John 17:4), "I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do."