Article December 6, 1947 Issue

THE READING ROOM—ITS SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICATION

NANCY F. CUSHMAN

In its spiritual significance, a Christian Science Reading Room is not a room bounded by four walls any more than a material edifice is the true Church or a physical body the real man. Christian Science teaches that where the senses testify to matter God is constituting and maintaining His own idea in all usefulness and beauty.

In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 583) Mary Baker Eddy defines Church in part as "the structure of Truth and Love: whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle." Thus our Reading Room may be spiritually regarded as a sanctuary to which we may go for inspiration, the balm of healing, the unfoldment of divine facts, and uninterrupted communion with our one Father-Mother God. It typifies in some measure the secret place where care, worry, and fear are unknown and the quiet assurance of God's love and goodness is felt. The Christian Science Reading Room is akin to a spiritual haven furnished and prepared with right ideas, whose walls are salvation and whose gates are praise.

In its human aspect, the Reading Room will grow more beautiful, more active, and more fruitful as each member of the church attains and maintains the spiritual concept of it. He will then work for it and use it; he cannot do otherwise as he sees its true function and fulfillment. The effects of this right spiritual activity will appear in quietude and orderliness, and also in the radiant atmosphere of healing which will prevail.

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