Editorial November 20, 1948 Issue

"WE THANK OUR FATHER-MOTHER GOD"

John Randall Dunn

Forty-eight years ago at this season Mary Baker Eddy was asked by the Boston Globe to send "a sentiment on what the last Thanksgiving Day of the nineteenth century should signify to all mankind" (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 264). Responding to this invitation, Mrs. Eddy wrote, "New England's last Thanksgiving Day of this century signifies to the minds of men the Bible better understood and Truth and Love made more practical; the First Commandment of the Decalogue more imperative, and 'Love thy neighbor as thyself' more possible and pleasurable." Then recounting many other heartening evidences of Truth's appearing, she concluded, "For these signs of the times we thank our Father-Mother God."

Practically a half century has passed since these words were penned, and should not Christian Scientists find even more encouraging "signs of the times" for which to give thanks today? It would be difficult to estimate the number of men, women, and children who have felt the healing touch of the Christ, Truth, in the past fifty years. At our churches, in the Wednesday testimony meetings, and in the pages of our weekly and monthly periodicals only the smallest portion of the healing story has been told. Tens of thousands of students of Christian Science are having healing, redemptive experiences daily through their study and application of the truths that are set forth in the Bible and are now made practical through Mrs. Eddy's teachings.

Is such a statement questioned by some reader? It may be asked, Are not people finding redemption through their individual Bible study who have never read Mrs. Eddy's books? Without a doubt, yes. Faith healing has been known and experienced through the centuries; but who save the Discoverer of Christian Science has brought to light the fact that a demonstrable Science underlies the so-called miracles of Holy Writ? Mrs. Eddy's introduction to Christian Science came through her turning to the Scriptures in a dark hour when death seemed near. She was healed; but, thank God, she was not content to rest there. In the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," she writes (p. 109), "I knew the Principle of all harmonious Mind-action to be God, and that cures were produced in primitive Christian healing by holy, uplifting faith; but I must know the Science of this healing, and I won my way to absolute conclusions through divine revelation, reason, and demonstration."

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