Article November 27, 1948 Issue

THE BENEFICENCE OF GRACE

L. IVIMY GWALTER

Grace is a term of such transcendent spirituality and beauty that, like Soul, it often seems to defy material definitions. That it is a quality essential in daily life and world-wide in its power to satisfy and supply the human need is clear as we ponder the line of the Lord's Prayer (Matt. 6:11), "Give us this day our daily bread." With spiritual intuitiveness Mary Baker Eddy perceived that the feeding of the heart's hunger is as essential to daily well-being as the feeding of the body. She knew too that thought spiritually satisfied would inevitably be externalized in the provision of things essential. Thus in her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 17), she interprets this line of the prayer as, "Give us grace for to-day; feed the famished affections."

The little word "grace" is used in both the Old Testament and the New. But it is essentially descriptive of the spirituality taught by the Master and is most commonly employed by Paul in his epistles. Thus in a moment of extremity there came to the apostle, with healing benediction, the angel message (II Cor. 12:9), "My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness." Repeatedly his salutation to the Christian brethren to whom he wrote was (Rom. 1:7), "Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ."

In the opening chapter of the Gospel according to St. John we read (John 1:14, 16): "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.... And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace." Clearly there is indicated here the incorporeal glory of infinite Principle and infinite idea ("the only begotten of the Father"), one Being and the fullness of its illimitable self-expression in multifarious reflection, or "grace for grace."

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