Editorial February 26, 1949 Issue

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE: A CALL TO RIGHTEOUSNESS

Robert Ellis Key

Those who have heard the call of Christian Science know it is a call to action. It demands righteous living and straightforward dealing. It is not a quack remedy, or a means of making money, but the way of life taught by Christ Jesus, the way of self-abnegation, purity, and prayer which demonstrates step by step the infinitude of good. Those who hear the call and heed it do not balk at its demands. Those who have made it their own, value beyond words the balm of spiritual healing and the freedom of spiritual redemption. Their gratitude for deliverance from disease, sin, and limitation overflows, and the willingly lay their all upon the altar of Truth and Love.

What prepared Mary Baker Eddy's thought for the discovery of Christian Science? What made it possible for her to succeed in discovering and founding a Science so long hidden? Among the contributory causes which made it possible was undoubtedly Mrs. Eddy's Puritan background. She writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 359), "From Puritan parents, the discoverer of Christian Science early received her religious education." For generations Mrs. Eddy's forebears followed the rigid rules of Puritanism common to the grand men and women who came from across the Atlantic to colonize the continent of North America. Mrs. Eddy's discovery of Christian Science did not make her less of a puritan in the literal meaning of that term. Indeed, it revealed a greater purity than her ancestors had ever known, for it revealed the pure essence of Truth which came into the world through Christ Jesus.

The early Puritans were dogmatic and often intolerant, but they preached and upheld the standard of righteous living. The religious convictions of the Puritans sprang from the heart more than the head. John Bunyan, staunch Puritan and author of "The Pilgrim's Progress," wrote of his work:

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