Article July 22, 1950 Issue

Promoting and Extending the Work of Our Cause in the Field

By Mrs. Elisabeth Carroll Scott,— Memphis, Tennessee

As Christian Scientists, the greatest power in the world has been given us, the power of effectual prayer; and when we consider the means whereby our branch churches can best promote and extend the Cause of Christian Science, thought turns immediately to prayer; for prayer is the one activity in the world which has the power of God sustaining it.

Prayer is really our only means. If we use it, we need no other, for our beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, tells us in our textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 1), "Prayer, watching, and working, combined with self-immolation, are God's gracious means for accomplishing whatever has been successfully done for the Christianization and health of mankind." On the first page of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy also quotes these words of Jesus': "For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them."

We have, each of us, seen in our individual experience as Christian Scientists that prayer has accomplished for us what nothing else could do. Christian Science has taught us that prayer is more than supplication or petition. It has taught us that prayer is the assertion and utilization of God's law to transform the human situation, and Christian Science has proved to us that the realization of divine law acts as dominion over the evil beliefs of material sense and dispels them. All of us have demonstrated this in some degree in our own experience. We realize that our branch churches are composed of individuals, and when a branch church utilizes the spiritual understanding of its members to promote its growth, the growth will be sturdy and inevitable.

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