Article May 28, 1955 Issue

THE GLORY OF PRAYER

ETHEL M. WOOD

"Our Master taught his disciples one brief prayer, which we name after him the Lord's Prayer. Our Master said, 'After this manner therefore pray ye,' and then he gave that prayer which covers all human needs." Thus writes our beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, on page 16 of the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." She herself has enshrined the central thought of this prayer—the allness of God, good—in the "Daily Prayer" which loyal Christian Scientists the world over use (see Manual of The Mother Church, Art. VIII, Sect. 4). By these two prayers, with their healing and purifying words which all who will can understand, the desire to be taught how to pray has been twice answered.

The first chapter of the textbook is wholly concerned with prayer. A study of it in the light of the above two supreme models for prayer is very illuminating. One should keep in mind the fact that prayer, to be effective, must be in accord with God's law and that one should not plead for the diversion or annulment of this law. In the first paragraph of this chapter there is a definition which lifts our conception of prayer high above mere pleading or anguished verbal formulas. It reads as follows (p. 1): "The prayer that reforms the sinner and heals the sick is an absolute faith that all things are possible to God,—a spiritual understanding of Him, an unselfed love."

Many years ago, when I was a young student of Christian Science, I was suddenly prostrated by a violent attack of influenza. I was staying alone in a hotel, and all day long I lay in bed reading and rereading that paragraph and pondering this summary of redemptive prayer. I saw clearly the necessity for both faith and understanding and their application to the temptation assailing me, but the last three words of the sentence were less lucid when I tried to connect them with sickness.

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