Article April 7, 1956 Issue

SANCTUARY

EUGENIA SANBORN PLATH

In Psalms we read (91:1), "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty." Mary Baker Eddy writes in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 244), "The 'secret place,' whereof David sang, is unquestionably man's spiritual state in God's own image and likeness, even the inner sanctuary of divine Science, in which mortals do not enter without a struggle or sharp experience, and in which they put off the human for the divine."

In Biblical times the sanctuary was the innermost room of the Hebrew tabernacle, into which even the high priest was permitted to enter but once a year. Today it is possible for everyone who reaches out for the letter and the spirit of Christian Science to make use of the sanctuary of divine Science anywhere and at any time. Actually finding true sanctuary is more than possible; it is necessary for spiritual progress, and it is a duty. Why is it a duty? Because the spiritual sustenance which is found in the sanctuary is essential to the Christian Scientist in his healing of the sick.

This sanctuary is reached through prayer, through the realization of man's at-one-ment with God. It represents a quiet surrender, the giving up of will power, of a sense of personal doing, for the understanding that God does all. It has nothing to do with physical place. When we see that God is Mind, supreme, infinite, all-encompassing, that there is no place beyond His realm, and that man is God's loved child, we are in our sanctuary. Then we can annul mortal opinion and its hoard of false beliefs and heal the sick.

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