A LARGER VIEWPOINT
The mountain peak awaits the climber, and the effort necessary to reach it summit is considered well spent. The mountain is there for all. Similarly, the illimitable truth of spiritual being is always existent and only awaits individual acceptance and demonstration. The higher the attainment of the Christ, Truth, the nobler is the manifestation.
To enumerate all the blessings one may experience in mentally climbing the mountain of spiritual discernment is humanly impossible. But along the way the increasing release from material thinking is certainly a great blessing.
An individual who had turned to Christian Science in time of spiritual need caught a satisfying glimpse of the fact that God heals and that He can heal now just as well as tomorrow. Soon thereafter this individual experienced a complete healing of recurring attacks of acute indigestion. This healing was the result of a mental reaching out to grasp the support of ever-present spiritual Truth.
Christ Jesus called attention to the unwavering, loving trust found in the thought of little children when he said (Mark 10:15 ), "Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein."
A young member of a Christian Science Sunday School had there learned of God's protecting love. His mother's loving care had impressed his thought with a satisfying picture of the practical meaning of God, who is Love. This enabled the child one day to say convincingly to his ailing mother, with effective healing result: "Why, Mommy, you can't be sick. God won't let you."
This loving quality of thought, nurtured and protected by wise parents, will grow and ripen through the years of maturing thought and may ultimate in the purposeful desire to heal the sick and awaken the erring as our Master did. Jesus illustrated this possibility in his parable of the mustard seed and its development.
Christian Science is today bringing to those of mature years the leavening quality of love which the Master commended in little children. With this childlike love, the mental horizon of adults is enlarged to include spiritual attainment beyond any expectations based on material sense.
Spiritual qualities of thought are the mental steps which one climbs toward a realization of heaven, harmony, here on earth. Membership in a Church of Christ, Scientist, affords one an opportunity to demonstrate good a the only reality governing in church activities. Where love is expressed, there may be found the valuable manifestation of understanding co-operation. Moreover, a larger viewpoint is gained it one works with a group.
When love prevails among members, it may be said that the doors of a church are effectively open. Those searching for rest and healing feel the warmth of love and are attracted to it. The Lesson-Sermon, outlined in the Christian Science Quarterly and read at the Sunday services, becomes a beacon lighting the way, and the Wednesday testimony meetings invite further investigation and participation.
To each church member a life of satisfying accomplishment is presented within the organization. Mary Baker Eddy says in the Manual of The Mother Church (Art. VIII, Sect. 15 ), "God requires our whole heart, and He supplies within the wide channels of The Mother Church dutiful and sufficient occupation for all its members."
Many who were, perhaps, merely searchers for Truth and Love become so appreciative of the good received that they too desire to serve others. Accepting the call of Love, they begin to devote their time to helping and healing others. This demonstration of love and unity within a church prefigures the demonstration of Love in the universal brotherhood of men.
The consistent reflection of thought qualities which truly represent the divine becomes possible because it is "the spiritual sense, and not the material," which "conveys the impressions of Mind to man." These words of Mrs. Eddy's occur in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." The entire sentence reads (p. 214 ), "When it is learned that the spiritual sense, and not the material, conveys the impressions of Mind to man, then being will be understood and found to be harmonious."
In Mrs. Eddy's address to The Mother Church in 1895 is found helpful counsel for those who desire to help mankind awake to the actual truth of spiritual being. She says in this address (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 110 ), "Beloved children, the world has need of you,— and more as children than as men and women: it needs your innocence, unselfishness, faithful affection, uncontaminated lives." And she concludes, "What grander ambition is there than to maintain in yourselves what Jesus loved, and to know that your example, more than words, makes morals for mankind!"
