Followers of Christ Jesus were known as disciples, a word meaning student, and from the time Mrs. Eddy first taught a single student Christian Science, Christian Scientists have been known as students.

The term "student," as used in Christian Science, is accurate. By definition the word means one who studies, and the student of Christian Science fulfills this definition through consistent, daily, and prayerful study of his infinite subject.

Whether he sets aside hours or moments for careful study of his textbooks, the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mrs. Eddy, he is, if sincere, one of those "honest seekers for Truth," to whom Mrs. Eddy commits the pages of Science and Health. She says in the Preface to that book, "In the spirit of Christ's charity,—as one who 'hopeth all things, endureth all things,' and is joyful to bear consolation to the sorrowing and healing to the sick,—she commits these pages to honest seekers for Truth." ^{Science and Health, p. xii;} Later in the same book, in answer to the question "How can I progress most rapidly in the understanding of Christian Science?" she says, in part, "Study thoroughly the letter and imbibe the spirit." ^{p. 405;} It is the understanding of God and of himself as His image and likeness that the student seeks, for he has discerned that what he spiritually understands of the nature of God's creation determines every phase of his human experience.

In speaking of her book Science and Health Mrs. Eddy makes this statement: "The earnest student of this book, understanding it, demonstrates in some degree the truth of its statements, and knows that it contains a Science which is demonstrable when understood, and which is fully understood when demonstrated." ^{The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 112;} Occasionally we hear it said that an individual has the letter but not the spirit, or the spirit but not the letter. It is not enough to have one and not the other. Both the letter and the spirit are needed. They go together, as does understanding and practice, seeking and finding.

The Christian Science student does not study merely to learn statements that he may repeat without a realization of their meaning and that he does not apply to his daily living. This would be as unthinking as for a student of arithmetic who has learned that two plus two is four to continue to use in daily practice a number other than four as the sum of two and two in solving arithmetic problems. He studies to learn so that he may use what he learns in solving the problems presented to him.

In stating the Principle and rules of Christian Science, Mrs. Eddy sought and chose her words with discriminating understanding of their meaning. Students of her works must seek this same exactness in understanding what she has written if they are to demonstrate Science progressively. Sometimes a better understanding of a single word to which we may have given superficial attention through many readings will illumine a passage for us. Sometimes a careful search, with the aid of Concordances, for everything Mrs. Eddy has said on a given subject will result in fresh unfoldment.

The student of any subject makes the most rapid progress who daily approaches his lessons as a willing beginner, no matter how long he may have studied; and as we study the letter with this same receptivity, we are not far from the spirit.

To return to our illustration of the student of arithmetic, what would be thought of one who approached his study with a collection of preconceived opinions and theories and sought only to have these confirmed? I once heard a man, with the delight of a beginner, speak about the fresh understanding he had gained of one line of the Lord's Prayer. It is significant that this man had been a consistent student of Christian Science for more than fifty years. Our subject being infinite, there is always something new to be learned.

Occasionally when a longtime student turns to a practitioner for help in solving a problem that has not yielded to his own prayerful work, he may be given a statement to ponder which he feels he knows so thoroughly that he does not need to give further thought to it. But may not this be just the time to be a willing beginner and seek a deeper understanding of the message and its meaning? May not this be just what is needed to solve a problem?

There may appear in the students experience periods when his daily study of his textbooks seems to him to be uninspired. Sometimes he may feel that he is just reading words and approaching his study more as a duty than as an eager search for new unfoldment. In the face of such negative suggestions the honest seeker continues his prayerful, systematic work. At such a time, as one goes obediently forward, one may be gaining more than he is aware of at the moment.

Probably every student at some moment of sudden need has had flash into his thought words from Science and Health or the Bible that he did not even realize he knew. But he has read them, and now they come with understanding of their meaning and meet his need.

The student of Christian Science never retires, never graduates. The more he glimpses of the vastness of his subject, the more he feels that he is just on the threshold. In a spiritual sense he does not go through beginning grades as does the student of academic subjects. The youngest Sunday School pupil who learns, for example, that "God is love" ^{I John 4:8;} may know that exact, accurate truth as well as does the one we call an advanced student.

The student in academic subjects often must unlearn things as well as learn them. It is not different with the student of Christian Science. He may find that he has been accepting human opinions as spiritual facts. Christ Jesus said, "Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved." ^{Matt. 9:17.}

At one time the writer planned to write a metaphysical paper on a subject she felt she understood well. She began her work by jotting down some of the leading points she wished to bring out. But as she began to develop these points, the work became laborious and she found it more and more difficult to find supporting statements in the textbooks. Finally it became clear to her that her understanding of the subject was based on human reasoning rather than on spiritual premises. When she saw this, she put aside what she had written and made an earnest study of Mrs. Eddy's teaching on the subject. The resulting paper was quite different from the one she had thought she would write, and she had gained in spiritual understanding.

In her published writings, Mrs. Eddy has a great deal to say of, and directly to, her beloved students. Is she not speaking to us?