THE UNITY OF SCIENCE

FRANK P. EBERMAN

As one advances in the thought of Christian Science, he becomes more and more impressed with a sense of enveloping, inclusive oneness, inexpressibly satisfying to human aspiration. The one demand we intuitively make on the truth is harmony. Any new proposition, before it may take a place in the sacred halls of demonstrated truth, must abide comparison with every other truth of the household. A tittle of disagreement disbars it. Disharmony is a stranger in the entire domain of Truth.

This intuitive demand for unity is common to the farmer aspiring to perfect his herds in conformity to a certain ideal, as well as to the realm of philosophic investigation which would discover the universal cosmic law and unfold the riddle of the ages. The pathos of the situation is felt when we consider the earnest men and women whose ceaseless labors in the fields of "natural" science have failed to place them in touch with the great life of humanity waiting without, imploring, patient, hoping against hope in the newest revelations of microscope, "culture," and scalpel. Sage and scientist, agreeing on the supreme importance of discovering this universal law of life, have pursued the elusive forms of matter from atom to ion and to filmy force, until the "baseless fabric" of this vision threatens to vanish and "leave not a rack behind."

To the Christian Scientist this concept of oneness, which has so cruelly coquetted with human longing despite the love-knots of centuries, comes quickly; and the Christ says, "My reward is with me." Says Mrs. Eddy in Science and Health (p. 467), "The first demand of this Science is, 'Thou shalt have no other gods before me;'" and the Christian Scientist takes this as the lineal, literal, and blood-descended Word of God, traceable in the trial and triumph of every righteous man and woman from Genesis to his Leader. In the light which she has radiated he sees that this God is Spirit, Mind, freed of every animal taint. He has grasped the infinite thought, and the only condition of his advance to infinite possibilities is fidelity to his promise. Nothing but wrong motives on his own part can thwart him.

This idea of Spirit, its oneness and omnipotence, may at first appear as an abstraction, and devoid of determinative quality; nevertheless, it is the "sound of abundance of rain," and although he may have directed an anxious and disappointed gaze many times to an unanswering and brassy sky, yet the "little cloud ... like a man's hand" will appear and grow until its refreshing showers, blessing first the parched places of his starving thought, envelop the whole earth in their benediction, and he finds "good in every thing."

It is the growth of this thought of unity and harmony that puts the Christian Scientist in practical and sentient touch with all human conditions, develops the divine qualities of justice, mercy, wisdom, and goodness, makes his brother's burdens his own, causes him to see in the flesh a common enemy, purifies sense and self, teaches him to seek happiness in doing good, envelops him and the world in an idealism of Love, and endues him with a consciousness before which all evil seeks the oblivion of its own darkness.

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THE UNREALITY OF MATERIAL SENSE

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