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WHY ARE YOU STUDYING?
[Of Special Interest to Young People]
To human sense one must gain, through varying methods of education, the knowledge necessary for carrying on his business or pursuing his life purpose. Some young people find difficulty in remembering facts, in segregating and classifying them so that they may be stated concisely and accurately in the classroom or in examination papers. Consecrated study and application of Christian Science solves this problem.
A student in one of our large universities, finding to his dismay that he was failing to receive satisfactory grades in his classes, asked a Christian Science practitioner for help. Christian Scientists often find the answer to problems in a statement of spiritual truth given in the writings of their Leader, Mary Baker Eddy. In this instance the student was asked to turn to this statement in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy (p. 536): "The divine understanding reigns, is all, and there is no other consciousness."
What a reassuring fact! The all-knowing Mind, the all-wise God, infinite intelligence, governs the universe. All that can ever be known is already known to Mind; and man, the manifestation of Mind, reflects what God knows. God is ever conscious of His own completeness. He includes all and is ever expressing His ideas through man, His image and likeness. Therefore nothing exists outside of true consciousness, and individual man recognizes his completeness as God's reflection. If fear and confusion seem to deprive us of the ability to express what we have learned through earnest study, let us identify ourselves more clearly as the understanding expression of divine Mind. Then we shall find that fear and confusion disappear from our human experience.
"Why have you chosen the particular subjects you are studying?" the practitioner asked. "What is your goal?" The young man stated that his war experience had shown him the breadth of the field of a certain type of work and that his deep desire was to champion justice. It was pointed out to him that although this was a laudable human motive, it would be helpful for him to refer to Paul's inspired advice to Timothy (II Tim. 2:15), "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."
The young man began studying earnestly with this motive uppermost in thought. Each morning the prayerful study of the Lesson-Sermon in the Christian Science Quarterly preceded his preparation for classes. With the realization that he was understanding and remembering what he had studied, he gained a glorious sense of hope. To understand and retain in thought what he read or heard became normal to him. A change occurred in his work in the classroom, recitation periods became happy experiences, examinations were fearlessly taken and successfully passed. The fruits of his right study were apparent to students and instructors.
When this student gave grateful and joyous acknowledgment of this progress to the practitioner she explained that in his earnest study of the Lesson-Sermon he had been developing spiritual sense instead of anxiously striving for material knowledge. He had been studying Christian Science, which our Leader defines (Rudimental Divine Science, p. 1), "As the law of God, the law of good, interpreting and demonstrating the divine Principle and rule of universal harmony."
Daily study and application of the revelation of Christian Science brings growth, however, and immediate results, seen in greater freedom and harmony and in more joyous accomplishment of all that may be demanded of us. In accordance with this law of God, which is the law of ever-unfolding good for all of His children, we can individually evidence the truth of our Leader's statement (Science and Health, p. 298), "Spiritual sense, contradicting the material senses, involves intuition, hope, faith, understanding, fruition, reality."
Each must ask himself, "Why am I studying?" The answer should be that he desires increased spiritual understanding. In reality we are divine ideas, inseparable from the all-perceiving Mind, which is God. Our real business and life purpose is to learn to express and reflect God and His all-inclusive knowledge of good more fully, and in this way to awake to the consciousness of perfect life in Spirit. With this purpose ever before us we find improved human relationships, greater capacity for retaining and evidencing good, better health, and more harmony. Thus we learn to prove that understanding is divine, that God governs our universe, and that in our true being we are conscious only of good.
May 2, 1953 issue
View Issue-
"THE HAPPY GRACE OF GENTLENESS"
WILLIAM MILFORD CORRELL
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SQUARED AWAY ON OUR TRUE COURSE
JULE GIMBEL
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HOW CAN I LEARN CHRISTIAN SCIENCE?
DOROTHY HUNT SMITH
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DISPELLING DISCORD
D. MURIEL SAVARY
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ACHIEVING TRUE EXCELLENCE
WILLIAM AUBERT LUCE
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ON GAINING A BETTER CONCEPTION OF GOD
GWENDOLYN M. L. THOMAS
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WHY ARE YOU STUDYING?
BEATRICE E. LEE
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HOREB DAY
Myrtle Daugherty
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SPIRITUAL SERVICE
Richard J. Davis
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TRUTH TRIUMPHS
Helen Wood Bauman
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FROM ANNUAL REPORTS OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE COMMITTEES ON PUBLICATION
with contributions from Bert Moyer Blackwell, Dorothy Alderson
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The Psalmist wrote (Ps. 45:1)...
Clifford Harold Blatchley, Jr.
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Words fail to express my heartfelt...
Bessie Florine Meyer
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Christian Science came into my...
Bertha Rivers-Thompson
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I am deeply grateful to God for...
Clara L. Lawson
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The life of our beloved Leader,...
Dorothy Carr
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"To those leaning on the sustaining...
Edith K. Tincher
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In Genesis we read that God...
Lucia Abbott Meyers
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On page 304 of Science and Health...
Gertrude Row King
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I wish to express my deep gratitude...
Florence C. Sutherland with contributions from J. Charles Sutherland
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"Beloved, let us love one another...
Mabel W. Dortch
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Signs of the Times
with contributions from Taylor G. Bunch, Dwight D. Eisenhower, J. Elmer Baird