Footsteps Of His Flock®

Tell me, O thou when my soul loveth, where thou feedest,
where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one
that turneth aside by the flocks of they companions?
If thou know not, O thou fairest among women,
go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock,
and feed thy kids beside the shepherds’ tents.
(Song of Solomon)
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The ways of Christianity have not changed. Meekness selflessness and love
are the paths of his testimony and the footsteps of His flock.
(Rudimental Divine Science by Mary Baker Eddy)
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THIS COUNTRY IS A TRUE REPUBLIC

“With regard to the election (for president), it is simply the test that this country is once again putting itself as to whether America is really the land of equal opportunity, which is the true Republican ideal, or the Democratic concept. Equality would reduce all to a common level, whereas equality of opportunity lifts all to the very highest if he will avail himself of the opportunity to go forward. I cannot go into this subject fully because it is far reaching . . . This country is not a Democracy; it is a true Republic.

Letter written 12/7/1932 by Herbert W. Eustace.

Water of Life

Written for The Christian Science Monitor
November 3, 1916

IT WAS on the last day of the feast, after the priests, having filled the golden beakers at the pool of Siloam, had poured the water upon the altar at the hour of the morning libation, that “Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.” The Pharisees had heard with alarm the people’s opinion that when Christ should come, he could do no greater miracles than this man of Galilee had done. And now his own words were equivalent to a declaration of his Messiahship, for, to borrow Paul’s later phrase, the fathers “drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.” The Pharisees, jealously guarding their station, resented the attention which, as they thought, Jesus was attracting to himself. They failed to perceive that he was referring to the Christ, “the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive.” Nor did their acerbity relent when, presently, the man blind from birth, returned, having been healed of his blindness as he had walked in faith and obedience to the fountain whose waters the priests had consecrated to rite and ceremony. This man tried to tell them of the high tide of spiritual power which had surged into his consciousness, through Jesus’ ministration, bearing away the blinding belief of material birth and inheritance. “If this man were not of God,” he reasoned, “he could do nothing.” “And they cast him out.”
Now the older Scripture, with which these teachers were perfectly familiar, abounds with metaphorical reference to water. There is, indeed, no element in the natural world which could be employed with greater appositeness to symbolize the power and purity of Principle, and the scientific effect of Truth upon the human consciousness. In such a country as Palestine, where there was probably but one perennial stream, and not too many fountains, water was a matter of chief concern. Failure of water easily became a figure of adversity, and wells and springs came to be the symbol of comforts and blessings. God is called “the fountain of life,” and “wells of salvation,” was the type of the anticipated redemption of Christ. “Theology”, writes Mrs. Eddy on page 203 of “Miscellaneous Writings,” “religiously bathes in water, medicine applies it physically, hydrology handles it with so-called science, and metaphysics appropriates it topically as type and shadow. Metaphysically, baptism serves to rebuke the senses and illustrate Christian Science.”
Sprinkling with “clean water,” was still another prophetical metaphor indicating the purification which should take place when Christ’s kingdom should come. Because of this expectation, when the Baptist appeared, “all men mused in their hearts of John, whether he were the Christ, or not.” Even the Pharisees came to him, and by so doing, gave this brusque prophet opportunity to rebuke the hypocrisy of the carnal mind which was ready to appropriate any selfish benefits which might be derived from the Christ, but which evaded the inward purification which it was the whole purpose of the Christ to bring to the human consciousness. When Jesus submitted to the rite of baptism at the hands of John, he expressed a compassionate willingness to teach the truth through the symbol which the people could comprehend. But, the symbol being completed in him, it was now subordinated to the actual submergence in spiritual understanding from whence arose his divine power to dissolve the claims to reality of the carnal mind and its impurities as manifested in sin, disease, and death.
Now it is just this submergence in spiritual understanding which uncovers the nothingness of the human mind and its manifestation, matter. Jesus illustrated this fact at the marriage feast in Cana. He knew that the material mentality which projects its own manifestations and names them matter, sees those manifestations change as the human mind itself is subordinated to the Mind of the Christ; and these changes are, as he showed, always in the direction of Principle, and so of more harmonious manifestation even in human affairs. He proved, that is to say, in a way appreciable to the human mind, the change which spiritual understanding produces upon human belief, a change to which Mrs. Eddy refers when she writes on page 123 of Science and Health, “Divine Science, rising above physical theories, excludes matter, resolves things into thoughts, and replaces the objects of material sense with spiritual ideas.” By changing the water into wine to meet a human need, Jesus actually gave to the human consciousness a draft of the “water of life,” a loving assurance, in just the degree that the recipients were capable of drinking in the evidence that divine Mind and its reflection is the only substance and reality.
So again in that nocturnal discussion with Nicodemus, Jesus declared that it was the inward baptismal of spiritual understanding which alone could purge away the entire belief of material birth and death. He likened this change through which consciousness enters into the kingdom of God, to being “born of water and of the Spirit.” It is this distillation by the “Sun of righteousness,” if the expression may be used, this drawing up of consciousness from the impure deposits of sensuous belief, that heals humanity of its death in matter. The power of this “water of life” in action, the understanding of pure Mind, had cleansed the lepers, allayed the fever, and dissolved the sinners’ bonds. And it was this water of Life that quenched his own final thirst in that moment of supreme mortal anguish on the cross when Jesus cried out to Principle for more of its outpouring to bear away the last claims of carnal mind. The spiritual understanding of Jesus’ words and works is the cup of cold water which Christian Science offers to humanity in Christ’s name. “It is this spiritual perception of Scripture, which lifts humanity out of disease and death and inspires faith. ‘The Spirit and the bride say, Come! . . . and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.’” (Science and Health, pp. 547, 548.)

Patriotism

Written for The Christian Science Monitor
November 4, 1916

EVERYONE knows the story which Plutarch tells of Socrates. How when he was asked what country he was of, he replied, “I am neither a Greek nor an Athenian, but a citizen of the world.” The epigram has been quoted so often that it has become banal with repetition. Yet the reply is something more than a glorified expression of cosmopolitanism. It is, perhaps, the first recorded statement of true patriotism. It would be peculiarly interesting to know how metaphysical Socrates really was; whether, that is to say, Plato actually understood him, or whether Platonism began with the disciple, whose partial inarticulateness was the result of a partial failure to understand. However this may have been, Socrates’ own metaphysics must, in any case, have been those of a relative material plane, for the all-sufficient reason that they were never translated into practice. The first truly metaphysical, because entirely absolute definition of patriotism, came from Jesus of Nazareth, when he declared, “And there shall be one fold, and one shepherd,” and Jesus demonstrated through the miracles how this was to be brought about.
This, of course, is the very antithesis of the ordinary idea of patriotism, for, as Mrs. Eddy has written, on page 129 of Science and Health, “If you wish to know the spiritual fact, you can discover it by reversing the material fable, be the fable pro or con,—be it in accord with your preconceptions or utterly contrary to them.” Now the ordinary human view of patriotism was put, exactly, in a famous speech by Stephen Decatur, in the era of Napoleon Bonaparte, to be precise in the year following Waterloo: “Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong.” So completely, indeed, did this express the view of the man in the street, that it has lived for just a hundred year in the common saying, “My country, right or wrong!” and is still altogether virile.
Now unless patriotism can be expressed as the extenuation of evil, Decatur’s appeal must be dismissed as the immoral, for his definition was simply the preferring of the unbridled human will to the divine command. The doctrine of the pagan philosopher was clearer than that of the Christian sailor, though, even if the former did realize something of the material nothingness of the kingdoms of this world, he only substituted for their physical might, the might of the “mortal minds” of his Latin successor, Ovid. It took the founder of the religion of the Christ to see alike the nothingness of matter and of mortal mind, and to give to humanity the first glimpse of real patriotism in the opening words of that marvelous prayer: “Our Father which art in heaven.”
It may be difficult for a country bred on the politics of this or any other century to grasp the fact, that there is no more patriotism in supporting wrongdoing by a government or a people, than there would be in assisting an individual to disregard the Golden Rule. Bacon had some perception, even if a limited one, of this when he wrote, “If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world.” This graciousness and this courtesy are, of course, a first step to doing as you would be done by; and if once a nation should embark on the effort to live up to the Sermon on the Mount, it would discover the true sense of patriotism. Patriotism is commonly defined as a man’s zealousness for his country’s right. But inasmuch as it must be obvious that the rights of one country cannot metaphysically be the wrongs of another, a new definition of patriotism becomes a necessity. True patriotism, then, aims at the federation of the world, for when statesmanship really concentrates its aims on the efforts to secure nothing but the rights of its country, there will remain no opportunity or excuse for doing wrong to any other country.
Until, however, the nations begin to understand Principle, it will be quite impossible for them to obtain the scientific outlook preliminary even to such a consummation. Principle, it must be admitted, is the sustaining cause of all things. It is what Jesus the Christ termed the Father of all things. Consequently, the Lord’s Prayer, truly prayed, first by the individual, and then by the nations, would produce that righteousness of thought which would necessarily be reflected in a righteousness of action, which would in turn, manifest that zealousness for a country’s rights, which is patriotism metaphysically understood. It is, then, an inevitable scientific fact that the country which knows most of Principle must be the most patriotic because it is the most scientific; and it will demonstrate this patriotism not materially, in force, but spiritually in accomplishing those works which Jesus the Christ did, and in this way it will eventually make not force of arms but a knowledge of Principle or God, a sure defense.
Physical force may conceivably seem to make not only a sure defense for a nation in a perfect access of wrongdoing, as it did for Spain in the Low Countries, for France in the Palatine, or for Russia in Poland, but positively to incite it to such a course, by reason of its sense of security. Spiritual understanding, on the other hand, would give it that mighty power of protection which Elisha experienced when the horsemen and chariots of the King of Syria compassed about Dothan, and yet when his servant looked “the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.”
In spite of this the ordinary man commonly desires support just as much when he is in the wrong as when he is in the right. A certain European statesman, indeed, once cynically declared that anyone would stand by him when he was in the right, what he wanted was friends to back him when he was wrong. The individual is, of course, only the microcosm of the nation. What the individual calls loyalty to a person the state calls loyalty to the country, in other words patriotism. This is only another way of stated the Decatur maxim in fresh terms, but it is, nonetheless, typical of the world’s topsy-turvy conception of one of the most splendid virtues of the human race. “Brave men and worthy patriots,” wrote Milton, “dear to God and famous to all ages.” If then the world has only one Father which is in heaven, then heaven is the country of Spirit. This is surely what Paul meant when he told the Christians of Philippi that their conversation was in heaven, for the Greek word hero translated conversation means citizenship, and conversation is but an archaic rendering. True patriotism then is not a doubtful assertion of the rights of a flag; it is the zealousness for Principle which constitutes the citizenship of heaven.

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There were no CS Monitors printed on Sunday November 5th in 1916.
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Exactness in Truth

Written for The Christian Science Monitor
November 6, 1916

WHEN Shakespeare wrote, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so,” he must have had a clear glimpse of the great metaphysical fact underlying all phenomena, namely, that everything must first exist as thought: in other words, a thing must be thought of before it can be expressed. If this be true, then, in order to get at the reality of all things, it must first of all be necessary to obtain a metaphysical viewpoint. “Metaphysics”, Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health (p. 269), “resolves things into thoughts, and exchanges the objects of sense for the ideas of Soul.” Paul, also, evidently had this in view when he admonished the Romans to “be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.”
Properly considered, the whole problem confronting mankind is to prove what the will of God is, and as we examine the Scriptures we begin to see that the experiences therein related, the experiences of Abraham, Moses and the prophets, of Jesus and his disciples and apostles, were all for the purpose of bringing humanity into a clearer understanding of the fact that since God existed, it was possible to ascertain the exact nature and character of God and, when this was ascertained, the fact of the existence of God and His will could of necessity be demonstrated.
So far as the human mind is concerned, all reasoning is based on the assumption that a certain viewpoint is true. If a thing is assumed to be true and then evidence is gathered and examined in the attempt to prove the truth of the assumption. But no matter whether a thing is true or not, no matter whether it exists or not, so long as one accepts the assumption as truth, he is governed by that acceptance and, to that one, it is true even though from the point of scientific fact the thing which he has accepted as true has no existence whatever. Thus, if a child should accept as true the assumption that two plus two equals three, he accepts that which has no existence as a mathematical fact.
The great difference between Columbus and those who mutinied was that his assumption was based upon a relative reality, whereas theirs, while probably equally sincere, was based upon ignorance and a superstitious dread of the unknown end, to their unreasoning terror, unknowable. Of course so long as Columbus had the courage of his convictions and persisted in acting upon their assumed truth, because his theories were supported by facts, he was able to ascertain these facts and demonstrate their truth: hence the discovery which not only revealed the American continents but at the same time revolutionized the theories and practices of navigation. Thus in the twinkling of an eye the world ceased to be a plane and became a sphere. And yet this fact had always existed! It seems as, if it was waiting to be thought of in order that it might be expressed.
It is certainly the fact that the exact truth exists about anything and everything and, this being so, it must be the fact that this exact truth can be ascertained and proved. However, the first step toward ascertainment and demonstration is the admission of the existence of the truth,—one can never know the truth until he thinks it exists and thinks he has the ability to ascertain what it is, and thinks he can demonstrate its existence. Christian Science teaches that because God is, the exact truth about God is, and consequently it may be ascertained and proved. Now the one point to be considered is, that God is exactly and only what He is, and, in the endeavor to ascertain what and where God is, it must be kept in mind that all thought must conform to the exact facts, or else it is not possible to know God: in short, one must think of God as He is and then one can begin to have evidence, signs, which “follow them that believe.”
From all this it is evident that the only hope of salvation from all that is not absolutely true is to discover the truth as it really is, and then to make thought conform to it. The Bible teaches us that God is “a God of truth” and Jesus, Jeremiah, Paul, and John speak of God as “the true God.” Those who are called Christians universally acknowledge that if and when it is possible to gain an exact knowledge of God, it is possible to gain an exact knowledge of Truth, because God being all, He must be Truth. Jesus spoke of God as the Father and he taught that “no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” If Jesus was able to define God in a manner which could be understood, it must be apparent that he was able to ascertain that God existed, and, it is equally apparent, he had some source from which to gain his information. Undoubtedly this source was what he refers to as “the scriptures” and is now known to us as the Old Testament. It was his intimate acquaintance with the contents of the Scriptures which not only enabled him to clearly define God but also to refute the false theological arguments of the rabbis.
If we would follow his example and know Truth as he did, we must obey his admonitions, for said he: “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life.” “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Jesus searched and pondered over the Scriptures; he thought he could find eternal life and the event shows that he succeeded, for he demonstrated the eternality of Life. If his followers would ascertain and demonstrate the existence and nature of the truth, they also must search the Scriptures. This, Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, did, and the world is enriched by her efforts. Part of the results of her labors is a commentary on the Bible, which she named “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.” With this Key the student may unlock the treasures of the Bible, and, little by little, by right reasoning, reach an exact knowledge of God and the consequent demonstration of the truth of being.

Truth Endures Forever

Written for The Christian Science Monitor
November 7, 1916

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE teaches that Truth can actually be known by mankind. In answer to the question: What is Truth? Christian Science never hesitates in its reply. It proclaims that God is Truth: and it follows that it is exactly as Truth is known that God is understood. Moreover, Christian Science is very particular to draw the clearest distinction between that which is absolutely true and that which is relatively true. Whatever is true about God is absolutely true; whatever is true concerning the relationships incidental to human existence is only relatively true. For example, a man might be asked if he saw the moon last night; and if he had seen it, and said so, then he has told the truth about the simple incident; but this truth is relative, referring as it does to the phenomenal. All relative truth is analogous to this. It refers at all times to incidents of the phenomenal, to relationships directly connected with what mortals name matter.
Absolute truth on the other hand is the truth about God; and absolute truth has nothing whatever to do with the phenomenal or the so-called material. It is the outstanding feature of Christian Science teaching that it is altogether faithful to God; it ascribes to Him His rightful place in His own universe. Now God is infinite; and since God is Truth, Truth is infinite. Further, God is Mind or Spirit: hence Truth is identical with Mind or Spirit. It follows from the fact that God is infinite that Truth must be eternal, because infinity embraces the idea of eternity. In other words, Truth endures forever. Christian Science, however, does not leave the question there, it brings it down to the level of human affairs. It holds that the truth about God is the greatest thing a man can know, the most powerful factor that can enter his life to mold it into ways of rectitude and to lead it into paths of peace. And this comes about by the destructive blows which the truth deals to every form of error which finds a lodgment in the human mind. As Mrs. Eddy states on page 129 of Science and Health: “Truth is ever truthful, and can tolerate no error in premise or conclusion.”
Consider how the truth denies certain of the erroneous beliefs of the human mind. Take, for instance the belief that matter is real. If the majority were asked whether they considered matter to be real, they would say, Certainly, it is the most real thing there is; for do not all the physical senses tell us of its existence; does not the eye see it, the finger touch it, and the ear hear the sounds it produces? But Christian Science flatly contradicts all such material sense-testimony, and calls it without hesitation mortal error. And what basis has Christian Science for its boldness? The basis of absolute truth. Even the natural scientist has reasoned matter away to such ethereal dimensions that he himself can hardly recognize it nowadays except as a changing mode of energy. And he will readily admit that the material senses give only a purely relative concept of what they recognize as matter, a merely superficial appreciation of something which it is utterly beyond them to explain. Christian Science takes one right back to reality at once. What does the absolute truth declare? It declares that Mind or Spirit is infinite. And what follows from this? That Mind of Spirit alone is real. Matter (so-called) has therefore no real existence; or as it is stated in Christian Science, matter is mortal error. When this truth reaches the human consciousness it seems to many to take from them all they had ever pinned their faith to. Does it not rob them, they ask, of nature with its beauties of hill and valley, river and sea; does it not destroy for them the singing bird and the wonderful flowers that sweeten with fragrance the atmosphere and gladden the eye? No! Truth is ever-lasting, and nothing real can ever be destroyed. The divine Mind is ever expressed in the spiritual idea, and the ideas of Mind are omnipresent because Mind is infinite. What the human mind counts real, the material bird, blossom, river and sea, are the poor counterfeits of the real spiritual ideas of these which exist in Mind. But, think, if the counterfeits of the real appear to mortals wonderful, beautiful, even at times sublime, what must the realities be like? As the false belief that matter is substance gives place to the spiritual understanding that Mind is the only substance, the human consciousness will give place to the real man, the spiritual reality, and it will be found that only that which is erroneous can at any time be lost. “Truth cannot be contaminated by error. The statement that Truth is real” Mrs. Eddy writes on pages 287-288 of Science and Health, “necessarily includes the correlated statement that error, Truth’s unlikeness, is unreal.”
Christian Science shows that the false belief that matter is real carries with it innumerable beliefs equally erroneous. Thus the belief of sickness is closely connected with the supposition that matter is real. It is a very prevalent notion that the mentality of men is to a great extent at the mercy of matter. Men believe that what are called material laws act upon the material body and, in some way that cannot be explained, the body acts upon the mind producing the inharmonious condition called sickness. Christian Science brings absolute truth to bear on the situation and says that because Mind is perfect no trace of inharmony exists as reality anywhere; and as sickness is an inharmonious mental condition, sickness has no real existence and is therefore nothing but an erroneous belief of the human mind. Now, while Christian Science declares the absolute truth about disease, none of its adherents can be unsympathetic towards suffering humanity. Indeed, the whole effort of Christian Science is devoted to the alleviation and the extermination of the sorrows and distresses of the human lot. But it does this, not by admitting the reality of them in the absolute sense, but by scientifically bringing to bear upon them the truth which is eternal. What hope would there be for the world if the myriad beliefs which afflict it were spiritual facts or realities? None whatever, for no reality can ever be destroyed. Each and all of them would have its origin in God and be, in consequence, eternal.
“Truth is God’s remedy for error of every kind and Truth destroys only what is untrue. Hence the fact that, today, as yesterday, Christ casts out evils and heals the sick.” (Science and Health, pp. 142-143.) When Jesus sojourned on earth he healed the sick and enabled the sinner to forsake his evil ways; and he did both through Christ, Truth. No one ever knew better than he the eternal nature of Truth, and no one therefore ever knew better than he the temporary nature of error. Nothing can be more helpful to remember than the spiritual fact that Truth endures forever, and that as Truth is spiritually understood mortal error vanishes into its limbo of nothingness.

Attempting the Impossible

Written for The Christian Science Monitor
November 8, 1916

IN SPITE of a lamentably disastrous experience covering some thousands of years, the majority of mankind still persist in attempting the most impossible of all impossibilities—if one may put it so—that is, to run a copartnership between good and evil. If this statement were challenged on the ground that no one thinks that these two opposites can be made to work together, the reply simply would be that facts speak louder than words. These facts, presented as they are in the lives of men, are undeniable. They include a belief in the reality of evil as well as of good. This, of course, in turn, necessarily leads to the confident assumption that they are both part of creation—God’s creation—and that they must continue to exist side by side, or be interwoven in the universe of Spirit and matter, throughout all eternity. Any suggestion that evil, with its deadly products, should ever be destroyed, would thus never be entertained. As for even hinting that evil has no real existence, that it is in fact only an illusion of the mortal or material senses, or a phenomenon of the carnal or mortal mind, and that therefore it should never be placed in the same category as good,—the very idea would appear to be too absurd to be considered for a moment.
Now this train of thought if pursued would lead to a mental cul de sac, simply because it starts from false premises. It assumes that God, who must be absolute good, made something which is not good; something, call it what you like, which by its presence, influence, and operation in the universe, leads to sin, sickness, wars, woe, despair and death. It assumes that a perfect God made an imperfect man and an imperfect world; that though He is Spirit, He created matter or the flesh; that though He is Truth, He is responsible for error. Is it to be wondered at that mortals, in their pursuit of happiness, when they are landed into such “confusion worse confounded,” become perplexed and hopeless? What else could be expected? Ordinary wisdom and understanding seem to be completely barred by this chaotic method of reasoning. You can no more in this way find out what life, peace, success, victory and satisfaction mean, and how they are to be secured, then you can solve a problem in Euclid without accepting the axioms of Euclid, or do a multiplication sum except on the basis that two times two make four. And yet that is the very thing that mankind tries to do, unconsciously, if not always consciously. This is symbolized in the allegory of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It is utterly in vain to assume that anything that God made could produce two diametrically antithetical results; and therefore when mortals tacitly accept, the dual concept of creation, they fail to reach the goal which every right-thinking man looks to as the ultimate of his being.
The clearest impossibility that ever was defined in a few words is that which fell from the lips of Christ Jesus when he declared that no man can “serve God and mammon.” There is no bridging the distance between these two. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit,” he said on another occasion, and thus emphasized the truth for which he lived—that God, Spirit, as divine Principle, is and can only be the creator; and that He is not responsible for the supposed presence or existence of something, called the flesh, which mankind knows is profitless, and which, therefore, is on the same plane, as a mortal phenomenon only, with the rest of matter and all that matter stands for. The Apostle Paul expressed this truth in the familiar text, “For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.” And if we turn to the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health (p. 356), we find one of many correlative passages in that volume in the words: “There is neither a present nor an eternal copartnership between error and Truth, between flesh and Spirit.”
The average man may probably say: “Of course not, we know that there is an irreconcilable difference between them; the gulf dividing them is impassable. Therefore we never attempt to cross it.” But, what the average man says, and what he does, are often very different. To accept a statement of truth as a mere academic utterance is one thing; to practice it is another. You cannot, if you would, we say, amalgamate Truth and error, Spirit and matter; they will not cooperate or intermingle. That being so, and remembering the evil nature of the fruits of the flesh or matter as compared with the beneficent, peaceful fruits of the Spirit, the course which every man should steer is apparently so obvious that a mistake on his part is scarcely possible. What, however, do we find?
It is in the light of Christian Science that we are enabled to discern the error that has led mankind into a whole series of disasters. This Science is perfect in its premise, and therefore perfect in its conclusions. Its fundamental premise is, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”; that is, before God, who is Spirit, the only cause and creator. It unfolds the truth of spiritual creation and spiritual man, as alone real and eternal, and it teaches that the kingdom of heaven or harmony is a state of mind that is man’s normal condition. Man in fact is the inheritor of that kingdom. The human mind awakes as it learns the truth of man’s real selfhood. But false thought, which finds its strongest point in the belief of life and intelligence in matter, attempts to create another kingdom—another condition of mind. There it is assumed that matter is also real and eternal; and believing this, the human being trusts it, and as he does so, finds that it produces nothing but misery and woe. For matter and evil are alike in this—that neither are divinely created: they are illusion putting forth pretensions that mislead and, to mortal sense, establishing a mental method of satisfying the needs of mankind which, when put to the test, is a miserable failure.
One may illustrate this by seeing now the mental condition known as sickness is treated by the majority of humanity. It would not be unnatural to expect that as Christ Jesus, the Founder of Christianity and his immediate disciples, healed the sick, the lame, the blind and the dumb, relying wholly upon God, using no material means, that Christendom would follow his example. Then the possible would have been achieved. As it is, the impossible is attempted. The popular method of healing is to look upon man as material, and treat sickness and every abnormality as something that belongs to matter and can only be cured by matter. Christian Science does the very opposite. It unreservedly trusts Jesus as the great Wayshower; as he who knew more about God and man than any other man that ever lived, and thereof as he whose example is for the good of mankind. And so Christian Science healing is a spiritual operation; it is the demonstration of the healing power of Truth. Therefore it achieves the possible, because the possible in this respect is only attainable by spiritual means.
Moreover, Christian Science heals sin in precisely the same way. Sin is erroneous thinking. Let a man once gain sufficient understanding and he will not sin. Let him believe that matter and mind can commingle; let him look to the material rather than the spiritual for power to overcome the error of sense; let him think that so-called material laws have claims upon him equal to the law of God, and he will meet with disappointment. Life problems of every kind can only be solved on the basis of God first and God all the time. “We cannot”, says Mrs. Eddy in her textbook (p. 182) “obey both physiology and Spirit, for one absolutely destroys the other, and one or the other must be supreme in the affections. It is impossible to work from two standpoints.”

Man as Effect

Written for The Christian Science Monitor
November 9, 1916

WHEN Christ Jesus said, as it is recorded in the Gospel of John, “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise,”—he summed in that one statement the whole of Christianity, and the full teaching of Christian Science. He announced, in fact, the Science of Christianity, the method of its operation, its rule, its process. More than a profession of faith, greater than a religious belief, true Christianity is simply the presence and power of God to be expressed in human living. The way the presence of God is to be expressed, or demonstrated, to help mortals, is set forth exactly in the words of Jesus,—that “the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do”; and is restated by Mrs. Eddy when she discovers man to be the effect, or consequence, the result, the constant sequent, outgrowth, offspring, handiwork, reflection, of God, and this effect spiritual and mental, but not physical.
For “effect” is true to its original; shows forth whatever is in its original; and holds no element not derived from the original. Indeed, “effect” expresses the direct repetition of the divine nature in man, for effect is really the result of the cause expressing itself. Mrs. Eddy writes upon page 207 of the textbook of Christian Science, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures”: “The spiritual fact, repeated in the action of man and the whole universe, is harmonious and is the ideal of Truth.” Effect, or direct consequence, indicates the trueness, if we may so put it, the actual likeness, of what is expressed to that which expresses it,—of man and the universe to its creator, God. In contemplating man as the effect of God, we glimpse man as likeness and image of God (as Genesis records creation), and can rest in the logic of revealed Truth concerning God and man.
Not for a moment is the man who is effect to be confused with the matter, sin, disease, and death, which falsely calls itself man. Christian Science does this great service to the thinker—it cuts clearly away from man, by correct classification of Spirit and matter, all materiality; and strips materiality of all mistakenly assumed right to call itself man, or to call Spirit its father. It reveals only that which reflects God as being truly man, and exposes as the direct counterfeit of man, whatever is not this reflection of divine Mind, God. It can be said without fear of contradiction that while Jesus plainly said Spirit and flesh were direct opposites, the theology of the twenty succeeding centuries has been confused on that point; for it has taught universally that God made the man material and that this matter was the “image and likeness” of God, who is Spirit. Now comes Christian Science, departing from every theological statement extant, and returning to the New Testament teaching for the purity of revelation—that the effect of a First Cause who is Spirit, can be only spiritual; that this spiritual idea is man, the real man; and that matter is not man at all.
So Christian Science separates, as did the Master, the flesh from the Spirit. And this not just in theory, but literally, practically, for constant demonstration of the power of Spirit over the flesh. Consider this question of man as the result of God; that because God is, man is. Nothing can be so practical, so workable, as a means of overcoming evil with good. God is divine Mind—the original and only source of true thought; this divine Mind is everywhere present, all powerful, and, filling the universe with itself, with its own spiritual processes, must exclude from real existence every supposition of anything unlike itself. Then, whatever knows as divine Mind knows, whatever sees as Spirit sees, whatever acts as God acts, is the effect of the spiritual cause, God. And Christian Science teaches us that this, and nothing less than this, is man, the real spiritual man. So then, the mortal who accepts this revelation to be true has the shining standard of perfection. God and His perfect idea, unveiled to him mentally. He can compare with this perfect spiritual understanding the materiality, carnality, destructives, and general undesirability of his former material ways of thinking. Nothing but his own mental laziness can hide from him the divine effect; nothing but the love of sin can hinder the choice of the right idea. So he can “put off” as the Apostle Paul stated it, the undesirable and imperfect, and “put on,” by changed thinking, the right idea or effect, which constitutes the real man.
And the process is simple and clear. Christian Science tells us, practically, that all there is of a man is his thinking. Change the thinking and you change the man. To illustrate simply, note the difference of face and posture arising from benevolence or greed, love or hate, security or fear. Now Christian Science has discovered that the entire condition of mortal man, including his bodily functions, is the output of thought; that the ill conditions of accident, poverty, sickness, death, are mental before they are physical, either in general or personal belief. The supposition is that the emotions which change the face or the attitude play upon and derange the functions as well; and the general educated beliefs of evil act upon the entire race, bodily as well as mentally. In a word, the material man, with his sins and sicknesses, his false pleasures and pains, is a wrong thinker and his body is included in his thought. The bodily experience will be according to the quality of his thought. All of this is supposititious, however, for none of it touches the divine Being or His expression. The man who is the effect of spiritual causation is unchanging, is eternally perfect, eternally harmonious. And the very simple rule of salvation is to let this immortal man and manhood shine in understanding to the undoing of the man of the carnal mind.
So, he who wants salvation must begin right now to know himself spiritual instead of material; God-like instead of human; the effect of all that is divine, instead of a compound of all that is mortal. In Truth, man is now and always, perfect, spiritual, immortal. And Christian Science reckons him so, and, from this standpoint, refutes and denies and eventually overcomes all that would say man is material. There are not two of man, one spiritual and one material. There is one of him, the spiritual reflection; and the opposing sense of man which says it is or has sinning mind and physical body, is a false statement about man, putting forth its false phenomena as man. From this Christian Science strips its pretenses. So, if you are letting Christian Science teach and guide and heal and deliver you, you are lifting your thought to know man as the effect of divine Mind, and escaping step by step, from the counterfeit sense of existence involved in matter. Spiritual experience, the blessedness of goodness, will satisfy you; and material beliefs will less and less allure or distress you.
Kindness, patience, courage, unselfishness, honesty, meekness, purity, are the human footsteps that hint the idea of God. Absolute spirituality, of course, and nothing less, is real reflection or idea. But he who knows man spiritual and the image and likeness of God, at once manifests the graces of Spirit as a better human, for he is silencing the voices and quenching the appetites of matter, and the divine idea can more and more shine through his thinning human beliefs. Upon page 515 of Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy writes, “All that God imparts moves in accord with Him, reflecting goodness and power.” The Son reflects what he sees the Father do. And this is man.

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