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)
* * * * * * * * * *
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)
* * * * * * * * * *

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.

* * * * * * * * * *
For the week of December 22nd through 28th in 2024.
* * * * * * * * * *

Gifts

Written for The Christian Science Monitor
December 22, 1919

AT A season of the year when the making and receiving of gifts occupies the attention of a large part of the Christian world, a little clear thinking about gifts from the viewpoint of spiritual reality will prevent much confusion of thought and direct human love into channels of action that will be truly wholesome, helpful and joyous.
      As the basis of our thinking it is necessary to remember that “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” God is the cause and creator of all. God is Principle, the source of all reality; perfect intelligence, infinite Love, Life itself, with all that it means and all that it really contains, is the gift of God. Man is God’s expression, the child of Spirit, the reflection of Soul. Man does not create anything nor originate anything; he cannot give anything in reality, for all is in God and from God.
      As God is Spirit or Mind, all of God’s gifts are spiritual and not material. Truth and Love are the gifts of God. And as man himself is spiritual, not material, the only gifts that man can receive or have or use in reality are spiritual gifts. In “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” the textbook of Christian Science, by Mary Baker Eddy, we read, in contradistinction to the testimony of material sense, how “Spirit, bearing opposite testimony, saith: I am Spirit. Man, whose senses are spiritual, is my likeness. He reflects the infinite understanding, for I am Infinity. The beauty of holiness, the perfection of being, imperishable glory,—all are Mine, for I am God. I give immortality to man, for I am Truth. I include and impart all bliss, for I am Love. I give life, without beginning and without end, for I am Life. I am supreme and give all, for I am Mind. I am the substance of all, because I AM THAT I AM.” (Pages 252-253.) God’s thoughts passing to man supply every need, and man reflects the divine qualities of Truth and Love. This is the only way that man can make gifts.
      Now the gift of God to His children is a constant, eternal outpouring of Life, Truth and Love. All that man is at all times, all consciousness, all activity, are God’s gifts. And divine Love is not stinted in these gifts. God expresses Himself in His ideas. “All that I have is thine,” said the father to the elder son, in the parable of the prodigal; and so all that God has and is, He gives to His children. There is no limit to the gift of God; humanity’s sense of limitation is due to its failure to see the good that is man’s as the child of God, right here and now.
      It follows, then, that the best gift a mortal can make to a friend is to help him to see and understand the gift of God. Indeed there is nothing else that one can really do for another, for the gift of God is so complete that there is nothing left to give. The only thing further needed is to understand and receive it. And how can a man help his fellow man to know the gift of God? By always thinking of him, not as a material mortal, but as the spiritual, perfect child of God, and in every reasonable way reminding him of this great truth of man’s being.
      Giving a few material gifts at the Christmas time may not be altogether amiss at the present period in the development of human thought, if we remember always what the true gift must be and is. It is often said of a gift that it is not so much the thing itself, but the thought back of it that is to be considered, and it is very important that the thought back of every material gift be our understanding that man, the recipient of all good, is a child of God, and that the gift is a simple, grateful recognition and reminder of this fact. Gifts to the children, as well as those to older friends, with this thought back of them, will be truly gifts of love, for to know man as God’s child is truly to love him, and without this knowledge there is no true unselfed love.
      The material present, however, is not necessary in order to make gifts of love to our fellow-men. The thought alone is the real gift; the present is only the symbol. And in this we see that we are not limited, in our gifts, to those to whom we may make presents. Many a loving heart at the Christmas time has been filled with regret and sorrow at an apparent inability to remember with gifts the many loved ones to whom the thought turns at this time; but to all of these and to all the world we may make the most wonderful gift, the gift that will be of more practical benefit to humanity in supplying its human needs, than any gift that money could buy, the gift of the true loving thought that recognizes the reality of man’s being. God, divine Mind, has given to the world His only begotten Son, the Christ, the Truth, the Saviour of the world, which heals mankind and delivers humanity from sin, disease, and death. And we can, in turn, with hearts full of love and gratitude, reflect the Christ, Truth, in thought and life, thus revealing to our fellow-men the wonderful gift of God. “As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.”
      The usual greeting, “I wish you a merry Christmas!” rightly understood, may be itself an expression of truth and love. Back in the year 1866, alone with God, surrounded by bitter ridicule and human hate, Mary Baker Eddy sent out her loving, healing apprehension of the true meaning of Christmas to a sin-burdened and diseased world,—

“Wishing this earth more gifts from above,
Our reason made right and hearts all love.”
—“Poems” (p. 9).

      The Christian Scientist of today, understanding in a measure the wonder and glory of man’s inheritance as a child of God, may make to others, at all times, the best of gifts, health and peace and happiness through Christ, Truth, and in making these gifts, he himself will receive them.

Nearer, Dearer, and More Real

Written for The Christian Science Monitor
December 23, 1919

THE presence of God is exactly the same whether the just adore Him or the unjust ignore Him, and this is so because God, being omnipresent Mind, is not and never can be absent. Men are generally willing to agree with you that God is omnipresent, if you do not trouble them to give a proof of His presence. An assertion, however, that cannot be substantiated is meaningless. Proofs of the allness of God are particularly repugnant to mortal mind, because they necessarily involve the destruction of mortal mind itself, which claims—what is obviously impossible—an existence apart from God, or external to infinite Principle. The human mind is inclined, indeed, to content itself with a superstitious worship of an unknown God, as Paul observed concerning the devotions of the Athenians. He deprived unenlightened belief, however, of excuses, when he said, “Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.”
      Nothing can be nearer than God, who is all-inclusive being, in whom, as Paul continued in his discourse at the courts of the Areopagus, “we live, and move, and have our being.” He is equally near to all; that He ever appears to be nearer to some than to others is due entirely to different degrees of perception of spiritual fact. “He is near to them who adore Him”, Mrs. Eddy writes on page 4 of “Unity of Good.” “To understand Him, without a single taint of our mortal, finite sense of sin, sickness, or death, is to approach Him and become like Him.” A man approaches God, who is always present, not through some event, or some outward act, but by changing the basis of his conception of being from matter to Mind. The nearer a man approaches God—which is equivalent to saying, the more a man abandons his materiality—the freer he becomes from finite mortal limitations; he enters into a diviner sense of existence and of the unlimited possibilities of Mind. He discovers, in short, that the spiritual is present and actual for God is “a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off.”
      A finite human sense of trust in God, or Principle, may bring temporary consolation, but the nearness and allness of God must be scientifically understood in order to remove the obstructive material beliefs which make matter seem to be nearer and more real than Spirit is. Christ Jesus said to his disciples, “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you”; and, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” This nearness of the Christ is possible, as Jesus constantly endeavored to make plain, because Christ, the spiritual idea of God, is never for a moment separated from God. If Christ is always with men, it is because God, divine Principle, is everpresent. “I and my Father are one,” was the definite statement of spiritual unity by which Christ Jesus revealed man’s inseparability from God. As human faith in God unfolds to spiritual understanding of Principle, the true adoration is awakened which inspires the endeavor to become like God; and the abandonment of mortal imperfections, one by one, as they are exposed as unrealities, and the finding and expressing of man’s true nature, is dependent upon and contemporaneous with the discovery of the nearness and allness of God and of man’s likeness to Him. “To gain a temporary consciousness of God’s law is to feel,” as Mrs. Eddy writes, “in a certain finite human sense, that God comes to us and pities us; but the attainment of the understanding of His presence, through the Science of God, destroys our sense of imperfection, or of His absence, through a diviner sense that God is all true consciousness; and this convinces us that, as we get still nearer Him, we must forever lose our own consciousness of error.” (Unity of Good, p. 4.)
      A man becomes like that which he most loves, which most occupies his thought. His ideas of Deity inevitably mold his character. This is equally true of the so-called unbeliever, of the worshiper of a supposed corporeal deity, or of the one who understands God to be Spirit, or divine Mind. The unbeliever’s attempted denial of the existence of God is nothing more than an acute acceptance of the evidence of the material senses, and this intense belief in the presence and reality of matter narrows and limits the outlook and capacities of him who entertains it. The equally material belief that God is corporeal is an inconsistent attempt to mingle Spirit with matter, good with evil; and from this basis of duality, confusion enters into every avenue of thought. The man who understands God as Principle sets his affections on the things of the Spirit and not on the things of the earth, and the effect of his spiritual love is found in the increasing conformity of his thought and conduct to the demands of Principle. His better understanding of divine Love dispels his fear of material discords, or the belief that Spirit is absent, and he overcomes them; he proves the nearness and allness of God, and his progress out of materiality, or separation from God, is exactly commensurate with the increasing purity of his conception of divine Love. “To ascertain our progress,” as Mrs. Eddy writes on page 239 of “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” “we must learn where our affections are placed and whom we acknowledge and obey as God. If divine Love is becoming nearer, dearer, and more real to us, matter is then submitting to Spirit.”
      The human being either struggles within and consents to his materiality, and suffers the illusive consequence of his belief and indulgence, or struggles against his materiality and suffers for it only until it is destroyed. It is never through the senses, the lusts and pride of the flesh, that man gets nearer to God and therefore to his true nature as a son of God; but by subordinating the senses, a man more definitely experiences the presence and actuality of spiritual good. During the conflict with material sense, God may seem at times afar off; but divine Love is never nearer than when the things of the earth are losing their attraction and, therefore, their seeming reality. According to a man’s fidelity in turning from the material to the spiritual basis of being, does he find rest in the realization of God’s nearness and love. From her own abundant experience, Mrs. Eddy declares, “An increasing sense of God’s love, omnipresence, and omnipotence enfolds me. Each day I know Him nearer, love Him more, and humbly pray to serve Him better.” (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 174.)

Lay Not Up for Yourselves

Written for The Christian Science Monitor
December 24, 1919

THE saving habit inaugurated by the government of the United States as a war-time necessity and ardently kindled by the fires of patriotism, has, judging from outward appearances, burned itself out, and from its ashes there arises, Phœnix-like, the bird of extravagance, tempting the nation to indulge in a riot of spending and to soar on wings of prodigality to heights hitherto unknown. Fortunately this fleeting bird, when correctly classified as to order, genus and species, is found to be as whimsical and imaginary as its legendary mate. That a situation akin to covetousness should prevail in the land as an after-the-war climax, might be expected when we consider that the human mind is prone to be an extremist. As a forced draft of steam starts a tremendous pressure in a boiler, even so the forced economy of recent years creates a similar disturbance in the human mind, and, when released, expands until the extreme of tension is exchanged for the extreme of relaxation. Thus the economy of yesterday has become the extravagance of today. “Economy,” writes Anthony Hope, “is going without something you do want in case you should, some day, want something which you probably won’t want,” an epigram which illustrates the attitude of the popular thought, for, after going without certain so-called necessities for a period, there are people today who are recklessly acquiring the luxuries which they probably “won’t want” when reason adjusts itself more in conformity with the activity of right thinking.
      Frenzied expenditure, like a bubble, destroys itself by over-inflation. Since time began the errors in human consciousness have comprised the element of self-destruction. History records that the pride and pomp of temporal power and idolatry, upon reaching the crest of the wave of intolerance, is dashed to pieces upon the shore of progress. The Scriptural narrative covering the destruction of Babylon with her worship of the golden cup of luxury, terminates significantly, “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen.” From the prodigal waste and wanton display in the reign of Cleopatra, from the Bacchanalia of ancient Rome, to the demoralizing luxuriousness of the court of Louis, the Well-beloved, the handwriting on the wall of time is ever the same: “All is vanity.” Tradition and fact warn us that “the triumphing of the wicked is short.” History repeats, history teaches, but history fails to reform by its example, and so today, in the signs of the times, we observe the chrysalis of economy emerging from its shell a butterfly of extravagance. The only difference between this modern example of extravagance and its ancient expression lies in the visible aspect, but while this progressive age may tend to lessen the material accompaniments of evil which dominated the age of despotism, still the inherent tendencies in human thought continue now, as of old, to sway mankind toward the worship of mortal gods.
      When Mrs. Eddy gave to a waiting world her revelation of Truth which is embodied in the textbook of Christian Science, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” she furnished a practical religion which assures a complete salvation to all mankind. Christian Science not only heals sickness, destroys sin, and overcomes death, but it also establishes harmony in man’s relationship with man and in nation’s intercourse with nation. Through the operation of divine laws which are based on perfect Principle, Christian Science establishes man in his rightful place as an idea of God, good. This it does through the holy influence of Truth, elevating the human consciousness from the beliefs acquired from false education, to a better understanding of God, Principle, and this understanding produces in mankind a preponderance of right thinking. Mrs. Eddy, while teaching her followers the demonstrable fact that, “Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need” (Science and Health, p. 494), has established a rule of conduct which, if universally adopted and applied to the affairs of men, will usher in that “peace on earth” so sincerely desired by all. In the “Manual of The Mother Church” (p. 77), she writes: “God requires wisdom, economy, and brotherly love to characterize all the proceedings of the members of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist.” Mrs. Eddy’s marvelous selection of words by which she elucidates scientific truths, is unparalleled in the history of literary expression. That she places the word “economy” by the side of wisdom, proves it to be a member of the association of divine ideas.
      True economy, if spiritually understood and practiced, exterminates the folly of covetousness and all the evils which follow in its train. One of the pearls of speech delivered by the Master in his Sermon on the Mount would, if obeyed, lighten the way for those groping in the mist of idolatry, for he says: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” As Jesus taught the folly of accumulating material things, so Christian Science is teaching the thinkers of our day to turn from worldliness and seek to know the imperishable nature of the things of Spirit. It advocates the doctrine that it is more profitable to give than to receive. “Giving does not impoverish us in the service of our Maker, neither does withholding enrich us.” (Science and Health, p. 79).
      When a man, instructed by Christian Science, learns to know the true meaning of substance as “the evidence of things not seen,” he realizes that substance is spiritual and not material. He awakens to the fact that, as a child of God, man possesses all spiritual ideas by divine right of sonship with the Father, the creator of all good. All wisdom, substance and power, emanating from God as the only source, man has. He is constantly at the fount of all wisdom, in the midst of all substance, at the apex of all power. Thus man, supplied with all good, lacks nothing. Perceiving this fact through spiritual understanding, man loses the false desires of the flesh, realizes the unreal nature of matter, turns to Principle for instruction and guidance, and receives the holy benediction, “This is my beloved son.”

Noel

Written for The Christian Science Monitor
December 25, 1919

YESTERDAY, and today, and forever, the whole of true activity is born of Mind. That simple fact is the eternal Christmas message of Christian Science to all humanity. Just to be aware of it is a blessing. One who states and proves it afresh to the listening world finds a new-old spiritual joy in such words as those of the pre-Elizabethan carol, by an unknown versifier,

“Nowell! Nowell! Nowell! Nowell!
Tidings good I think to tell.”

      For one must indeed think and understand in order to tell this news of the Messiah’s continuous nativity. And the very knowing that the divine Mind is the only possible cause for one’s being conscious is gladsome understanding.
      The word “Nowell,” “Nowel,” or “Noel,” to give the variant spellings, is simply an interjection of joy used in the carols of the middle ages. It comes probably from the Latin, meaning nativity or birth, and has later developed into a synonym for Christmas. In the carol just quoted it precedes and follows, as a sort of ecstatic refrain, each stanza of a song on the boar’s head that adorned the feast. It need not, however, be associated with any barbarity of mere eating and drinking. Certainly a sumptuous spread of matter is not an adequate celebration of the spiritual fact that indestructible idea is divine Love’s only and everpresent offspring.
      When the birth of Christ Jesus came to be observed as a special day with mummery, feasting, and splendor generally, the “Lo, I am with you alway,” ceased to be a present reality to the multitude. Thus the nativity slipped back into a remote yesteryear of churchiness, with a vague possibility of a mystic return on a still more distant tomorrow. Christian Science alone shows that, apart from any ecclesiastical sense of things, all one knows of unfolding good is as the glad expression of Mind. The natal hour of Truth is ever going on right now and here.
      Never was the true birth a making of something out of nothing. It could not have been a strange gift from a personal Jehovah of some sort of animation to matter, so that a small body might grow into comparative greatness. Nor could it be living matter arising solely from living matter. Really there never has been any such thing as animated matter, or matter at all, for the only provable knowing or living is the being conscious which emanates wholly from divine intelligence, quite apart from any supposition of biogenesis.
      Bildad was speaking of the material dream product when he said to Job: “We are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon earth are a shadow.” Having heard many such things, however, and having found miserable comfort in them, Job clung steadfastly to the truth he was sure of: “I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.” It remained for Mrs. Eddy, however, to demonstrate that what God knows of the latter day exists as the unlimited day of the present. Reducing to nothingness any surmise about the universe as matter, Mind’s idea stands forth as spiritual creation.
      Continuously idea is produced and sustained by its cause, the divine consciousness, without any lessening or increase. The forever unchanging activity of the one Mind is the Messiah which was before Abraham. From any belief in an opposite it saves men, for whole consciousness with its action is all there is. The right doing of divine Love is, therefore, the saviour in whose unceasing birth the I AM is glad. This doing, which is knowing, preserves and is preserved from ignorance or not doing. That is the completeness of salvation. What really is protects from what is not, never has been, and never could be, in Truth.
      No wonder, then, that Mrs. Eddy should declare in “Christ and Christmas”:

“Yet wherefore signalize the birth
Of him ne’er born?
What can rehearse the glorious worth
Of his high morn?”

      To celebrate the unremitting presence of the Christ requires no mere gifts, either from sentiment or from duty, one day a year. Divine Principle is forever giving. Suppose one does buy and send out sweet little cards with ready-made or made-to-order phrases that may or may not be true. Surely that is at the best a poor indication of one’s being awake to the perpetual morning light which is the actual liberator and comforter. Gratitude for the nativity just once a year is as bad as paying one’s debts only on the first of January. The infinity of appreciation, whether it be called gift or payment, must be daily and hourly.
      With the recognition that the day of the Lord is as a thousand years, indeed is infinite and full of good, there can be no sense of regretful loneliness for anyone on any day. Running an elevator or a street car with genuine good cheer may well be more acceptable to God than laying off work to gorge oneself on matter with an aftermath of torpidity. To have the true yuletide feeling without limit is man’s daily opportunity. In fact the essence of service is to show forth the radiant happiness of Noel on every occasion.
      So we see that the meaning of Christmas cannot be perceived through the physical senses. Divine intelligence is evermore giving birth to right activity. As Mrs. Eddy says, though not of any December holiday, on page 158 of “The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany,” “We live in an age of Love’s divine adventure to be All-in-all. This day is the natal hour of my lone earth life; and for all mankind today hath its gloom and glory: it endureth all things; it points to the new birth, heaven here, the struggle over; it profits by the past and joys in the present—today lends a new-born beauty to holiness, patience, charity, love.” Immanuel or God with us, the divine consciousness with all its smiling joy, that means sure peace of Mind through no matter what seeming.

True Intelligence

Written for The Christian Science Monitor
December 26, 1919

IT IS the common habit among mortals to attribute the success or failure of their fellow to the possession or lack of brains. If a man accomplishes some work of conspicuous value to his fellow beings he is called a “brainy man.” If a man who gives evidence of being intelligent is apathetic and does not succeed, it is said that “he does not use his brains.” If a man seems densely ignorant, then it is said, “he has no brains.” This generally accepted theory that a man’s brain is the seat of his intelligence is a fallacy of the carnal mind, a delusion. Christian Science uncovers this error and declares that the real intelligence of man is divine Mind, or God, and that brain is never the mind of man, but is a counterfeit of true intelligence.
      Mrs. Eddy writes in “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” (pp. 295 and 475): “The theoretical mind is matter, named brain, or material consciousness, the exact opposite of real Mind, or Spirit.” “Man is not matter; he is not made up of brain, blood, bones, and other material elements. The Scriptures inform us that man is made in the image and likeness of God.” From these denials and the statement of the origin and nature of man it follows that it is Mind which thinks and not a material brain; also, that mental power in man is not measured by brain standards. Do men think of Lincoln, Shakespeare, or Luther as having been men of brains? Do not thinkers who generally estimate men on a corporeal basis think of these great characters as having been men of wisdom and affection? Their memories are revered because they manifested far more than one can possibly conceive as having been the products of brain intelligence. In the fact of such a test the theory of intelligent brains commences to lose its insecure hold on thinking men, in some measure proving it to be a weak theory. If further challenged from the standpoint of divine Mind, as revealed in Christian Science, the theory melts into nothingness, for it has no logical or demonstrable basis on which to rest.
      The adherents of anatomy and physiology have constructed a theory of a major brain in the head of mortal man, cooperating with minor brains in the body, the three most important being called the thoracic, solar and lumbar plexuses. Systems of nerves are supposed to be the means of intercommunion between these brain centers. These systems are called the sympathetic, supposed to govern the harmonious action of all the organs of the body; the sensory, governing the feelings; and the motor nerves, which are said to govern all muscular activity.
      Physicists who adhere to this theory of major and minor brains in head and body as intelligence believe that the brain is the seat of all consciousness which, they claim, embraces sensation, emotion, volition, judgment and ideation. Millions educated in, or influenced by, these beliefs of physiology accredit thinking power to the organs and nerves of the fleshly body, and disease and suffering inevitably follow faith in these errors.
      Notwithstanding the plausibility of these theories and the apparent confirmations of them which can be adduced to the material senses, none of the theories of intelligence in the flesh can truly be called Christian, because they are contrary to the teachings of Jesus. He said that the flesh profiteth nothing, and that there is no truth in the offspring of material sense. Therefore any theory of mind in the fleshly body is no value to a man, either to regulate his bodily conditions or to insure his peace of mind. Mrs. Eddy writes: “Such theories are evidently erroneous. They can never stand the test of Science. Judging them by their fruits, they are corrupt.” (Science and Health, p. 204.)
      If brains, a pulpy mass with a supposed fleshly organism all growing in power for both good and evil through education and experience, constitute the intelligence of man, when mortal man dies his intelligence would die also. How can we escape the conclusion that if brain is intelligence, and brain perishes in the inevitable return to dust, the intelligence of man must also perish? If this were true it would follow that man perishes completely in death, for it is a belief generally admitted that a man is the sum total of his thoughts. The fallacy of this theory appears when we see that it locates mind in the brain, and yet this mind or intelligence is dominated in theory by the brain itself; for the theory declares that the ability of this intelligence to utter thoughts, to work, and even to live, depends upon the material conditions of the brain. All such theories about brain as the center of individual intelligence would lead mortals into chaos, for they have no rational basis, and would rob mankind of all hope in immortality and heaven. To all questions engendered by the disquieting influence of theories which locate mind in brain, Christian Science alone furnishes answers which are positive and satisfying. This Science declares that “There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all.” (Science and Health, p. 468.)
      This revealed truth can be demonstrated in harmonious results; whereas the theory of brain intelligence never can produce health or happiness. This true idea disposes of all theories and delusions about brain, supplanting such errors with the fact that God is the only Mind, or infinite intelligence of man, wholly good, ever-present, all-powerful, and comprehending all wisdom. Therefore, in Christian Science, man as the image of God has an ever-present Mind, sufficient for every need, governing all things harmoniously, and always ready to bless and protect him.
      Finally, let it be remembered that in Christian Science Mind is Love, and its manifestations of intelligence through man are found in a pure charity that is not afraid to uncover and destroy evil; in goodness, steadfast morality, honesty, kindly sympathy, peace-making, joy,— all the virtues of Christian humanity.

Prayer

Written for The Christian Science Monitor
December 27, 1919

THERE are few things in the whole of the New Testament more wonderful than Jesus’ teaching with respect to prayer. He dealt with the whole question with a simplicity and directness which must have been almost blunt to the generation in which he lived. The old pagan world was as great in praying as was the Puritan and in this particular the Jews were not very different from the Gentiles. Jesus himself summed up in one scathing sentence, this formal and selfish ideal of prayer. “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” he said, “for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.” Jesus’ own ideal of prayer was, of course, something quite apart from this. “Therefore I say unto you,” he said, “what things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.” Such an ideal could hardly have been expressed more perfectly, in the language of the West, than it is by Mrs. Eddy in her entire chapter on prayer, in Science and Health, and in particular in that often quoted sentence on the first page of the chapter: “Desire is prayer; and no loss can occur from trusting God with our desires, that they may be moulded and exalted before they take form in words and in deeds.”
      Prayer, then, to be pure must be the result of pure thought. The Greek hero of mythology praying to a god or goddess more impure and more animal than himself, could hardly be expected to conceive of a desire less than entirely material. When he did it was the outcome of some strain of spirituality in the mind of a poet rather than anything in the history of Olympus. But this was at least the robust animalism of a purely animal age: the Pharisee, using prayer as a cloak for wrongdoing, and as a parade of righteousness, was further from the kingdom of heaven. Only, indeed, as men began, in Christianity, to perceive that prayer must originate in self-discipline could prayer become efficacious in its largest sense. This prayer was, of course, the vision of the Christ. It was before Abraham, just as it was present at the crossing of the Red Sea and on the day of sacrifices on Mount Carmel. But it did not reach its meridian until the star of the wise men stood still over Bethlehem, on the night when the angels sang, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” There was the quintessence of prayer.
      In order to pray, then, with any metaphysical perception, some understanding of Principle is an absolute necessity. The Greek, of the age of Homer, praying to Zeus or Aphrodite, was praying to deities in whom his own animal passions were indefinitely magnified; and thus, praying with his human mentality, human intelligence gradually became his summum bonum, his greatest good. The Hebrew, hedging himself about with ceremony and tradition, developed a materialism, not so much of passion as of formulas, until at last the evidence of the physical senses became his be all and his end all. And thus it was that Paul, with true philosophic insight, wrote to the Corinthians, “For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishess; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” Had not Christ Jesus declared that the only way a man to become his disciple, a seeker, that is to say, of the Christ, was to “deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me”? This manifestly constituted the desire which was prayer, a prayer or desire for something quite different from the evidence of the senses or the satisfaction of the flesh.
      Prayer, consequently, is something far more than words, though it may be expressed in words, as in the Lord’s Prayer. It finds its greatest expression in the atonement, in the effort the individual makes to be at one with Principle. For it is manifest that a man can never be at one with Principle, who, having prayer for guidance, remains headstrong and rebellious when Principle points him to a road he has not selected for himself. The very essence of prayer is self-surrender. Jesus made this clear to the ages in his struggle in Gethsemane, when he “kneeled down, and prayed, saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.” The very travesty of prayer is, on the other hand, surely, reached when a man, having prayed for guidance, turns from the guidance when it comes to him, and plunges in stiff-necked disobedience down the road of his own choosing which he has selected from the first. This is the very repudiation of demonstration, the denial of the leading of Principle, and can only lead to suffering, until every yard of the journey made in this temper is retraced.
      A man who has embarked upon this course of self-will must be forever planning how humanly to achieve his end instead of being content to let Principle lead him. The one lesson he will never learn will be that of the Psalmist, “Be still, and know that I am God.” To be able to be still, amidst the surging passions of the world is for a man to prove that he has learned to pray aright, that, as Mrs. Eddy says, in the passage already quoted, he has learned to trust God with his desires and to accept the decision of Principle. Then he will begin to be able to understand prayer as taught by Christ Jesus, and as summed up by Mrs. Eddy, on page 16 of Science and Health: “A great sacrifice of material things must precede this advanced spiritual understanding. The highest prayer is not one of faith merely; it is demonstration. Such prayer heals sickness, and must destroy sin and death. It distinguishes between Truth that is sinless and the falsity of sinful sense.”

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