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Christ Jesus' cup!" On the other hand, if we know the letter and lack the spirit, we are not realizing the full joy of demonstration. Mrs. Eddy writes, "Whosoever learns the letter of Christian Science but possesses not its spirit, is unable to demonstrate this Science; or whosoever hath the spirit without the letter, is held back by reason of the lack of understanding. Both the spirit and the letter are requisite." 1

Christ Jesus studied the words of the Old Testament writers and often quoted them, beginning, "It is written . . . ." Yet his life, which expressed meekness, forgiveness, and compassion as the humble Nazarene, also demonstrated his potent unity with the Father throughout his career.

The result of meaningful study is to find more ways to express our unity with God, perhaps to let go of selfishness, gain patience, throw off prejudices. Progress in healing and character improvement will naturally lead us to further study of our books for a higher understanding of God, His universe, and man. And studying the letter helps us imbibe the spirit. Each enriches and builds upon the other, and the result is spiritual progress. Just as Jesus' life was an example for all mankind, our spiritual progress can be an example for our family, friends, and associates.

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Study, healing, and living aright all meld inseparably as we strive toward our goal, the development of spiritual sense. Mrs. Eddy tells us, "Spiritual sense is a conscious, constant capacity to understand God." A conscious, constant capacity! If we are faithful in our efforts, the development of spiritual sense is always going on in our thinking. If we are thinking spiritually as we read our Lesson-Sermon, if we are expressing earnest desire as we pray for understanding to overcome a specific problem or go about our daily chores at home or office, then we are developing our spiritual sense.

Mrs. Eddy specifically tells us how to control our thinking. For example, regarding the treatment of disease, she writes: "Stand porter at the door of thought. Ad

mitting only such conclusions as you wish realized in bodily results, you will control yourself harmoniously. When the condition is present which you say induces disease, whether it be air, exercise, heredity, contagion, or accident, then perform your office as porter and shut out these unhealthy thoughts and fears." We should not let unhealthy thoughts get their foot in the door of consciousness even in the slightest to relate their story. We should never admit evil thoughts as real or analyze them. As soon as their claims are known to be ungodlike—and spiritual sense tells us this— we should bounce them out! We are not stuck with our thoughts. We can control them and take charge mentally. As we do this and know that God and His image is the All-in-all, a healthy body will result from our healthy thoughts.

Now, being familiar with the above mental and spiritual treatment of disease is the result of our study. The proof of this method is demonstrated whenever necessary, not just when our books are handy. However, if we are not consistent in expressing love and spiritual consciousness, we cannot expect to experience quick, harmonious results. Hence the development of spiritual sense depends on study and demonstration, tested by spiritual living consistent with each of these preparatory

steps.

Holding our thought in accord with God prepares us for healing. In our daily affairs, as we strive to express what we understand, healings often take place even though we have done no specific metaphysical work. Jesus said, "It is the spirit that quickeneth." Also, "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” 5

Healings are naturally experienced by those who understand Jesus' words in their spiritual context. Paul understood, for he wrote to the Romans, "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." Paul was healed of blindness after being led by the Spirit, and later of the bite

of a snake.

People have been healed of various maladies as they glimpsed the powerful nature of this same Spirit, God, simply by reading Science and Health. Some of their testimonies are documented in the chapter titled "Fruitage" in that book, and others are also published in the Christian Science periodicals. As we go about our daily duties, living and expressing the same Spirit that Jesus spoke of and Paul wrote about, our circumstances bear witness. Anything that is inconsistent with God must fall away and disappear as our spiritual sense is quickened.

This awakening to spiritual reality does not come all at once. It is a steady unfoldment as our living and healing bear witness to our learning. There is no shortcut to this understanding and fulfillment. However, there is something we can do that, above all else, leads to an increased comprehension of the letter or law and that forms the basis for further spiritual development. Our "lab work" is to love

more.

Jesus was asked, "Which is the great

commandment in the law?" He gave two: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind" and "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." Jesus then said, "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."" We "worship him in spirit and in truth" as we bring the letter of these laws into our consciousness and gain proofs of our understanding by loving God and man at all times.

In ordinary course work a teacher oversees our progress, judges our understanding in relation to others, and grades the result. In Science, no one keeps a score, measures us as retarded or advanced, or stimulates competition. Our individual progress is measured by demonstration, by our prac ticing from a deeper understanding. We must strive at all times to prepare our thought for this progress by living the truths learned in our study. "Both the spirit and the letter are requisite.”

1 Miscellaneous Writings, p. 195; 2 Science and Health, p. 209; 3 p. 392; 4 John 6:63; 54:24; 6 Rom. 8:14; 7 Matt. 22:36-40.

The Stone That Wasn't There

DOROTHY K. MCCURDY

Several years ago at the New York World's Fair many people "saw" a stone that wasn't there. Approaching a display at the Christian Science Pavilion, visitors were invited to pick up a stone apparently lying on a table. They would then discover that what looked like solid form was only an image of light and color. The purpose of the display was to show that the material senses often give deceptive impressions.

Mankind feel many hindrances to enjoyment of life, health, and happiness. Like the image at the fair, these can be found. substanceless. Happily, they can be proved

illusory through one's learning to demonstrate Christian Science, which teaches one how to see beyond mere appearance to spiritual fact. Through understanding this Science one finds that circumstances ordinarily assumed to be outside his control have no power of themselves to rob one of his well-being. In Christian Science one learns that it is not primarily a condition that needs changing in order to experience harmony but his own thought about the condition.

We are accustomed to optical illusions of various kinds; however, we are not always

so alert to the deception of the sense of touch, or feeling, although if we consider it, we can perhaps recall being so deceived. The writer was once deceived by a feeling of pain that indicated a cavity in a tooth. It was then discovered that there was no cavity and no physical reason for the pain, which quickly disappeared when a sense of anxiety was overcome through Christian Science.

Mrs. Eddy recognized that the sense of touch, or feeling, is no more reliable than the other senses. She saw that it is very important to health and well-being to question and oppose quickly the validity of what physical sensation would describe as bodily conditions, doing so on the spiritually scientific basis that the real man, the image of God, is not material and cannot be deceived. She says in Science and Health: "The sick unconsciously argue for suffering, instead of against it. They admit its reality, whereas they should deny it. They should plead in opposition to the testimony of the deceitful senses, and maintain man's immortality and eternal likeness to God." We can reject the seeming reality and power of disease or suffering because God, who is good and creates all, could never create anything opposing Himself. With God-given intelligence we can deny physical evidence because we have some understanding that what the senses convey is only a material view and so is an impossibility according to God's spiritual law.

" 1

The evidence of character faults is also illusory, although these cannot be glossed over and ignored. Looking prayerfully through the clear lens of humility into one's own consciousness, one can often

detect a comfortably deluding veil of egotism that is covering self-righteousness, self-satisfaction, or some other aspect of spurious, mortal self. Such unattractive qualities of material ego often project some image of inharmony upon the screen of human experience. Recognizing the trickery of the material senses encourages the uncovering and destruction of such errors hid

ing within thought. Destroyed within, they can have no effect without.

The errors of self-will, self-justification, and self-love form the core of mortal ego, which insists that man is a finite personality having a mind of his own apart from God, a mind he must continually build up, justify, and defend. These mortal qualities do not acknowledge in any way that God, Spirit, is the creator of man.

What is it but the hardness of self-will that causes such acts as speeding on the highways to the danger of many, rebellion against laws established for the protection of all, disobedience to moral and ethical codes, as well as other crimes against mankind?

Self-justification avoids correction, excuses wrong intent, and tries to find logical reasons for the acceptance of evil as

necessary.

Self-love indulges the material body through sensualism of all kinds, leading to many forms of disease and sin. Extreme examples are shocking, but replacing shock with the acknowledgment that the real man is the pure likeness of God, together with disciplining our own thought in this regard, leads to healing and acts as a defense for the individual.

Mrs. Eddy saw the paramount need to nullify belief in the reality of this false ego. She writes, "In patient obedience to a patient God, let us labor to dissolve with the universal solvent of Love the adamant of error,-self-will, self-justification, and selflove, which wars against spirituality and is the law of sin and death." 2

One definition by Webster of the noun "adamant" is "an imaginary stone of impenetrable hardness." How uplifting it is to realize at once that the seemingly hard, unyielding qualities constituting material selfhood are imaginary! They have no more substance than the stone at the fair had. Our work, therefore, is not to destroy some hard reality but to see the unreality of "the adamant of error," let divine Love show us the goodness of our true selfhood

as God's image. Then the evidence of some discordant experience disappears because its foundation is gone.

Christianity acknowledges Christ Jesus as the most successful healer who ever lived. He is rightly known as the Way-shower, for his recorded healings yield clear lessons. When Jesus asked the man at the pool of Bethesda, "Wilt thou be made whole?" the man answered, "Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me." To this patiently waiting man it obviously appeared that circumstances he could not control prevented his healing. He must have been waiting for someone good and kind enough to notice and do some helpful thing about his plight.

His expectancy was rewarded when Jesus came, seeing through and beyond the mortal picture to the original sinless and whole nature of man as the image of God. Jesus saw reality so clearly that his rousing

command, "Rise, take up thy bed, and walk," evidently stirred the man's own thinking to a higher view of himself. Later, seeing the man in the temple, the Master admonished him, "Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee."

Modern man can accept the encouragement Mrs. Eddy offers to sufferers: "Wait patiently for divine Love to move upon the waters of mortal mind, and form the perfect concept.'

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Although the evidence of sin and disease, like the stone at the fair, does look real and solid, what actually fills all consciousness and space is the perfect purity, substance, light, and color of Soul, God. Christian Science, the Comforter, enables one to discover and prove that he already has sinless, diseaseless selfhood as the image. of divine Love and that this selfhood now evidences the lovely transparency, wholeness, and glory of Spirit.

1 Science and Health, pp. 394, 395; 2p. 242; 3 John 5:6, 7; 4 Science and Health, p. 454.

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few moments I suddenly felt I was beginning to "get with it."

This was a humorous and rather pleasant incident, but it serves to suggest how easily different generations can become alienated one from the other, if for no greater reason than a failure to communicate with each other.

Now this does not by any stretch of the imagination imply that we must all adopt the lingo of the younger generation. It does, however, point clearly to the need of our becoming familiar with their ways of expressing themselves, as well as trying to appreciate why the world scene appears as it does to these young people.

It should be made very clear that "getting with it" is by no means a one-way street, but it may be well to remember that the young people have been listening to their elders from the day they were old enough to listen. If they have not chosen to follow the example we have set for them, would it not be reasonable to assume that the model may have left something to be desired? This would indicate the great importance of the so-called elder generation being willing to take the initiative in reestablishing healthy communications with the youth of today.

The first step in establishing better rapport with our youngsters is a greater appreciation on our part of the youthful thought. Man, as the idea of God, includes the qualities of innocence, purity, love, trust, tenderness, and spontaneity. We need to claim these and express them actively. Then we no longer find ourselves separated from this youthful atmosphere but an integral part of it.

On this basis we are "with" our young people. We no longer find ourselves on the outside looking in or the inside looking out but moving together in the spiritual atmosphere where age is not a determining factor.

There is no better place to practice this kind of thinking than in the Christian Science Sunday School. And there is no place where better communication with young people is more demanded.

Teaching in the Sunday School presents a continuing challenge. "The chief difficulty in conveying the teachings of divine Science accurately to human thought lies in this," Mrs. Eddy tells us, "that like all other languages, English is inadequate to the expression of spiritual conceptions and propositions, because one is obliged to use material terms in dealing with spiritual ideas." "1

We can all agree that if our youth are to receive a practical Christian education in the Sunday School, one that will prove relevant and lasting, the teaching must generate a zealous love of God and of

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Another dangerous practice can be that of failing to answer in a direct and relevant manner questions pertaining to some of the more delicate subjects, such as sex, drugs, war, student demonstrations, and so forth. These subjects must be handled, but not in generalities. The pupils should not only become convinced that Christian Science is a religion, or way of life, that can give an intelligent and practical approach to these subjects, but that they can also find for themselves complete satisfaction, joy, companionship, and meaningful employment by living within the divine laws as revealed in this Science.

The solution is for the teacher to answer the pupils' questions in words that can be easily understood and readily accepted. They can be sure of doing this by taking each question to the Father, asking Him for guidance to the right answer. As the teacher knows that the only communicator is Mind, the result will be words understandable to the thought he would reach.

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In what familiar terms Christ Jesus brought his teachings home to his listeners! "There was a certain creditor which had two debtors," he told them. Or he asked the question, "What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one ... ?” 3 Mrs. Eddy says: "Our Master taught spirituality by similitudes and parables. As a divine student he unfolded God to man, illustrating and demonstrating Life and Truth in himself and by his power over the sick and sinning."4

The use of stories or parables in a Sunday School class is indispensable. Nothing helps to make a point clear more than an appropriate story, whether we are teaching the youngest or college students.

While I was teaching a class of high

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