SAMUEL GREENWOOD

[rv.ros...@gmail.com]

THE BEGINNER IN CHRISTIAN SCIENCE.
SAMUEL GREENWOOD


SOME persons when taking up the study of Christian Science with a
desire to begin its demonstration, have a sense of perplexity as to
what course they should pursue. This is often due to the mistaken
impression that there is a secret in Christian Science which must be
learned by the uninitiated in order to become a successful
practitioner. While the healing of Christian Science is the direct
result of prayer in its highest and most sacred sense, it is not at
first easily comprehensible by one whose thought of prayer has not
risen above personal appeals to a distant and changeable deity. This
sense of mystery will vanish when it is learned that Christian Science
is no more secret in its method than is mathematics. Each requires
study and application for the mastery of its rules, but the way is
open for all who are willing to learn. The only initiation required by
Christian Science is the purification of thought and life. Beginning
with the desire for righteousness and purity, and persevering in their
accomplishment, there is nothing to hinder the success of even the
dullest student.

Christian Science is the reversal of all materially educated thought,
for its premise is the infinitude of divine Spirit, the one God, and
its conclusion, the spiritual nature of all created things. Coming
from opposite conditions of thought and training, the student begins
his study in a state of ignorance. This is the beginning of the new
birth, the emergence from material belief into spiritual understanding
wherein mortals first begin to know God and man aright. They can bring
nothing of material wisdom into this new world of Spirit, and they can
take nothing out of it through the sophistries of human science. The
clinging to theories which are the opposite of Christian Science
teaching will not forward one in its understanding, for it is evident
that the incorrectness of material beliefs must be seen, to gain a
scientific knowledge of spiritual truth. This spiritual kingdom,
wherein man realizes harmonious being, cannot be taken by violence,
nor by the intensity of desire to be where we have not climbed, or to
know what we have not learned. Sincerity of purpose and the
willingness to work and wait, will do more for the student than ages
of sighing over difficulties or a lack of understanding.

The way to begin in Christian Science is with the first thought of
Truth which appeals to the learner as reasonable and right, and its
utilization in present experience. The whole trend of Christian
practice is to spiritualize thought, to cultivate the spiritual sense
and dispel the material. The first step towards the demonstration of
Christianity, or Christian Science, is the effort to make practical
even in the simplest degree the supremacy of good over evil, the
spiritual over the animal, in human consciousness. The removal of a
toothache on the basis of perfect God and perfect man is as scientific
and Christian, in its degree, as the healing of a leper or a lunatic.

We begin to prove the truth of Being as we begin to understand, and we
begin to understand as we begin to think truly. The work of the
Christian Scientist is in overcoming not only the results of wrong
thinking, but the wrong thinking itself. The proof of his work is
completed when the wrong condition disappears before the right
apprehension of being, and the correctness of the rule is
demonstrated.

The repetition of formulas, secret or otherwise, is not the method of
this demonstration. The mere saying of words, as a child repeats rules
by rote, even though they may be true, has no efficacy of itself
without the spirit to give them life in the heart and consciousness of
the student. "It is the Spirit that heals the sick, and the sinner
that makes the heart tender, faithful, true" ( Mrs. Eddy's letter read
at the laying of the corner-stone of the Concord church).

Those who think to understand Christian Science from the purely
intellectual side, or to bring out its demonstration through some
humanly mental process, will learn through failure that Truth is
spiritually discerned; and that "meekness, selflessness, and love are
the paths of His testimony" (Rudimental Divine Science, p. 31).

It is not the mere thinking about Truth which accomplishes the healing
of Christian Science, but the actual thinking itself of true thoughts.
We are just what we think or what our thinking makes of us. Our
experience reproduces our thoughts in tangible forms. What we think
most about will govern us most whether it be good or bad. The man who
thinks meanness is a mean man and the man who thinks sickness is
making of himself a sick man. And so mortals must learn that if their
physical conditions are not right it is not matter that needs
changing, but the thought.

We are taught in Science and Health that "the reverse of error is
true" (p. 442), so beginners learn at the outset that erroneous
conditions are always false conditions, hence are never true either
before or after their removal. It is evident that suffering and
sinning states do not represent the true idea of God or of man, and
the student starting out to demonstrate what he has learned of the
Principle of Christian Science must not be influenced by such
appearances further than to deny their claim to manhood. Jesus came to
fulfil the Father's will, and he did this by destroying discordant and
sinful conditions which he characterized as the works not of good but
of evil, hence not acknowledged by God. We are also reminded in
Scripture that this same evil, or devil, is a "liar" and "deceiveth
the whole world," and the natural conclusion is that all evil
products, such as disease and poverty, sin and death, are as false and
deceptive as their source.

The truth that God good is All, bases all Christian teaching and
practice, and is the power behind every case of healing in Christian
Science. The student's work from start to finish is the proving of
this truth. He proves it when bad thoughts disappear before good ones;
when wicked desires dissolve in awakening purity and love; when the
discordant sense of man goes out before the growing perception of his
spiritual being; and the unreality of evil is thus far found true and
practical.

The sin and the suffering of the world are denials of the goodness and
power of God (Science and Health, p. 113), and should find no place in
Christian belief. The truth of God's universal presence is not
diminished before the evidence of man's greatest woe. Jesus proved
this evidence false, and so set the example for all Christians. He was
not alarmed at the appearance of disease or even death, because he did
not believe in them, knowing that God is All. The disappearance of
these conditions after his rebuke should have demonstrated for all
time their disconnection with Truth and their unreality in the sight
of God.

Beginners in Christian Science start out with the same truth that
indorsed all our Master's work, and that gave the signs following to
his students. Our work, as was his, is the recognition of every
rightful thing in man and the rejection of whatever opposes God's
kingdom within him.

The words one uses to express thought are not so important as the
thought; and borrowed words do not always reflect the speaker's state
of mind. Words are not always necessary in demonstrating Christian
Science. No verbal treatment was given to the woman who touched the
Master's garment and was healed. But while worded statements are used
in guiding thought aright, it should be seen that they have the
authority of our text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the
Scriptures," and not be picked up at random from other students who
may tell us that we must deny or declare this or that. Science and
Health unfolds the whole truth about error in all its forms; viz., its
unreality; and also the "divine basis" (p. 465), the Allness of God,
on which the student must demonstrate the nothingness of error's
manifestations. When the purity of our life reaches the truth of our
statements we shall be a constant rebuke to all sin and discord, and
approximate the healing works of our Master.

It is better to do our little well than to strive overmuch for giant
strides in demonstration. The steady pace usually wins in the long
run, and our course is a long one. It is more profitable to progress
slowly than to repeat imperfect work. New students sometimes think
that because they believe in the teachings of Christian Science they
are expected to make every demonstration they may feel the need of.
The infant thought in Christian Science is not expected to do a man's
work any more than in other things.

Each student in beginning his work is confronted by his own peculiar
difficulties according to his past standards of belief and methods of
thought. There is no personal preference or favor in this work; each
one begins with relatively the same possibilities and opportunities.
The diligent student advances because of his diligence, not because of
any respect for his personality.

The assurance of the truth of Christian Science is sweet and grateful
to the world-weary and sin-burdened hearts who have sought it, even
though they do not enter at once into its full realization, for they
know that, however slow, their work is not experiment but
demonstration. God's ear has ever been open to His children, and His
help is instant in response. Man has not to wait through weary years
till the cruelty of living and the pain of dying shall have passed, to
see the salvation of God, and learn of His infinite goodness; for God
is here, and now, and always, the divine compassionate Love which has
never been absent, nor been unmindful of His own.