Sunday, April 28th, 2024 Roundtable

Contradict the evidence of the senses all the time, in all ways. Be willing to surrender all affection, all worship that is merely personal. Do not make the mistake of refusing to admit the belief of error. There is a belief, a strong one, and it must be met and denied. Flee from it, and it will follow faster than ever. Suffering is the gospel that will bring man to a knowledge of his real estate. Better to have pain than pleasure. The greater the pain, the nearer its own overthrow. We should not wait for perfection in our work before demonstration. That would be to admit the reality of imperfection, the very thing we are trying to overthrow.

Probation, progress, goes on, until there is no life, substance, or intelligence in matter.

— from Divinity Course and General Collectanea, (the “Blue Book”), by Mary Baker Eddy, pages 194,195

370 — WATCH in dealing with patients and with yourself, that you remember Mrs. Eddy’s definition of sin. Once a student tied himself up in the dilemma of believing that he was being punished for sin, because he was sick, — since this is what Science and Health declares. This tied him up, because he looked himself over and could find no sin.

According to Mrs. Eddy, yielding to the mesmerism of mortal belief in any form is sin. On page 428 of the textbook we read, “It is sin to believe that aught can overpower omnipotent and eternal Life …” In the 16th edition it reads, “I account it sinful and idolatrous to have more faith in drugs, diet, air, exercise, cleanliness, than in God, Truth and Love, to keep the body harmonious, and make man undying.”

Mrs. Eddy once wrote, “What is a good dinner or a good meal? Good devil. What is a good night’s sleep? Good evil. What is a nice new dress? Good evil. What is a sense of health in matter? Good evil. Which is nearer God, a human sense of health or of sickness?”

When flowers are cut, they soon fade. The belief that man has an existence apart from God is sin that leads first to sickness and then to death. It is a sin to believe in matter or mortal mind. It is a sin to believe in a finite origin for man, or to yield to A. M.

— from 500 Watching Points by Gilbert Carpenter

---

GOLDEN TEXT: REVELATION 22 : 14

“Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.”

---

Man’s probation after death is the necessity of his immortality; for good dies not and evil is self-destructive, therefore evil must be mortal and self-destroyed. If man should not progress after death, but should remain in error, he would be inevitably self-annihilated. Those upon whom “the second death hath no power” are those who progress here and hereafter out of evil, their mortal element, and into good that is immortal; thus laying off the material beliefs that war against Spirit, and putting on the spiritual elements in divine Science.

— from Miscellaneous Writings, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 2

---

“Is There No Death?”, from Unity of Good by Mary Baker Eddy, page 37

---

Instead of being bound for the grave we must know we are on the eternal road of Life, that has no sense of death.

— from Essays and Other Footprints, (the “Red Book”), by Mary Baker Eddy, page 74

---

Book: Mary Baker Eddy, Her Spiritual Footsteps by Gilbert Carpenter

---

A Summary

The false record(Adam and Eve), then, is a masterpiece which lays bare the methods which belief adopts in order to get it self accepted as truth, it asserts:
That it has power to pull the wool over our eyes, to impose misconceptions on us.
That it is a confusion of good and evil.
That we are kept acutely aware of it through our five physical senses.
That we have no adequate power of defense against it.
That we should use material means to deal with it, though these bring only disillusion.
That we need expect nothing but blood and sweat and tears.
That we might as well give up hope and resign ourselves to it.
Yet beneath the tones of the false record may forever be heard the true tones of the first account of creation, proclaiming with divine clarity against the temporary background of discords that the light of ideas is purely good, definite, powerful, ever-present, victorious, and altogether lovely.

Excerpt from The Bible for Everyman, by Rosalie Maas

---

Thoughts shared on the Lesson from readers:

As the Christian Scientist you know that there is no law of death. Why then bow down to the suggestion of such a law? The only law of death there is, is the law of Life which is the law of death to everything unlike itself.

— Herbert Eustace

Article: “There is No Law of Death”, by Herbert Eustace

---

Final Readings