Sunday, July 14th, 2024 Roundtable

The Sacred Storehouse

This week’s Lesson Sermon Subject: Sacrament

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Morning Prayers

True prayer is not asking God for love; it is learning toclove, and to include all mankind in one affection. Prayer is the tilization of the love wherewith He loves us. Prayer begets an awakened desire to be and do good. It makes new and scientific discoveries of God, of His goodness and power. It shows us more clearly than we saw before, what we already have and are; and most of all, it shows us what God is.

— from No and Yes, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 39

Once more I write, Set your affections on things above; love one another; commune at the table of our Lord in one spirit; worship in spirit and in truth; and if daily adoring, imploring, and living the divine Life, Truth, Love, thou shalt partake of the bread that cometh down from heaven, drink of the cup of salvation, and be baptized in Spirit.

— from Christian Science versus Pantheism, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 14

Discussion points

142 — WATCH lest you betray the Son of man with a kiss (Luke 22:48).

If advanced students of Science put on a show that would make it appear as if their devotion to their religion was based on a deep love for it, and on the fact that they derive a keen satisfaction from it at all times, when, in reality, their devotion to it comes largely from a sense of duty, they betray the Son of man with a kiss. In such a case they feel that something is wrong; but pride prevents them from acknowledging it, and hence there is no way to correct the situation. The fact that traditional theology does not satisfy would be more generally apprehended if its adherents were not afraid to acknowledge that fact; but those who are dissatisfied feel that there is something wrong with themselves, and blame themselves, rather than the system.

To worship the dead form of Christian Science, and yet to pretend that the Spirit has not fled from it, when it has, as far as you are concerned, is a deception that betrays the Son of man with a kiss, since it gives forth the outward show of true devotion, which is not the expression of inward fullness, but merely covers an inward lack.

Perhaps you are beginning to outgrow the “milk stage” of Christian Science and do not realize it. There is no shame when you find that the milk of the Word does not nourish and satisfy you as much as it did formerly. When we become “men in Christ,” as Paul writes in Hebrews 5:13,14, our devotion and affection for Truth must be based on something more substantial than milk, to have it lasting and sincere. Working men require something stronger than milk to nourish and sustain them. If we have reached the point where we are working students, meeting the opposition of animal magnetism as well as using our understanding, we need meat, and divine Love will provide that meat according to our readiness.

— from 500 Watching Points by Gilbert Carpenter

GOLDEN TEXT: AMOS 5 : 14

“Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the LORD, the God of hosts, shall be with you.”

“Self-Denial”, from Christian Science Journal, March 1893 by C. W. Chadwick

Final Readings

In the midst of the recent war a captain, who was a poet, wrote of the dreams of conquest, the plots and plans, ambitions and boastings, of a reigning family thus: “They are all the mirage of a dying dynasty in the desert it made for its burying place.” This poet becomes prophet in saying: “When their race has died, the earth shall smile again, for their deadly mirage will oppress us no more. The cities shall rise again and the farms come back; hedgerows and orchards shall be seen again; the woods shall slowly lift their heads from the dust and gardens shall come again where the desert was.” Such a predicted restoration comes in obedience to that order proclaimed by Isaiah as being of God: “For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited.” The same hope is beautifully brought out in Ezekiel: “For, behold, I am for you, and I will turn unto you, and ye shall be tilled and sown: and I will multiply men upon you, all the house of Israel, even all of it: and the cities shall be inhabited, and the wastes shall be builded: and I will multiply upon you man and beast; and they shall increase and bring fruit: and I will settle you after your old estates, and will do better unto you than at your beginnings: and ye shall know that I am the Lord.

And what of that theory which gloried in ability to cause desolation? Mrs. Eddy has for all time characterized what she so aptly terms “uncivil economics.” In The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany(p. 278) she declares: “Governments have no right to engraft into civilization the burlesque of uncivil economics. War is in itself an evil, barbarous, devilish. Victory in error is defeat in Truth. War is not in the domain of good; war weakens power and must finally fall, pierced by its own sword.”

Furthermore, in perfect accord with what we find in the Bible in such a reference as that one which says: “The Lord looketh from heaven; he beholdeth all the sons of men. From the place of his habitation he looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth. He fashioneth their hearts alike,” Mrs. Eddy shows how in Truth there need not be conflict arising out of mental differences between those who have one God, for she declares (Science and Health, p. 276): “When the divine precepts are understood, they unfold the foundation of fellowship, in which one mind is not at war with another, but all have one Spirit, God, one intelligent source, in accordance with the Scriptural command: ‘Let this Mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.'”

Mrs. Eddy sets before all mankind the hope of understanding, when she says (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 331): “As mortals awake from their dream of material sensation, this adorable, all-inclusive God, and all earth’s hieroglyphics of Love, are understood; and infinite Mind is seen kindling the stars, rolling the worlds, reflecting all space and Life,—but not life in matter. Wisely governing, informing the universe, this Mind is Truth, — not laws of matter. Infinitely just, merciful, and wise, this Mind is Love, — but not fallible love.”

— “The Mirage Disappears” (excerpt) from Christian Science Sentinel, January 18, 1919 by William P. McKenzie