Sunday, November 17th, 2024 Roundtable

Inasmuch as I am God’s child, spiritual, and not material, I must be perfect. I am whole; I am free; I have all I need every hour; I am without fear, without anxiety; I live in Spirit, not in matter (error); I am not in danger; no one can harm me or deprive me of any good. I know no such thing as pain, suffering, or disease, for I am a reflection of Life, Truth and Love. I am never disappointed or grieved. The harmony of my being is never broken, because I live in the infinite. No condition of the body is essential to my happiness, for God, good, only, is the spring of all my joys. My life is hid with Christ in God. Therefore, I am immortal, for nothing can be lost or die in God.

from Watches, Prayers, and Arguments, as given by Mary Baker Eddy, page 120

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Man is free born: he is neither the slave of sense, nor a silly ambler to the so-called pleasures and pains of self-conscious matter. Man is God’s image and likeness; whatever is possible to God, is possible to man as God’s reflection.

from Miscellaneous Writings, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 183

319 — WATCH that you remember that fear is the fruit of the vine of which pride is the blossom. A little boy who runs away from home does so because he feels able to care for himself, and because he is determined not to submit any longer to the control of his parents. This pride, however, soon turns to fear, when night comes and he is hungry and cold.

Mortals accept the belief in separation from God as long as they feel adequate to care for themselves; but that pride soon bears the fruit of fear, when some circumstance arises that seems beyond their power to cope with.

Pride attends the birth of mortals, while fear surrounds their death. Pride says, “I can,” in contrast to the fear which says, “I can’t.” God says that neither of these is a statement of truth. The correct attitude is to know that all things are possible to the one who reflects Mind.

The Bible says that pride goeth before a fall. The skyrocket rises in the magnificence of resplendent beauty, only to fall, an empty burned-out shell. The penalty mortals pay for the supposed satisfaction of pride is the torment of fear. The belief of separation from God which comes through pride, soon turns to fear. Fear, therefore, is the schoolmaster which when correctly analyzed, teaches mortals the error of the belief of separation from God, and becomes a wholesome impetus for destroying this belief through the realization that in reality man has never been separated from God; so there is nothing of which man should be proud, and nothing for him to fear.

from The Daily Watch from 500 Watching Points, by Gilbert Carpenter

Definition of Pride in the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary

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John 5

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Perhaps the most notable Christian Science demonstration of Chaplain Rieke’s overseas work, and the activity for which he received outstanding recognition, was a venereal disease control program. When he joined one certain group and learned of the appalling disease rate among them, he determined that it should be corrected. In close co-operation with 60 other men and the commanding officer, practical steps were taken to bar questionable entertainment from the base. Then arrangements were made for Chaplain Rieke to carry out his proposal of establishing a school wherein the men could be given courses of instruction in many subjects, and he was sent to Rome to buy the textbooks. There were at one time 380 men enrolled in the school in 18 different courses, ranging from music appreciation to agriculture. An attractive bulletin was printed to advertise the school.

In 2 months, the disease rate had been reduced to zero. But the Chaplain realised that the good record must be maintained, and he continued his impersonal Christian Science work concerning the situation, taking other helpful steps to strengthen home ties, because, as the Chaplain commented “in strengthening the home ties, I knew that we were helping to solve the problem.”

from Christian Science Wartime Activities 1939-1946

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Don’t be a mortal living in a state of mortality. Be an immortal living in this glorious state of immortality, enjoying everything immortal, beautiful, good, and true. Live in that eternal Mind that knows no beginning and no end, no birth and no death. Live in that perfect Life that exists through all time. It is eternity itself. In no other way can you demonstrate the infinite capacities of healing in Christian Science.

Reading the Bible intelligently with the true imagination and with a sincere desire for all of the spiritual interpretation inspiration and lessons to be learned therefrom, will extend your atmosphere of thought. You will learn to see yourself not as a mortal living a few decades in the twentieth century, but as an immortal living in an eternal universe with every idea that is beautiful, good and true. Such a correct spiritual, eternal, immortal sense of things will eliminate from your thought any fear of death — yea, every belief in death and the accompanying experience of sickness and sin. Truly, be “a priest after the order of Melchisedec without father or mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God.”

Immortality — 1949 Association Address by Herbert Rieke

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The Eternal Now by Louise Knight Wheatley

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Golden Text: I Kings 18 : 21
“How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow him.”

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Mortals are free moral agents, to choose whom they would serve. If God, then let them serve Him, and He will be unto them All-in-all.

from Unity of Good, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 60

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With the Prophet of old I ask this question, “How long halt ye between two opinions?” It is of as vital importance now as when first spoken.

How long are we going to stand doubting whether it is necessary to handle the claims of mortal mind? How much longer shall we wait, and how much more evidence do we want, before we believe that (unless handled in Science, as our Leader teaches us in her book) jealousy, malice, hatred, and revenge will make sick and eventually murder a man,—that is, to mortal sense.

Students take a course of lessons in Christian Science, and go out declaring audibly that God is All and there is none beside Him, when they have never, by their own good deeds, and by resistance of temptation, gained any consciousness that what they say is true. They repeat the words like parrots, because they have heard others say them. They are soon brought to a sudden halt.

from “The Present Foe” by A. Perry as found in the January 1889 issue of the Christian Science Journal

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God’s law reaches and destroys evil by virtue of the allness of God.

God’s law is in three words, “I am All;” and this perfect law is ever present to rebuke any claim of another law.

from No and Yes, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 30

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“A Solemn Alternative” by J. Waite on Bible Hub

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God with us by Edward A. Kimball

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Christian Science Sentinel, Volume 8, page 765, “Duty never points in two directions.”

From Collectanea by Mary Baker Eddy

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The Covenant by Nathaniel Dickey (Introduction by Mary Beth Singleterry)

Modern modes of thought tend more and more to deny or to belittle the moral responsibility of man. We hear too little these days about sin and its consequences, and very much too little about the rewards of righteousness and holiness. Men have more emphasized the importance of creed and dogma, of belief and profession, and have almost forgotten the righteousness that exalteth a nation and the holiness that makes the individual strong and beautiful in character, and full of happiness, success, and peace. And yet these correct standards of living and doing are the principal theme of all the prophets, the Gospels, and the epistles. In the effort of the so-called modernists to destroy the things in religion that have been emphasized much above their value, or that the race has outgrown, let them have a care lest in their militant attitude they do not also destroy those things without which religion—even life itself—is worthless, empty, meaningless. Moses did not make the law when he declared unto the children of Israel the Ten Commandments; he only revealed it. When he said to the Israelites, “Ye shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. Ye shall walk in all the ways which the Lord your God hath commanded you, that ye may live, and that it may be well with you, and that ye may prolong your days in the land which ye shall possess,” he was not giving to them a law that is not equally true for every nation and for each individual composing it. The path of righteousness and peace, justice and love, is the path that leads to real success and happiness, as certainly here and now as it did for the Jews in the wilderness. When Moses threatened the Israelites with dire punishment should they forsake the path of righteousness and peace, justice making empty threats, but was revealing the eternal law that the creator has written in the lives of all men and has made a part of their very beings. History, no less than revelation, speaks with no uncertain voice, telling of man’s responsibility for his life and conduct, and of the terrible consequences of his yielding to unrighteousness. The nation that walks uprightly, that has been strong to resist the temptation to immorality, intemperance, indolence, injustice, and crime, is the strong, the great nation. A nation to be truly great must have high and great ideals, and must be striving with some success to realize them…. Young men and old have always been proving their own responsibility for their lives and conduct, and are still doing so.

“Signs of the Times” by Morning Press, Santa Barbara, California as found in the October 8, 1927 Christian Science Sentinel