The Science of Celestial Being

Clarifying Some Points and Revisiting History

2012-01-21T13:12:00.000-08:00

A copy of a message I recently wrote,

Dear ___________,

A lot of thought in your message! The infiltration
idea was introduced in the early portion of the last
decade. A Reading Room attendant shared the following,

"The Reading Room hours at the Seneca Falls Reading
Room are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily and 12 noon to 5 p.m.
on Sundays. The hours brought up the question of how
the two managers, who were our trainers, attended
church and then opened at noon on Sundays. We were told
that the nearest church was one hour away, and the
trainers could not attend and open the exhibit at noon.
They decided that it is better to attend churches of
other denominations in town than not attend at all.
Since their goal was to get out into the community and
meet the city officials, businessmen, doctors, nurses,
and ministers, they went from church to church, meeting
everyone and making friends at all the churches. This
is a direct quote from one of the trainers: "And the
sermons are beautiful." I wanted to ask if they were
as good as a "divinely authorized" sermon, but
I didn't."

It is the fifth paragraph down in an article I will herein
paste, dated from July 2002,

* * * begin paste * * *

Boston's Plans For Christian Science Reading Rooms
From an attendant at last year's conference at Seneca
Falls, New York.

Here are excerpts from a three day meeting, showing that
the field needs to be alert to protect their Reading Rooms
to keep them safe havens for prayer and quiet study, and
watch that their bound volumes not suddenly disappear.

BREAKING WITH TRADITION

"The trainer read from the Manual, Article XXI, Sect. 3.
It begins: "The literature sold or exhibited in the
Reading Rooms of Christian Science Churches..." She wrote
the words "sell" and "exhibited" on a display board, and
then said that the Reading Room, according to Mrs. Eddy,
was to sell and/or exhibit. She went on to say that the
present Reading Rooms are doing other things, NOT
required in the Manual.

She asked what things they are doing. Several persons
gave answers. The trainer made a list of these
(according to her interpretation) NOT REQUIRED
ITEMS: She said that a non-traditional Reading Room
will not have these. Then she asked the group if there
had to be prayer or quiet study. The answer was no. The
Manual does not say there should be prayer or chalk
citations for study. She stated that lending books
would not create sales, but that activity and
conversation are necessary to have sales. Further,
she said that bound volumes just take up valuable shelf
space that could be used for products for sale. We were
also told to rethink our announcements from the desk,
and to tone down the reference to "quiet study."

"We were advised not to let the members of our branch
churches know all at once the changes that are proposed.
We might find opposition from older members who are
rooted in the traditional Reading Room. We were told to
advise our executive boards gradually, a small change by
a small change.

"The trainer described the other type of Reading Room
as an exhibit Reading Room. For now these exhibits will be
set up by The Mother Church at permanent locations. The
trainer explained that the branch churches' Reading Rooms
have a new additional duty--that is, to call as many
places as one can imagine that would accept the display,
advertise it as a special event, and have personnel on
hand to talk about Mrs. Eddy's life. We were to include an
explanation of the woman's rights movement and how
Mrs. Eddy's life related to it. We were told that it is
necessary to know who the people were in the woman's
rights movement so we could point out the similarity.

"The trainers told how they have been successful
in Seneca Falls. These organizations and individuals
agreed to have or have had an event. Planned Parenthood,
a chiropractic college, several schools, nurses and
doctors' meetings. Nurses and doctors are approached
by telling them, "We are in the healing business,
too." In these instances, stress SCIENCE AND HEALTH
[note - the whole title of the book is not being
given, and not given by questionable design]
as a book about an alternative healing method. In a
public school or government building do not mention
God, Christian Science, or religion. We were told
not to intrude upon a non-Scientists' belief, to
avoid mentioning our Church, and not to be
"churchy."

"The Reading Room hours at the Seneca Falls
Reading Room are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily
and 12 noon to 5 p.m. on Sundays. The hours
brought up the question of how the two
managers, who were our trainers, attended church
and then opened at noon on Sundays.
We were told that the nearest church was one
hour away, and the trainers could not attend and
open the exhibit at noon. They decided that it
is better to attend churches of other denominations
in town than not attend at all. Since their goal
was to get out into the community and meet the
city officials, businessmen, doctors, nurses, and
ministers, they went from church to church, meeting
everyone and making friends at all the churches.
This is a direct quote from one of the trainers:
"And the sermons are beautiful." I wanted to ask if
they were as good as a "divinely authorized"
sermon, but I didn't.

"As the training continued, I began to see that the
entire message of the meeting was as follows: Church
is not important, is not necessary to learn and practice
healing, and should not be presented in connection with
Mrs. Eddy's life. If the subject of church is
presented, it should be done so only incidentally. During
the conference, we were often told that Mrs. Eddy founded
a church only because other churches did not adopt her
method of healing, but now they are adopting it.

"The conference closed with a talk by a woman who came
from the Reading Room Department in Boston. She shared
a message from the Board of Directors which included the
thought that every member is truly loved by the Board.
We were reminded not to share at once all of the new
ideas we had received at the conference because they
include much in the way of broken tradition. We are
to proceed slowly in presenting these changes to branch
church members and to be in touch with our Reading Room
reps as to how to introduce these changes in the
Reading Rooms and the new duty of showing the exhibit
"This is Woman's Hour" at events."

* * * end of paste * * *

Re reading that article caught my attention, especially
paragraph four,

"The trainers told how they have been successful in
Seneca Falls. These organizations and individuals agreed
to have or have had an event. Planned Parenthood, a
chiropractic college, several schools, nurses and
doctors' meetings. Nurses and doctors are approached by
telling them, "We are in the healing business, too."
In these instances, stress SCIENCE AND HEALTH as a book
about an alternative healing method. In a public school
or government building do not mention God, Christian
Science, or religion. We were told not to intrude upon
a non-Scientists' belief, to avoid mentioning our
Church, and not to be "churchy."

In retrospect that direction is so troubling and we see
evidence of it still today on that terrible trade edition
still out -- of the Christian Science textbook which
entirely lacks the Christian Science emblem from its
designated (by Mary Baker Eddy) *central* place on the
*front* of the cover.

Mary Baker Eddy wrote several times indicating the
significance of the *central* place of the cross alone,
and or the cross and healing, the latter by which
Christian Scientists identify with the Crown over the
Cross,-- their emblem. That trademark edition abandoning
her design for the cover is an outright abomination and
heresy. Ironically, the authentic 1910, edition is
barred from using the Christian Science emblem where it
belongs due to legalism unintended by Mary Baker Eddy.
Two instances of "beware the enemy within".

It was and is deceptive to remove the Christian
Science emblem front and center from the cover in the
apparent hope to engage New Age thought. Confusing
the thought of those so addressed is not helpful.
Removing the *central* indication that this is a
Christian book from the place designated by the
Leader is dishonest. In fact Mary Baker Eddy wrote
the following as regards the Science:

"Christian Science may absorb the attention
of sage and philosopher, but the Christian alone can
fathom it." See Science and Health With Key To
The Scriptures, page 556:14-15.

Concerning the importance of the reason behind its
central place, Mary Baker Eddy has the following
to say --

From Unity of Good, page 57:9-10, she writes,
"The cross is the central emblem of human history.
Without it there is neither temptation nor glory."

In "Miscellaneous Writings", page 357:12, in her article
entitled "The Way", she gives us this -
"Without the cross and healing, Christianity has
no central emblem, no history."

In Science and Health With Key To The Scriptures, Mary
Baker Eddy writes, page 224:16-17, "Of old the cross
was truth's central sign and it is to-day."

And also in the textbook, on page 238:31-1, we find
her words stating:

"The cross is the central emblem of history. It is the
lodestar in the demonstration of Christian healing, --
the demonstration by which sin and sickness are destroyed."

I will not address all your points, ______. Excepting
that it should be clear that the Discoverer, Founder,
and *Leader* of Christian Science is the Pastor Emeritus,
Mary Baker Eddy. Prior to the Woodbury trial Mrs. Eddy
was lovingly referred to as Mother, and regarded to this
day by some as our Mother in Israel. In fact she considered
her church as not the Board of Director's church or the
members' church, but as *her* church - Mother's church.
This continued through the latter part of the 1800's
and through the beginning of the nineteenth century's
first decade until she decreed in the Church Manual that
the title Mother give way to that of Leader.

On page 64, RELATION AND DUTIES OF MEMBERS TO
PASTOR EMERITUS, Article XXII, line 13, Mary Baker
Eddy directs,

"The Title of Mother Changed. Section 1.
In the year eighteen hundred and ninety-five, loyal
Christian Scientists had given to the author of
their textbook, the Founder of Christian Science,
the individual, endearing term Mother. At first
Mrs. Eddy objected to being called thus, but
afterward consented on the ground that this
appellative in the Church meant nothing more than
a tender term such as sister or brother. In the
year nineteen hundred and three and after, owing
to the public misunderstanding of this name, it is
the duty of Christian Scientists to drop the word
mother and to substitute Leader, already used in
our periodicals."

Under the same article on page 65, in the Church
Manual, Mary Baker Eddy gives this,

"A Member not a Leader. Sect. 2. A
member of The First Church of Christ, Scientist,
in Boston, Mass., shall not be called Leader
by members of this Church, when this term is
used in connection with Christian Science."

In all her writings, in reference to Mary Baker
Eddy as Leader in the Church Manual as well as other
places in Prose Works, we find the designated term,
"Leader", mentioned more than eighty-eight times.

It is not unusual for you, _______, to be unclear
regarding the Leadership in Christian Science when
it is my understanding that there are personalities
in Boston today who I have been told have put forth
the thought that they themselves are leaders. However,
a little review of what has been written about and
especially by Mary Baker Eddy herself shows quite
the opposite.

Paula

Christian Scientists Must Honestly Do Their Own Work

2012-01-21T00:27:00.000-08:00

Once again it has been mentioned that Christian
Scientists should claim their part in the Christian
family of other denominations by focusing on
joining the National Counsel of Churches. ,

I think we do claim our part in the Christian family
one by one - not in mass.

Mary Baker Eddy tells us in the textbook on page
372:17-18, "Christian Science and Christianity are
one." To force that understanding on other groups
is not our work. Our work in humility is to prove
the effectiveness of Christian Science so that others
might notice and take up the work themselves, until
at last there is no one outside any human group.
In The Bible, Jesus declares in John 12:32, "And I,
if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all *men*
unto me."

Isn't this The Way? Whereby each one learns in
following the Master that "the I goes to the"
Father-Mother." Then the new earth appears with no
sea...just think, no sea, yet no problem from a
mistaken sense of drought.

I have felt a revelation in realizing that each
Christian Science church is entitled by Mary Baker
Eddy, the Leader of Christian Science, whether it
be located in Boston or in England, or anywhere -
it is described as ".......Church of Christ,
Scientist". And "Scientist" is *always* given in the
singular, not the plural. Isn't this perhaps why
in the Church Manual under Guidance of Members,
Article VIII, under Discipline, page 48:20, Sect.
28, "Numbering the People" our Pastor Emeritus
teaches that "According to the Scripture they shall
turn away from personality and numbering the people"?

Christian Scientists agree with other Christians
when it comes to Wendell Phillips' quote,
"One on God's side is a majority."

So, we really need not be much concerned, I think,
with numbering people or groups. Each one ought
to be occupied enough doing his or her own work.

As to joining the National Counsel of Churches,
wouldn't we need to exclude ourselves formally
and honestly inasmuch as that Counsel is very
preoccupied with numbering people. Take a look
here,

http://www.ncccusa.org/news/100204yearbook2010.html
That's all it is.

Also there is reference to "Professional Church
Leadership",

Membership, http://www.ncccusa.org/elmc/curriculum.htm#pcl

"Offices within NCCC member communions and related
denominations whose work is focused on professional
church leadership development and that participate in and
fund PCL may designate up to two (2) persons to membership
on Professional Church Leadership. Non-member
denominations may be invited by the Executive Committee
to send one (1) representative to PCL."

Whoa! Well our only Christian Science Leader is Mary Baker
Eddy, our Pastor Emeritus. We need to stick with that.

The National Counsel of Churches is doing wonderful things.
We can love that, respect and appreciate it. However,
Christian Scientists have plenty of work to do that is
also deserving of love, respect and appreciation. They
need to tend their own fields as so clearly expressed
in "The Message for 1900" - the whole message is excellent.
Mary Baker Eddy writes on page 2, in "Prose Works",
line 7, "The song of Christian Science is,
"Work -- work -- work -- watch and pray."

Let us be good neighbors, yet let us not allow our good
neighbors' excellent work to distract us from our own.

Paula

Christian Scientists Must Honestly Do Their Own Work

2012-01-21T00:25:00.000-08:00

Once again it has been mentioned that Christian
Scientists should claim their part in the Christian
family of other denominations by focusing on
joining the National Counsel of Churches. ,

I think we do claim our part in the Christian family
one by one - not in mass.

Christian Scientists agree with other Christians
when it comes to Wendell Phillips' quote,
"One on God's side is a majority."

So, we really need not be much concerned, I think,
with numbering people or groups. Each one ought
to be occupied enough doing his or her own work.

As to joining the National Counsel of Churches,
wouldn't we need to exclude ourselves formally
and honestly inasmuch as that Counsel is very
preoccupied with numbering people. Take a look
here,

http://www.ncccusa.org/news/100204yearbook2010.html
That's all it is.

Also there is reference to "Professional Church
Leadership",

Membership, http://www.ncccusa.org/elmc/curriculum.htm#pcl

Whoa! Well our only Christian Science Leader is Mary Baker
Eddy, our Pastor Emeritus. We need to stick with that.

Let us be good neighbors, yet let us not allow our good
neighbors' excellent work to distract us from our own.

Paula

One Leader In Christian Science

2012-01-20T10:20:00.000-08:00

One Leader In Christian Science

I would think that we would have no interest in
joining the National Council of Churches in spite
of the good they do, and God Bless them for that!
However, Christian Scientists should be willing
to "come out from among them and be ye separate".

The National Council of Churches, as I understand
it, unless they have changed their requirement,
demand that members accept no other leader than
Jesus.  In Christian Science it is quite clear,
we have one Master of Christianity, Christ Jesus,
and one Leader in Christian Science, Mary Baker
Eddy - check your Church Manual.

The Leader of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy,
is referenced, particularly on line 6,
in the Christian Science textbook,
"Science and Health With Key To The Scriptures",
wherein she herself writes on page 534, regarding
women being enabled to " . . . . be the mother of
Jesus and to behold at the sepulchre the risen
Saviour, who was soon to manifest the deathless
man of God's creating. This enabled
woman to be the first to interpret the Scriptures
in their true sense, which reveals the spiritual
origin of man."  

Paula

ANGELS By MARY BAKER EDDY

2011-12-22T07:40:00.000-08:00

Angels, By MARY BAKER EDDY
"Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896"

"When angels visit us, we do not hear the rustle of wings,
nor feel the feathery touch of the breast of a dove;
but we know their presence by the love they create
in our hearts. Oh, may you feel this touch,--it is not
the clasping of the hands nor a loved person present;
it is more than this: it is a spiritual idea that lights your path!
The Psalmist saith: "He shall give His angels charge over thee."
God gives you His spiritual ideas, and in turn, they give
you daily supplies. Never ask for tomorrow: it is enough
that divine Love is an ever-present help; and if you wait,
never doubting, you will have all you need every moment.
What a glorious inheritance is given to us through the
understanding of omnipresent Love! More we cannot
ask: more we do not want: more we cannot have. This
sweet assurance is the "Peace, be still" to all human
fears, to suffering of every sort."

http://tinyurl.com/7pbtgks

Our Society

2011-12-21T13:13:00.001-08:00

Society - where the proof is in the pudding

In her work, "Retrospection and Introspection,
Mary Baker Eddy recommends the following, on
page 62:3,

"Test Christian Science by its effect on society, and
you will find that the views here set forth -- as to
the illusion of sin, sickness, and death - bring forth
better fruits of health, righteousness, and Life,
than a belief in their reality has ever done. A
demonstrating of the unreality of evil destroys evil."

I find this recommendation indicating that the
uplifting of all of society, in church out of
church, is desirable.

In "Science and Health With Key To The Scriptures",
Mary Baker Eddy has this to say about what
Jesus established - and it was not "his church".
She said, this on page 138:2,

"Jesus purposed founding *his society*, not
on the personal Peter as a mortal, but on the
God-power which lay behind Peter's confession
of the true Messiah."

After several readings of the Church Manual
I find it gives one direction that working out
the idea of a physical sense of church leaves
one with what is known as a Christian Science
Society, which in turn leads to the idea of
a society in general that is infused and
leavened with the bread of Truth, through
of the practice of individual Christian
Scientists. So that although it seems that a
Society is desired as becoming a Christian
Science Church, the putting off of the institution
itself inevitably leads right back directly to
society, that once again hopefully is uplifted
by the application of Christian Science truths
applied thereto.

As regards improvement in Society,
ultimately it all goes back to the individual.
The individual must learn to do the proper
metaphysical work.

In the most pure sense a society of any sort is
only as good and strong, or as bad and weak as
its supposedly weakest component, since the
society is comprised of individuals.
I find it illuminating to note that this
sense of individual spiritual responsibility
that is demanded and required for an uplifted
society is indicated and virtually built into
the title of every single Christian Science
Church, inasmuch as each one carries the
title " . . . . . Church of Christ, *Scientist*,
note, singular, *not* Scientists - as not in the
plural!

Paula

Our Society

2011-12-21T13:07:00.000-08:00

Society - where the proof is in the pudding

In her work, "Retrospection and Introspection,
Mary Baker Eddy recommends the following, on
page 62:3,

I find this recommendation indicating that the
uplifting of all of society, in church out of
church, is desirable.

In "Science and Health With Key To The Scriptures",
Mary Baker Eddy has this to say about what
Jesus established - and it was not "his church".
She said, this on page 138:2,

"Jesus purposed founding *his society*, not
on the personal Peter as a mortal, but on the
God-power which lay behind Peter's confession
of the true Messiah."

As regards improvement in Society,
ultimately it all goes back to the individual.
The individual must learn to do the proper
metaphysical work.

Paula

TO A NEW RISEN DAY - MARY BAKER EDDY

2011-12-14T12:24:00.000-08:00

Here is shared a copy of my message to Christian Science Issues2

I dedicate my message and my new review on Amazon to
my dear friend, David James Nolan, who unfailingly
encouraged me in educating others via messages of this nature.

* * * * begin paste * * * *

T4thinkers brings out an important issue in his
message #43249, "Totally Under The Radar",
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ChristianScienceIssues2/message/43249 ,
that issue is the fading out of Mary Baker Eddy's words and
the universal awareness of her authorship of specific words
under God's guidance and grace, along with that
which she said could never be severed from her own
identity - that being Christian Science itself.

Aren't we grateful for to-day's manna, this very
forum for instance where we may shine the
spotlight on those Christian Science issues that now
more than ever require that light in order
that MARY BAKER EDDY, her words and works,
her grand discovery of CHRISTIAN SCIENCE will
shine on!.

In discussion with a friend last night, we spoke
of the Cheryl Petersen book that Cheryl Petersen
describes as the first English revision of Mrs.Eddy's
textbook, "21st Century Science and Health
With Key To The Scriptures". This book is now
in its third edition. Thus, the original reviews
of that first edition, which included my own,
have now vanished into the Amazon deep six vault.
Therefore I took it upon myself to write another
review for this third edition, addressing issues
within issues that are close to my heart. I invite
others to view Cheryl Petersen's revision,
http://www.amazon.com/Century-Science-Health-Scriptures-ebook/dp/B003...
cm_cr_pr_pb_i or http://tinyurl.com/878p95z
and submit your own comments to Amazon. If your
perception is like mine you might accord the book only
one star. Amazon will not accept no stars. I willingly
give it one star since it enables discerning thinkers
to comment upon issues dear to their hears and bring
back to earth the laser light of Truth. We may then help
others find the light of Truth by keeping MARY BAKER EDDY'S
original and genuine message present on the planet and printed
as she initially designed it to be.

I have found a website of Cheryl Peterson where
she blogs and shares her own thoughtful and
observations, http://healingsciencetoday.wordpress.com/

I really am put off by Petersen's incessant
referral to MARY BAKER EDDY as Eddy.
Other than that, reading through some of her observations,
I'll say, "I like them!!!" Just don't mess
with my S&H!!! Thanks to Laura Alethea
who was on the scene at Amazon to give *excellent*
comment to the third edition Petersen book while some of us slept.

Here below is a copy of my review. It is the
fifth one given. It may be found by scrolling
down on this link,
http://www.amazon.com/Century-Science-Health-Scriptures-ebook/product...
03ZDO6CW/ref=dp_db_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1 ,or if you
wish,
always thanks to one who taught us how to make tiny urls,
http://tinyurl.com/764ydyg

I submitted my review to Amazon early this morning and a few hours
later it was accepted and printed.

1.0 out of 5 stars

"A Restoral, Not A Revision Is What Is Needed",
December 14, 2011, By
Paula Caracristi - See all my reviews

This review is from: 21st Century Science & Health with Key to the
Scriptures
(Kindle Edition)

It should be stated that I have only read what
is presented about this revision on Amazon.
I have however read the original and authentic
Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health
With Key To The Scriptures", by MARY BAKER EDDY,
several times. I note as regards the Cheryl
Peterson book that the important final chapter,
Fruitage" is completely omitted. In Mary Baker Eddy's
book, that chapter opens with three important
Bible verses.

Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them, - JESUS."

That ye may walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing,
being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the
knowledge of God.--PAUL.

"Let us get up early to the vineyards: let us see if
the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear, and the
pomegranates bud forth. --SOLOMON'S SONG.

One finds by reading the verses above that Mary Baker Eddy
is always respectful and faithful in giving credit to the
author. Even though Mrs. Eddy's own words are now
in the public domain, the honest writer will cite the
source of each sentence as Mrs. Eddy has done in the above.

It is courteous to refer to Mary Baker Eddy by either her
full name, or as Mrs. Eddy, or even as Rev. Mary Baker Eddy,
inasmuch as she retains to this day the position of
Pastor Emeritus of the First Church of Christ, Scientist,
in Boston, Mass. Just as Jesus retains even to this day,
the title of Master.

In the chapter, Fruitage, Mary Baker Eddy required that
the final chapter conclude with a testimony given by
Mrs. H. S. C. of Seattle Washington. Interestingly
enough in the original book, Washington is abbreviated as
Wash, which coincidentally was the nick name given to
Mary Baker Eddy's beloved first husband by his Masonic
brothers. Sadly early deceased, his full name was George
Washington Glover.

The testimony by the lady from Seattle appears like this:

A Grateful testimony

"Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto
my path."
This has been proven to me in every way. When
Christian Science came to me, I was a wreck, physically,
mentally, and financially; but since the reading of Sci-
ence and Health turned my thought toward the light, I
have found that, as far as I am willing to receive the word
and live it, all comforts are supplied me. I am especially
grateful for the spiritual help. I know that things which
I did and thought last year I would not do or think this
year, and am satisfied. Through the careful and prayer-
ful study of Science and Health I have been lifted from
sickness to health, from sorrow to peace, from lack to
plenty, and, the most beautiful of all, from darkness to
light.-- Mrs. H. S. C., Seattle, Wash.

This beautiful and succinct testimony ends with the
word, "light", thereby leaving the reader with this thought,
and indicating that reading the actual and original book
by Mary Baker Eddy will help the reader to also find
himself in similar light.

The testimony also is consonant with the opening
paragraph of Mary Baker Eddy's Preface, whereby

she writes:

"To Those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is
big with blessings. The wakeful shepherd beholds
the first faint morning beams, ere cometh the full
radiance of a risen day. So shone the prophet-
shepherds; yet it traversed the night, and came where,
in cradled obscurity, lay the Bethlehem babe, the human
herald who would make plain to benighted understanding
the way of salvation through Christ Jesus, til across a
night of error should dawn the morning beams and shine
the guiding star of being. The Wisemen were led to
behold and to follow this daystar of divine Science,
lighting the way to eternal harmony."

The thrust and ultimate goal in both instances as the
discerning reader can see is realization and understanding
of the Christ-light.

Restoring the order of the testimonies, which was first
brought to my attention by a Christian Scientist who
is a thorough historian, Christeen Anderson, is imperative
inasmuch as nothing should be added or taken away from
God's direct dictation to Mary Baker Eddy who ardently
listened in order "to feed Thy sheep", Mrs. Eddy's own
words from her poem, "Shepherd".

I do agree thoroughly with all that Laura Alethea has
shared in her reviews and comments on the Cheryl
Peterson revision.

The problem with this so called revision is that it
leaves the reader confused as to whose words are
whose, even though Cheryl Peterson attempts to give a
cursory explanation in the preview that does not sell,
since one author's words cannot be distinguished from
the other, unless of course the reader is closely
familiar, as I am, with the original.

Another problem is that the chapter wording detracts
from the original intent of Mary Baker Eddy and clouds
the original message.

I have viewed YouTube videos of Cheryl Peterson and find
her quite likable and sincere as an individual, though
I believe she is in error bringing out this book.

The greatest gift that The First Church of Christ,
Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts can bestow upon
the world is to retain the original printed Complete
Concordance to all the Writings of Mary Baker Eddy in
order that proper credit be retained for her writing.
Mrs. Eddy has stated that she was as a scribe of God
as she wrote the Christian Science textbook.

It is imperative that the Concordance as approved by
Mary Baker Eddy herself as given to the world by
ALBERT F. CONANT continue to be published in print
form in order to prevent her work and proper credit
from fading away.

Even most recently I received something in the mail with
a free plastic wallet calendar for 2012, with the opening
sentence to Mary Baker Eddy's article "Angels", as found
in her 1883-1886 Miscellaneous Writings, on page 306:23,

"When angels visit us we do not hear the rustle of wings,
nor feel the feathery touch of the breast of a dove;
but we know their presence by the love they create in
our hearts."

How very saddened I was to note that proper credit
for these words of Mary Baker Eddy was lacking.
Following her beautiful words, it simply read on
the little wallet calendar, "Anonymous".

Losing the printed original Concordance to Mary Baker
Eddy's Writings, writing a revision of her words,
instead of restoring all her original book and her
requirements thereto, neither honors, nor helps maintain
knowledge of God's words as given to MARY BAKER EDDY,
the feminine exponent of Truth, whose assignment by God
was to interpret the words and meaning of the
Master Christian, JESUS, in order to assure man's
recognition of God's omnipotence and hence his
salvation.

Three words to close my review, "Read the original."

Regarding the Print Edition of The Concordance to all the Writings of Mary Baker Eddy

2010-10-17T00:15:00.000-07:00

The following was mailed to me from Sheep Mailings, Inc.
with the request that it be shared as widely as possible.
It is very important as it concerns the termination of
the publication of the print edition of the Concordance
to Science and Health and to Mrs. Eddy's Writings other
than Science and Health. This plan to cease this
publication should be reversed inasmuch as the Concordance
is in effect the spiritual and metaphysical toolbox for
the working Christian Scientist. The importance of becoming
familiar with the report below cannot be stressed highly
enough.

Sincerely,

Paula

* * * * * * * * copied verbatim * * * * * * * *

September 23, 2010, will go down in history of the Christian
Science movement as a day of abject betrayal of the Founder of
this religion. For those who have been reluctant to see the
enormity of the error being promoted by the Christian Science
Church against the Founder, Mary Baker Eddy, the following
information should be enough to not only awaken them, but to
set them on fire to take a stand.

The announcement was sent to Reading Rooms that "A
Complete Concordance to the Writings of Mary Baker Eddy" has
been discontinued. It is out of stock - not available to be
ordered by Reading Rooms. That leaves no print concordance
to any of Mrs. Eddy's writings published by The Mother Church.
The announcement advises Reading Room librarians to refer
customers who want a concordance to the electronic version,
"Concord," which is a helpful study tool but does not displace
the printed Concordance which Mrs. Eddy authorized.

Knowing the history helps. In 1902, in preparation for the
publication of the Concordance to her work, Science and Health,
Mrs. Eddy removed the index from the textbook. Subsequently,
she stated in her Preface to the Concordance, published in
1903, and revised in 1908, that a complete Concordance is "the
only satisfactory way" to meet the requirements of the students
of our textbook." While reading this mailing, you should stop
long enough to open Mrs. Eddy's Preface to the Concordance and
see her words for yourself. Notice that she uses the word
"only" - "the only satisfactory way." Imagine the Church she
established to protect, preserve, and promote her work refusing
to publish a print Concordance which she approved and instructed
to be published!

Today's computer generation may argue that the electronic version
is the same as (or better than) the print version. That is not
true. The electronic version can be a helpful adjunct to study,
but it cannot replace the print Concordance. The print
Concordance has vital subtleties of instruction available to
deep searchers which the electronic version does not have.
Equally important, the print Concordance had Mrs. Eddy's
approval and support. Time will never change that, and it
will *never* absolve the Directors from the moral
obligation - the absolute God-given demand - to publish the
book that Mary Baker Eddy said needed to be published.
It is therefore forever binding on the Directors to publish
that book, whether or not anyone buys it. In addition to
that, no one can argue that an electronic medium is as
stable, dependable, and tangible as a book. Even those who
know and use the electronic medium find advantages to the
print Concordance.

A former associate archivist at The Mother Church, speaking to a
group of Christian Science lecturers-in-training in 1979, made
this statement: "If you want to get acquainted with Mrs. Eddy,
read all of the references in the Concordance under the heading,
"Eddy, Mrs. Mary Baker." There are five columns and 323
references under many subheadings (Mrs. Eddy's own statements
about herself) in the Science and Health Concordance under that
heading. The print Concordance to Mrs. Eddy's other writings
provides 58 columns and more than 4,000 references under the
general heading "Eddy," which includes both statements by our
Leader about herself and statements by others. Ever since
the "Concord" computer software came out over twenty years
ago, if one entered the words "Mary Baker Eddy" on the
search bar, only one reference would show up for Science and
Health as compared to the 323 in the print Concordance. In
Prose Works, the computer software showed only 167 references
under "Mary Baker Eddy", as compared to more than 4,000 in
the print version. During those twenty years, advertising for
the print Concordance virtually disappeared, and advertising
of all kinds to lure the students out of their books and onto
the computer took precedence.

As an aside, it is helpful to remember how the print Concordance
came to be. It was an unfoldment from pure inspiration. Albert
Conant, then organist for The Mother Church, in his continuing
thorough and systematic study of Science and Health, saw the
need of a Concordance. He had been healed through Christian
Science of heart trouble after the doctors had given him up.
As a result, "his gratitude knew no bounds, and he longed to
do some lasting work for our Cause" (see "The Compiling of the
Concordances" by Laura C. Conant, The Christian Science Journal,
March 1944, p.163). He submitted samples of three versions of
indexing to Mrs. Eddy, and she approved the one that involved
a complete Concordance, encouraging him to go forward with it.
One marvels at the perseverance, devotion, precision, and
reverence with which he did the work. Think of the love of the
project and the patience it would take (there were no copy
machines or electric lights) to labor five years, often
eighteen hours a day, to complete the work. It could not be
done mechanically but required patient analysis to assemble
the lists so that they elucidated the revelation. Mrs. Eddy
wrote Mr. Conant a letter of praise and included these words:
"I appreciate your correctness more than words can express"
(Ibid.,p.164).

There is a very precious "sacred secret" tucked into the
print Concordance, which those who recognize Mrs. Eddy as
the one appointed by God to bring the final revelation of
Truth to humanity have been aware of and have shared with
others. That which would attempt to destroy Christian Science
(that is, the "liar" of whom Jesus spoke so specifically
and eloquently in John 8:44) would have one major focus -
that is, to mesmerize students away from recognition of
Mary Baker Eddy's place as God-appointed. To find and
understand the "sacred secret" requires thinking - reasoning
and pondering. It is hoped that anyone reading this
information mailing will open his Concordance and see for
himself what is pointed out. First, the reader has to look
at the "Compiler's Preface" to see (in the seventh paragraph
on the first page) these words: "Every reference to the
author of SCIENCE AND HEALTH will be found under the heading
"Eddy, Mrs. Mary Baker."

Included in the 323 references under "Eddy, Mrs. Mary Baker"
in the print Concordance to Science and Health are the words
"messenger" and "one." In both cases, the page cited is
455 - once for the word "messenger" and twice for the word
"one." What is most important to discover is that those
words - messenger" and "one" - that appear on page 455 are
only referenced under "Eddy, Mrs. Mary Baker." They are
*not* referenced in the Concordance under the words "one" or
"messenger." Therefore when the student reads those
sentences on page 455 with Mr. Conant's statement in mind -
that every reference to the author is found under "Eddy, Mrs.
Mary Baker" - he is compelled to read them this way:

"God selects for the highest service *one* [Mary Baker Eddy]
who has grown into such a fitness for it as renders any abuse
of the mission an impossibility. The All-wise does not bestow
His highest trusts upon the unworthy. When He commissions
a *messenger* [Mary Baker Eddy], it is *one* [Mary Baker Eddy]
who is spiritually near Himself" (S&H 455:20, emphasis added).

Because this is the one point of understanding which anchors
the student's consciousness forever in the Science of Christ,
the "liar" (that which would attempt to wipe Christian
Science out) would make every effort to eliminate it. It would
use people to divert attention away from it. For example,
in "Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer" by Yvonne von Fettweis
and Robert Warneck, a letter from Mrs. Eddy to Albert Conant
was included in which Mrs. Eddy is quoted as saying that she
wished she had never started the Concordance but had just kept
an index in the back of the book (see p. 188, 1998 edition).
It was noticed by an alert student that that letter did not
reference a date. An inquiry to one of the authors revealed
that the letter was dated April 22, 1903, eleven days prior
to Mrs. Eddy's written statement that has appeared consistently
as the Preface to the Concordance. That statement, declaring
the necessity of the Concordance, takes precedence over the
earlier letter quoted in "Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer."

Mr. Conant's listing "messenger" and "one" only under "Eddy,
Mrs. Mary Baker" did not appear in the first electronic
concordance, which simply eliminated all of the subheadings
appearing in the print Concordance. The real and deep students
of Mrs. Eddy's writings - that is, her loyal followers - have
energetically worked to preserve the precious "sacred secret"
of Mrs. Eddy as the "messenger." They continue to work
earnestly to keep it alive in the consciousness of the field.
The audacious announcement that the print Concordance
will simply not be published anymore is a clear indication
that the decision-makers in Boston are being used by the
"liar," who would have to be hoping that there are few real
warriors left in the movement to stand up and say "no."
Let's hope that the "liar's assumption is incorrect and that
there will be a major uprising from the Field - a deafening
cry of outrage over such a travesty!

The most subtle and insidious aspect of this whole lie is
that the new electronic "Concord" has added related words
under the heading "Mary Baker Eddy," leading the unaware
student to believe that everything in the print Concordance
is now replicated in the electronic concordance. Not so!
When the student puts "one" or "messenger" on the search
bar, page 455 appears in each case, eliminating the point
made by Mr. Conant that those sentences in "Science and
Health" apply *only* to the author of the book.

To eliminate the Concordance is to rob the whole movement,
both those who are computer literate and those who aren't,
of a study tool that has no substitute. Remember that Mary
Baker Eddy approved the Concordance - both the original
and revised editions. It required deep, analytical, and
inspired thought - judgments made by someone who understood
Mrs. Eddy as the one chosen to bring the final revelation
to humanity - to compile the Concordance. The degree of
inspiration and analysis based on spiritual understanding
that Mr. Conant expressed is not required for putting together
computer software. Actually, a non-Christian Scientist with
technical skills could do it.

The Mother Church's excuse for discontinuing the Concordance
is that "it's simply not economical for us to print this
Concordance again because of low sales and uniquely-high
production costs" (see "Reading Room Resource Bulletin,"
September 23, 2010). The price of the "Concord" computer
software is $325. The price of a print Concordance has been
$60. It may save the Church money not to print it, but it
is certainly costly for the student. A search of
spirituality.com reveals a number of frivolous products -
foolish e-cards and screen savers, for example - all of which
cost money to design and produce. Why not do without the
frivolity and use the money to provide the substantive tools -
Concordances, for example - that will enable students to
do deep research in the books? The money could also be used
to encourage students through advertising to do that kind of
research instead of discouraging them by suggesting that the
Concordance is not important enough to publish.

It is hoped that each individual who receives this mailing
will share it broadly among his friends and fellow church
members. Surely this travesty of discontinuing a book that
Mrs. Eddy approved and authorized as necessary to meet the
requirements of the student of the textbook is enough to
awaken a sleeping Field to the irresponsibility of the
Directors and their poor decision-making. The facts just
need to be known. And again, this fact is that even if no
one ordered or bought a Concordance, the Directors are still
under the timeless obligation to publish it.

* * * * * * * *end of verbatim report issued by
Sheep Mailings, Inc. 5030 N. May, Ste. 354
Oklahoma City, OK 73112)

http://www.sheepmailings.org/

A Message By David James Nolan

2007-10-11T20:58:00.000-07:00

" . . . . a cup of cold water in Christ's name . . . ."

Friends,

The following post is self-explanatory. It came about due to an
incoming email I received from a long time friend. He and I were
friends and school mates in the little town where we grew up as
kids, and we have continued to remain in touch over the past half
century. When I write to my non-Science friends and associates and
attempt to give them a bit of exposure to what Science is and does,
I often include a copy of what I write to some of my good Christian
Science friends and associates. Our dear _________received a copy
of the below yesterday, and she wrote me today and requested that I
place a copy here upon the Mary Baker G. Eddy Group for all to see.
Although it doesn't contain the high, pure unadulterated truth we
are all so accustomed to being exposed to, it does, as Christine
has written, "ring true." So, in that spirit is the following be
uploaded, hopefully for your reading pleasure.

+ + + + + + +

Over the years I've cultivated and nurtured an enormous host of
friends and associates who have grown to know both me as well as my
insatiable hunger and thirsting for ever more spiritual
understanding of God, and that I satisfy these cravings by my study
and application of Christian Science. In the main, the majority of
my circle of friends know very little, if anything, about Science,
so I endeavor to share with each individual some insights that are
tailor made to their specific need, that may arise at any given
moment in their respective life-experiences.

____ _______, my friend for over fifty years, wrote the following in
an email that he sent to me this morning:

"We're like fine wine Bro. Getting better with age. Only wish I
could get my bones to believe that. They are telling quite a
different story. Get up in the morning and feel a pain that you
didn't have the day before and say "now, what in hell is that all
about?"

I couldn't resist writing the following and sending it back. I now
await his response!

"You've no idea of the peace of mind and heart that is descended
upon me right now, knowing as I do that you've come up and out of
the 'salt mines' for today and that you're by now at home and
enjoying that much deserved rest that awaits any man who spends his
time during the day engaged in such extracting details and
laborious expenditures of energy. Oh, how well I relate to
awakening in the morning to discover one or more of those "new" and
heretofore unfelt discomforts, pains, soreness es or quirks within
the ol bod, only to find myself wondering, just like yourself,
"now, what in the hell is that all about?" I surmise that we each
have our own unique way of dealing with such challenges if and when
they appear upon the screens of our life. I wouldn't be so bold as
to assume to be privy to how you have come to cope with the
on-coming encroachments of age? You may get either a good laugh or
a cloud of bewilderment if you knew how I've been trained to deal
with the thief of old-age. Here is the best definition of old age:
Old age is merely an accumulation of unresolved problems!

My entire life has been given over to learning how to demonstrate
the only "gift" that was conferred by divinity upon humanity at the
time of the Creation. That eternal and priceless "gift" happens to
be "dominion." "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after
our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea,
and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the
earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."
Gen. 1:28.

Well, ____, wouldn't you agree that 'old age' is one of the
"creeping things" that "creepeth upon the earth?" We're never
young one day, and then old the next! Age creeps in upon us almost
unnoticeably; yet creep it does, incontrovertibly! And it brings a
host of other "creeping things" along with it when it arrives! Its
non-invited presence is first felt about mid-life when suddenly we
notice a diminution, or diminishment, of the quality of our
eyesight! Yep, very slowly, but surely, our arms suddenly become
too short to hold away from our eyes the small print that we could
very plainly see yesterday but that's been replaced today with just
a hazy blur! Other "creeping things" manifest in such unique ways,
as seen in the thinning of our hair; the gradual impairment of our
hearing; the slow conversion of the color of our hair into a
thinning field of grey or white where a thick stock of Chestnut
brown or brunette strands had once existed!

After a half century of intense plumbing of much of the sacred
literature of the world in search of an understanding of what
"dominion" actually means, my quest was rewarded some time back
when I happened across the most absolute and precise answer to my
humble inquiry when standing one morning in front of my bathroom
mirror shaving. My life consists largely of abiding in the Word,
and letting the Word abide in me. Thus, I had just begun to
silently recite the Twenty-third Psalm, when suddenly spiritual
lightning and its attending roaring thunder broke in upon me and
revealed divinity's answer to my human inquiry; namely, "What is
dominion?"

As though God spoke to me early that morning, I heard the
long-sought answer to my life-quest inquiry! "The Lord is my
shepherd; I shall not want." From that moment to this I've never
ceased to realize, and this, with ever increasing clarity and
spiritual understanding –– that the most basic definition of
DOMINION is TO NOT WANT! Thus, "I shall not want." The very
moment we cease "to not want," and begin to want, is the very
moment we lose, or relinquish, the possession of our God-given
DOMINION!

To "WANT" is to deny one's God-given DOMINION, and should we
indulge such conscious cravings, then thereby, do we cast ourselves
into a mental prison that is fabricated of constant desires! We
lose our DOMINION the moment we begin to WANT! What, possibly, is
there to WANT that could conceivably be more than what is already
within the sea; over the foul of the air; over the cattle upon the
earth; and over all the earth; not to neglect including over every
creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth? Could there possibly
be anything other or more? Methinks not!

So, having lived under a regimen of such austere spiritual
sensitivity and discipline, as that which I've just described
above, you will now understand the stance I take when confronted
with one or more of those bodily discoveries that report a new
physical discomfort or impairment of some form or type upon
awakening in the morning. Instantly, whenever such a sensory
impression interjects itself into my conscious awareness, I quickly
resort to my shield and buckler as I flee into my high tower –– the
sacred inner sanctum at the core of my BEING where the Holy of
Holies lives and from whence It governs my life. Once securely
centered within, I reassume the posture of DOMINION, and thence, do
I reason with my body [the very place in which the new physical
malady is being felt] thusly:

"Contrary to popular world-belief, I opt to disbelieve that I exist
and live in you! Rather, do I understand that you exist and live in
me! Why so? Well, as unintelligent matter, my body cannot 'think'
about me; however, as intelligent Spirit, the "I" which "I am"
does, most assuredly, think both as me and therefore about my body.
Thus, the intelligent Spirit which is me is obviously greater than
the unintelligent matter of which my body appears to be fabricated
–– that matter in which I believe this discomfort and pain are
being felt! Matter has neither any capacity nor intelligence to
inform the Spirit which is me of either any pain or of any
pleasure, for matter, as such, is non-intelligent, and thus, must
it exist as subserviently and subordinately lesser to that Spirit
within me which is, indeed, omnipotently Greater!"

Suddenly, I discover the body which I have correctly identified as
existing within me, as being completely devoid of any complaint and
discomfort and I go about my day entirely free from having been
imposed upon when awakening in the morning only to find myself
faced with another glorious opportunity to demonstrate, with
absolute certainty, the spiritual gift of DOMINION which was so
magnanimously conferred upon me and all by divinity, at such time
"When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God
shouted for joy!" Job 38:7.

I imagine all you WANT now is for David to cease meandering through
the chambers of his mind and allow you some peace and rest?

Your wish is my command!

With Christly affection . . . .

Dave Nolan

CAUSE or Movement?

2007-10-07T06:49:00.001-07:00

Dear __________,

Your message to _______, stirs thought to reflect
upon the fact that when one checks ones Concordance,
it is evident in the various books found in Prose
Works, including the Church Manual that the
Pastor Emeritus of The Mother Church referenced
the Cause of Christian Science many more times than
she did the Movement of Christian Science. A
comparison of these terms is noteworthy. The great
Cause of Christian Science is going on always and
we must only bring ourselves in alignment with it.

Certainly to enter a Christian Science church service
with thoughts filled with self concern or arrogance,
will not afford one the joy of bringing out and
sharing those spiritual gifts of blessing that he or
she alone may share. What is needful is for each
one to fill his or her thought with,

"Oil.Consecration; charity; gentleness; prayer; heavenly inspiration."1.

One must leave a false sense of self outside the door so that
one may fulfill the imperative demand of attending to the business
at hand of prayer, that is blessing the congregation.

Of this, our Leader admonishes in the Church Manual,
page 42, under DISCIPLINE that:

"Prayer in Church. Sect. 5. The prayers in
Christian Science churches shall be offered for
the congregations collectively and exclusively."

Visiting other churches I have noted that their prayer
intentions are for the world or for a particular
political outcome, or for the community. However,
we do not have that same path. The Christian Science
service in praising our God is devoted to the realization
of the wholeness of all those present who are termed
the congregation.

It is obvious why this is so. We may only love our neighbors
as we love ourselves. By leaving a false sense of self out
of the equation and blessing the entire congregation with
Christly love and caring - with prayers that divine Mind gives
each individual heart to bless the whole - *this* does more for the
community and the world than anything else. The attendees may then
go forth refortified to extend their sense of Truth and
wholeness to the community, their neighborhoods,
state, country, the world and so on.

The best way to accomplish this is not by revved up organization
but by the humble simplicity of prayer and heavenly inspiration.

It has really nothing to do with too many committees,
long meetings that drain one of spiritual sense and
incite recognition of the personal sense of this one
or that.

Members who have been truly touched by the Christ-Light
of perfect BEING will want to depart in holy reflection
along with a natural friendliness among the other
attendees. The thought that has been touched by the
Christ, that has received that cold cup of living water
is satisfied very simply. Not too much is required.
The least organization, the better. This was why it
was recommended by Mrs. Eddy for her followers to form
voluntary associations free of the heaviness and
social stratification inherent in the bonds of
ecclesiastical despotism.

In Christian Science as Paul preaches, and as
Marin Luther admonished 2., we are all fellow priests, each
one charged with commending to one another in our
congregations those infinite blessings unconfined
and divine.

Paula

1. Mary Baker Eddy, from the chapter Glossary from
the Key To The Scriptures in Science and
Health - page 592:25-26.

2. http://history.hanover.edu/texts/luthad.html

SEPTEMBER 22ND, 1987

2007-09-22T22:46:00.000-07:00

In Christian Science history on September 22nd, 1987,
Mary Baker Eddy's little book,
SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES
emerged from the fetters of its unconstitutional shackle,
Private Law 92-60, which was an attempt to copyright
all 431 editions of the textbook, keeping them from
entering the public domain as the divine intention
demanded when our Leader ceased copyright action in
1906.

Recently, I noted that 1903, is the earliest date of
Copyright following the first edition of 1975, found
in all books published by the Boston organization.
Whereas the Aequus authentic 1910 edition gives the
date of the first edition 1975, and all the
following copyright dates of 1890, 1894, 1901,
1902, 1906. The explanation for this discrepancy is
that addendum changes transpired that were connected
with copyright through 1906. Following that year,
more than 4000 changes took place between 1907, and
1910. Each of these changes had *no* copyright
restrictions placed upon them.

Concerning the illegal 1971 Copyright Act,
David James Nolan states:

"Mrs. Eddy previously had always copyrighted her editions at the time
any extensive changes were made, regardless of the date of her last
copyright. For instance, she took out copyrights on Science and
Health in 1875, 1878, 1883, 1885, 1890, 1894, 1901, 1902, 1906. Why
then did she not copyright the extensive changes made after the
second edition in 1907, She tells us "spiritual ideas unfold as we
advance," and after her second edition in 1907 spiritual ideas began
unfolding exponentially in her consciousness bringing forth
evolutionary statements and changes of the greatest spiritual
magnitude, ushering in the "culmination of scientific statement and
proof."

And also:

"The complete and final revelation of Christian Science is not set
forth in the 1906 edition. Fourteen more editions were required to
bring out the final revelation. Mrs. Eddy speaks of her first
edition in 1875 as having been revised only to give a clearer and
fuller _expression to its original meaning. But it took the
unfoldment that came with all 432 editions to make the pure Science
of Christian Science clear to humanity in such a form and manner as
would enable it to be taught in the same way that music and
mathematics are taught. A vital part of this unfoldment came between
1907 and 1910. A science does not need to be copyrighted, and Mrs.
Eddy stated, "Christian Science is not copyrighted." When Mrs. Eddy
made no arrangements to copyright the major developments and
profound unfoldments that came with the last fourteen editions, it
seems evident that she wished Science and Health to be in the public
domain at the earliest possible time." See http://tinyurl.com/2danuw

The following is as close a replica as I can manage
to show forth the decision rendered on behalf
of our textbook, preserving its very being as
divinely intended freeing it to exist forever in the
public domain. The entire argument is given in
APPENDIX II in Helen Wright's book, "AMERICA,
CRADLE FOR THE SECOND COMING OF THE CHRIST".

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

No.85-5959
UNITED CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS, et al.

v.

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE BOARD of DIRECTORS,
FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST, APPELLANT

_____________

Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Columbia

(Civil Action No. 83-03486)

_______________

Argued May 28, 1986

Decided September 22, 1987

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

________

No. 85-5959 September Term, 1987
Civil Action No. 83-03486
United States Court of
For the District of Columbia
Circuit

FILED SEP 22 1987

George A. Fisher
clerk

United Christian Scientists, et al.

v.

Christian Science Board of Directors,
First Church of Christ, Scientist,
Appellant

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Before WALD, Chief Judge, Robinson, Circuit Judge, and
EDWARD D. RE*, Chief Judge, United States Court
of International Trade.

J U D G M E N T

This cause came on to be heard on the record on appeal from
the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, and
was argued by counsel. On consideration thereof, it is

ORDERED and ADJUDGED, by this Court, that the judgmnent of the
District Court appealed from in this cause is hereby affirmed,
in accordance with the Opinion for the Court filed herein this
date.

Per Curiam

For The Court

George A. Fisher
clerk

Date: September 22, 1987
Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge Robinson
*Sitting by designation pursuant to 28 U.S.C. S 293(a).

________________________________________________________

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge ROBINSON

ROBINSON, Circuit Judge: At issue in this case is the
constitutional validity of Private Law 92-60,1 which grants
appellant, Christian Science Board of Directors of the
First Church of Christ, Scientist (First Church), an extended
copyright on all editions of Science and Health with Key
to the Scriptures (Science and Health), the central
theological text of the Christian Science faith. Appellees,
United Christian Scientists and David James Nolan and
Lucile J. Place, two officers of a dissenting group of
Christian Scientists, challenge Private Law 92-60, on grounds
that it violates the Copyright Clause of the Constitution and,
as well, the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the
First Amendment thereof.2 Finding that both the purpose
and the effect of Private Law 92-60 were to aid religion,
the District Court held that it contravenes the Establishment
Clause. We conclude that Private Law 92-60 offends fundamental
principles of separation of church and state, and accordingly
affirm........"

Last two pages as regards special copyright law,
Private Law 92-60 rendered in 1971.....

"In sum, First Church has acquired full dominion
over public access to Science and Health. Congress
has bestowed upon the Church not only symbolic recognition
as guardian of the text, but also significant practical
advantages in that role.

In conferring these benefits, Private Law 92-60 has the
unmistakable effect of advancing the Church's cause.
Establishment Clause precedent amply indicts governmental
involvement in sectarian affairs of this sort. 102 As the
Supreme Court has taught

an important concerns of the effects test is whether
the symbolic union of church and state effected by
the challenged governmental action is sufficiently
likely to be perceived by adherents of the controlling
denomination as an endorsement, and by the non-adherents
as a disapproval, of their individual religious choices.

In the case at bar, the impermissible message of sectarian
endorsement and the correlative message of sectarian dis-
approval are not merely possibilities, but accomplished
and formally attested facts. 104

The judgment appealed from in this case is accordingly

Affirmed.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Hence, on this day, SEPTEMBER 22, 1987, justice was
served and Principle was glorified.

finis

COPYRIGHT "ACT" 1971

2007-09-08T00:45:00.000-07:00

By David James Nolan

"SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES"

COPYRIGHT "ACT" 1971

When needed tell the truth concerning the lie. Correct the false with
the true-then leave the latter to propagate.

Expose and denounce the claims of evil.

Withhold not the rebuke or explanation which destroys error.

Mary Baker Eddy.

Justice also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the
plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the
waters shall overflow the hiding place -- Isaiah 28:17

THE last document under discussion is the Copyright "Act" on Science
and Health passed by Congress in 1971. This copyright action was a
private bill introduced into the Senate. It was called "An Act for
the relief of Clayton Bion Craig, Arthur P. Wuth, Mrs. Lenore D.
Hanks, David E. Sleeper, and DeWitt John:" These five named persons
were the five-member ecclesiastical Board of Directors. This private
copyright bill was numbered S. 1866. It has no connection with the
revised copyright law which took effect January 1, 1978.

Testimony of various witnesses before Subcommittee No. 3, Committee
on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, on S. 1866, can be read
in the Appendix (see p. 255).

It is illuminating to read Mrs. Eddy's comments regarding copyright:

Christian Science is not copyrighted; nor would protection by
copyright be requisite, if mortals obeyed God's law of manright. A
student can write voluminous works on Science without trespassing,
if he writes honestly, and he cannot dishonestly compose Christian
Science. The Bible is not stolen though it is cited, and quoted
deferentially.

To understand the situation it is necessary to go back to the time of
Mrs. Eddy's passing. Mrs. Eddy in her Will had left a large portion
of her estate to "the church, to be used for "the promotion and
extension of the Science taught by [her]. " The five-member Board of
Directors (whose office as Directors had actually been terminated by
the estoppel clauses in the Church Manual, as we have seen) sued to
gain control of this money. Around 1913 the Court awarded them
custody of these funds, and thus the Board of Directors also became
known as the Trustees under the Will of Mary Baker G. Eddy. This is
how the Trustees under the Will of Mary Baker G. Eddy came into
being. The Court, of course, did not realize that through her
estoppel clauses in the Church Manual Mrs. Eddy had terminated this
Board of Directors.

In 1916 the Board of Directors began the policy of "authorizing
literature. " This was a powerful tool in molding church-member
opinion in conformity with the convictions of those in authority in
Boston. It was a move that stifled growth, understanding, and
inspiration.

The next important move of the Board of Directors came in 1919 when
they launched a concerted campaign to take over the communications
arm of the Movement, the Christian Science Publishing Society. This
they accomplished by means of a protracted legal battle, which was
covered in Chapter IV

1934 COPYRIGHT, ILLEGAL

In 1934 the five-member ecclesiastical Board of Directors moved to
get the copyright on Science and Health out of Mrs. Eddy's name and
into their own through the renewal of the 1906 edition of Science and
Health. This caused a great stir in the Christian Science Field since
most Christian Scientists felt Mrs. Eddy wanted Science and Health to
be in the public domain at the earliest possible time and she had
made no provision for the 1906 copyright renewal, nor had she
copyrighted the vital changes made in her last fourteen editions. To
give the copyright on Mrs. Eddy's great work, Science and Health, to
five individuals in Boston seemed a grave injustice to Mrs. Eddy.

Attorneys familiar with the case felt that as Mrs. Eddy had made no
provision to pass on these copyrights, or for the renewal of the
still-existing 1906 copyright, it was clearly her intention to let
that copyright lapse.

Attorneys also contended that the renewal of the 1906 copyright in
1934 was illegally obtained because under copyright law at that time
the only one who could renew a copyright was the originator of the
work, meaning in this case, Mary Baker Eddy herself, or the executor
of her estate, Mr. Fernald. Mr. Fernald had passed on prior to 1934.
In his place Boston appointed an "administrator . " They could not
appoint an executor since only the person who initially takes the
responsibility of resolving an individual's estate can be termed
an "executor." Because the man who replaced Mr. Fernald was merely
an administrator, he did not have the legal authority under
copyright law, at that time, to renew the copyright on the 1906
edition.

Furthermore, it must be remembered that the five-member
ecclesiastical Board of Directors had usurped power and authority
illegally in 1910 at Mrs. Eddy's passing, since the estoppel clauses
terminated The Mother Church and its Board of Directors.

(During the years from 1907 to 1910 momentous scientific changes
consummated the teachings of the Christian Science textbook Science
textbook, Science and Health. While Mrs. Eddy issued 432 editions of
Science and Health, her statement on page 361:21 must be born in
mind:
"I have revised Science and Health only to give clearer and fuller
_expression of its original meaning. Spiritual ideas unfold as we
advance." They unfolded in greatest profusion during the years 1907
to 1910, but always as an unfoldment of that "final revelation of the
absolute divine Principle of scientific mental healing" she received
initially in the year 1866. [See S&H. 107:1-6.])

The 1906 edition of Science and Health was therefore the only edition
on which the Board could obtain renewal of copyright, but this
edition had not been used by Christian Scientists since 1906 because
much-changed and updated later more scientific editions superseded
it. Since 1910 the only edition of Science and Health in general
use, and for sale in Reading Rooms, is the 1910 edition, which
differs radically from the 1906 edition. The 1906 cannot be
substituted for the 1910 edition.

Because of the complete control, and the great financial resources of
the Board of Directors, this 1934 copyright action was not challenged
in the Courts of the land.

ERRATA

NOTE TO READER:

Since publication the following facts concerning the illegal 1934
renewal of copyright on Science and Health have come to light, and
take precedence over any conflicting statement in this Chapter.

The second codicil to Mrs. Eddy's will states: the residue of my
estate...I have left to said The First Church of Christ, Scientist,
in Boston, Massachusetts" (see Appendix, p. 180, line 24). This
codicil, dated May 14, 1904, had priority at any point where there
was a variance between it and her basic will dated September 13,
1901. In this codicil she does not mention The Mother Church since
the estoppel clauses would terminate The Mother Church at her
passing.

In 1901 the four-member Board of Directors was not only the legal
entity which Mrs. Eddy created by her September, 1892, Deed of Trust
but was also the governing Board of the second organization which was
at first called "Mother's Church" and later designated "The Mother
Church." Thus the Board of Directors wore two hats and continued to
do so until the estoppel clauses in the Manual terminated The Mother
Church and the five-member ecclesiastical Board of Directors at Mrs.
Eddy's passing, following which only the four-member legal Board
existed.

In order to trace the ownership of the copyrights on Science and
Health and to show the illegality of the 1934 renewal of this
copyright, we submit the following vital information taken from
Alice Orgain's Angelic Overtures to Christ and Christmas, pp. 819-
821:

On March 6th, 1907, Mrs. Eddy made a personal Deed of Trust placing
her entire earthly fortune in the hands of three Trustees, Henry M.
Baker, Josiah E. Fernald, and Archibald McClellan. This Deed of Trust
transferred and assigned to these three Trustees ownership of the
copyrights to her writings, as can be seen from the following quote
from this Deed of Trust:

KNOW ALL MEN BY THESE PRESENTS: that I, Mary Baker G. Eddy...do
hereby grant, convey, assign, and transfer unto the said [three
Trustees]. . .all my interest of every kind and description . . .
including stocks, bonds, interests in copyrights, contracts, . . .
First: To manage, care for, and control all the above granted real
estate and interest therein during my earthly life . . . . Fourth:
At the termination of my earthly life, this trust shall terminate,
and all the personal estate then held by my said trustees shall pass
to the executor of my last will and codicils thereto, to be disposed
of in accordance with the provisions thereof.

At Mrs. Eddy's passing, the five-member ecclesiastical Board of
Directors, which included the four-member legal Board within itself,
refused to obey the By-Laws containing estoppel clauses. This, in
effect, amended and annulled these By-Laws, and the four-member Board
never discharged its responsibilities, never lawfully took office.
This constituted a breach of trust. On p. 133:13, the Manual states:

11. The omission or neglect on the part of said Directors to strictly
comply with any of the conditions herein contained shall constitute a
breach thereof, and the title hereby conveyed shall revert to the
grantor Mary Baker G. Eddy, her heirs and assigns

(Man. 133:13.)

Remember, Principle, God, dictated the Manual. Did this breach of
trust deprive the Board of Directors of any rights to Mrs. Eddy's
copyrights on Science and Health? Certainly the five-member
ecclesiastical Board of Directors never had any legal authority to
renew the copyright on Science and Health in 1934 or in 1971.

Also, Mrs. Orgain states that in 1934 the courts very definitely said
that there is no provision for an administrator to renew.
Additionally, it is a definite fact that neither an Executor nor an
Administrator so appointed could renew copyrights after he had
completed the administration of the estate. Josiah E. Fernald was
appointed Administrator by the Court to succeed the deceased
Executor Henry M. Baker. Mr. Fernald "closed his final account [as
Administrator] March 26, 1914," according to the Register of the
Court of Probate for the County of Merrimack in New Hampshire. It
was therefore illegal for past Administrator Josiah E. Fernald to
renew the 1906 copyright on Science and Health twenty years later.
That the Board of Directors knew this is evidenced by the fact that
the copyrights of 1890, 1894, and 1901 were properly renewed by
Ebenezer J. Foster-Eddy, who, however, had passed on shortly before
the time to renew the 1906 copyrights.

A pregnant question, rich in significance and implication, remains
unanswered:

Mrs. Eddy previously had always copyrighted her editions at the time
any extensive changes were made, regardless of the date of her last
copyright. For instance, she took out copyrights on Science and
Health in 1375, 1878, 1883, 1885, 1890, 1894, 1901, 1902, 1906. Why
then did she not copyright the extensive changes made after the
second edition in 1907, She tells us "spiritual ideas unfold as we
advance," and after her second edition in 1907 spiritual ideas began
unfolding exponentially in her consciousness bringing forth
evolutionary statements and changes of the greatest spiritual
magnitude, ushering in the "culmination of scientific statement and
proof."

Do these extensive spiritual additions, covering the whole range of
Science and Health universalize our textbook? Do they evince that her
final great illuminations lifted Science and Health beyond the power
of law or church to bind?--Do they establish that the Church of
Christ, Scientist, is a wholly spiritual state of consciousness, the
Church Universal and Triumphant? This must be so because her last 24
or 25 highest statements (other than those in Science and Health)
were not given to The Mother Church periodicals but to the WORLD
through its own channels: New York World, The Ladies Home Journal,
Boston Herald, Boston Globe, Concord Monitor, New York American, The
Independent, The Evening Press, Cosmopolitan, Minneapolis News,
Boston Post, New York Commercial Advertiser, etc.

"Sweeping down the centuries" Science gathers beneath its wings all
humanity, inexorably bringing to light Mary Baker Eddy's successor,
man in God's image and likeness, generic man.

END OF ERRATA

"There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed; or hid, that
shall not be made known."

--Christ Jesus

Dear Reader:

Slowly all the facts in connection with the Copyright Act of 1971 on
Science and Health are coming to light.

None of these facts are more pertinent than Mrs. Eddy's letter to
William G. Nixon (p. 163 of this book) evincing her fear of legalized
suppression of Science and Health through copyright legislation. She
wanted Science and Health to be given at once to the people, and
expressed utter dismay at the prospect of any copyright legislation
that would impede the greatest world-wide distribution of Science and
Health, knowing that such legislation would do incalculable harm to
the prosperity of her book. The thought of giving certain
individuals a monopoly on Science and Health and thus limiting its
accessibility to the public through copyright legislation, was
intolerable to Mrs. Eddy.

In order to avoid this "great sin," she said, "God's law to 'Feed my
sheep,' to give Science and Health at once to those hungering for it,
must be obeyed and held paramount to an international law on
copyright"
(pp. 163 and 164.)

The 1971 Congressional Copyright Act on Science and Health threatens
to ruin, totally, the "prosperity" of this book. This 1971
Congressional Copyright Act was "for the relief of' five named
individuals in Boston who were the "Trustees under the Will of Mary
Baker Eddy," and at the same time were also the five-member
ecclesiastical Board of Directors of The Mother Church.

In order to get at the heart of this copyright matter it is important
to understand how the "Trustees under the Will of Mary Baker Eddy"
came into being.

In the second codicil to her will (see p. 180) Mrs. Eddy bequeathed
the residue of her estate "to the said The First Church of Christ,
Scientist," the local Boston church.

As has been well-chronicled in this book, the estoppel clauses in the
Church Manual terminated both The Mother Church and the five-member
ecclesiastical Board of Directors leaving only the four-member legal
or fiduciary Board established by Mrs. Eddy's 1892 Deed of Trust.
This was a self-perpetuating Board, controlling only the local
Boston church.

However, the five-member ecclesiastical Board, which was governed by
the Church Manuals estoppel clauses, refused to step down when, at
Mrs. Eddy's passing, these estoppels (terminating The Mother Church
and its five-member ecclesiastical Board) went into effect. This
five-member ecclesiastical Board was made up of the four-member
legal or fiduciary Board, which simply wore another hat when it
acted as Mother Church ecclesiastical Directors. (A fifth Director
was added from the Field in February, 1903.) As fiduciary Board
members under the 1892 and 1903 Deeds of Trust this 4-member Board
was only a housekeeper for The First Church of Christ, Scientist,
the local Boston church. But when they put on their ecclesiastical
hat and acted as the Board of Directors of The Mother Church (which
they were allowed to do during Mrs. Eddy's lifetime) they enjoyed
almost unlimited power, prestige, authority, and "glory".

When Mrs. Eddy passed on in 1910 her estoppel clauses in the Manual
ended all that power and authority. This was a pill too bitter for
the five-member ecclesiastical Board to swallow. They refused to
obey the estoppel clauses, which terminated their Board, and they
quickly instituted suit to gain control of the money and property
Mrs. Eddy had left in her second codicil NOT to The Mother Church,
but to The First Church of Christ, Scientist, the local Boston
church which was legally set up to receive it.

In an original will, dated Sept. 13, 1901, Mrs. Eddy had left
everything to The Mother Church. But in the second codicil to her
will she changed the beneficiary, and left everything to The First
Church of Christ, Scientist, a completely different entity from The
Mother Church. (By 1911 standards the estate was very large.)

A committee of dedicated Christian Scientists which is making a
thorough investigation of the 1971 Congressional Copyright Act on
Science and Health, requested the complete New Hampshire Probate
Court records in connection with the granting of Mrs. Eddy's estate
to the five-member ecclesiastical Board of Directors of The Mother
Church. The Court records arrived without the codicils which in 1904
changed the beneficiary from The Mother Church, as named in the
original will of 1901, making the new beneficiary The First Church
of Christ, Scientist, the local Boston church.

When inquiry was made regarding the missing codicils, the New
Hampshire Probate Court official stated the codicils were not sent
because in the Court's opinion they in no way influenced the will.
In a telephone conversation which followed, the New Hampshire
Probate Court official stated that the lawyers acting for the Mother
Church Board of Directors never explained to the Court that The
First Church of Christ, Scientist, was a different entity from The
Mother Church; instead the Mother Church attorneys allowed the
Probate Court officials to believe that The Mother Church and The
First Church of Christ, Scientist, were one and the same thing. Thus
the New Hampshire Probate Court was kept unaware that the second
codicil to Mrs. Eddy's will changed the beneficiary to her estate.

The Court therefore awarded, in error, Mrs. Eddy's estate to the
five-member ecclesiastical Board of Directors of The Mother Church
instead of to the four-member legal or fiduciary Board of The First
Church of Christ, Scientist, the local Boston Church. But it must be
remembered that the two boards were constituted of the same
individuals, except for a fifth member. They merely Performed
different functions. After Mrs. Eddy's passing the four-member
fiduciary Board never lawfully took office, never discharged its
duties; thus they broke their trust. These four members of the legal
Board, who were governed by the two deeds of trust shown in the back
of the Manual breached their trust agreement when they waived the
Manual's estoppel clauses and refused to give up the great power and
authority they wielded during Mrs. Eddy's lifetime. Because of this
breach the entire estate legally reverted to Mrs. Eddy's heirs and
assigns as provided by condition No. 11 of the trust agreement,
(Man. 133:13)

The probate court, unaware of all the foregoing facts, awarded Mrs.
Eddy's estate (which included copyrights) to the five-member
ecclesiastical Board of Directors. And this is how the "Trustees
under the Will of Mary Baker Eddy' came into being. Thus, the five-
member ecclesiastical Board of Directors now held yet another office.

The estate (including copyrights) should, of course, have gone to The
First Church of Christ, Scientist, as Mrs. Eddy intended and
specified in the last codicil to her will. But it did not. Instead,
the "Trustees under the Will" kept the copyrights for sixty years
and derived all revenues, royalties, and other benefits therefrom.

Through the copyright legislation of 1971 these Trustees under the
will secured the copyrights not only to the 1906 edition but to all
432 editions of Science and Health, in their own names-in the names
of Craig, Wuth, Hanks, Sleeper, and John. This copyright legislation
was consummated in December of 1971. A month later, in January of
1972, Craig, Wuth, Hanks, Sleeper, and John sold the copyrights to
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, for the reported sum of two
million dollars. (This in spite of the fact that Mrs. Eddy had
bequeathed her estate, including copyrights, to this church sixty
years prior to this time.) Also it must be remembered that Craig,
Wuth, Hanks, Sleeper, and John were simultaneously the Board of
Directors and the Trustees under the Will.

In view of the above and the fact that many leading authorities found
the 1971 Congressional Copyright Act to be unconstitutional,
violating the First Amendment prohibition of Congress making a "law
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof,"we feel this 1971 copyright legislation should be
rescinded. A petition to return all 432 editions of Science and
Health to the public domain would extend to our Congress an
opportunity to set the highest example of justice and equity ever to
be performed by any government, since it would be asking that
legislative body to free the Word of God from legalized suppression
by international copyright law, and to let God's Word have free
course and be glorified.

Gods message to humanity during the past 70 years has been obvious,
namely, that a society of sheep invariably begets a government of
wolves and that the great need of the hour is for each one to claim
and accept his true heritage: government by divine Principle alone.

THE 1971 COPYRIGHT ACTION

The next renewal could have come up in 1962, but due to the new
Copyright Act, which was under consideration in Congress, all
copyright renewals were extended until the new Copyright law took
effect (which would be in 1978).

The many voices of protest raised in 1934 against the copyright
renewal on Science and Health caused the Board of Directors to
pursue their next copyright plans in utmost secrecy. Accordingly, in
1971 a private bill titled "An Act for the Relief of Clayton Bion
Craig, Arthur P. Wuth, Mrs. Lenore D. Hanks, David E. Sleeper, and
DeWitt John "was introduced into the Senate.

The Board of Directors' homework was well done and well timed. With
the No. 1 and No. 2 principals on the White House Staff and a number
of influential Senators and Congressmen all members of the Christian
Science Church and all loyal to the Board of Directors' point of
view, the bill was planted in a fertile field.

So, in 1971 while the Board of Directors portrayed the copyright
action they were taking as being just a 'renewal" the fact was that
it was NOT a renewal. They were actually securing a brand new
copyright in their own name, not only on the 1906 edition but on all
the other 431 editions of Science and Health most of which had long
been in the public domain. They obtained this through a most unusual
procedure, which the Congress enacted and President Nixon signed
into law. This copyright is to be effective for 75 years.

While the Trustees under the Will of Mary Baker G. Eddy are also the
Christian Science Board of Directors, it is reported that within t
copyright the name changed from Trustees Eddy to "The Christi;
transaction is partially Journal of November, section).

Among other things, this same Journal article states:

In her will, Mrs. Eddy made several specific bequests. The balance of
her estate, including the copyrights on her books, was left to the
Church.

This is not correct. If the reader will turn to Mrs. Eddy's will,
reproduced in the Appendix, he will not find anywhere in her Will a
bequeathing of her copyrights to the church, and hence not to the
Trustees under the Will of Mary Baker G. Eddy, who are the five-
member ecclesiastical Board of Directors.

COPYRIGHT ACT UNCONSTITUTIONAL

Competent legal and constitutional authorities have severely
criticized and condemned the 1971 Copyright "Act" on Science and
Health as totally unconstitutional. Senator Jacob Javits took a
strong position against the bill, S. 1866. He pointed out that it
would vest in the Board of Directors (or the Trustees under the Will
of Mary Baker G. Eddy) exclusive copyright "over Mrs. Eddy's great
work, --Science and Health,-- upon which a copyright law for the one
edition which was published in 1906. Numerous editions [actually 431
editions] are now in the public domain, and of course other
revisions may take place hereafter."

Senator Javits then again requested, that because of the alleged
unconstitutionality of this copyright Act, Congress delay
consideration of it. Javits wanted to give the New York Bar
Association an opportunity to file a statement of its objections to
this copyright Act.

Following are some excerpts from report of the Committee of Civil
Rights of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York on the
subject of S. 1866. The report was forwarded with the approval of the
President of the Association, the Honorable Bernard Biotin:

On behalf of the Association, we again strongly urge that this bill
not be enacted. As you will note, the report recommends the
rejection of the bill--or its recommitted to the Committee on the
Judiciary for hearings on the constitutionality of the issues
involved, so as to give its proponents an opportunity to respond to
our views as to the bill's unconstitutionality.

In closing they again stress the Copyright Act's unconstitutionality.

The Association of the Bar of the City of New York, Committee on
Civil Rights, after strongly recommending rejection of this
copyright Act on Science and Health, stated:

The Association's Committee on Copyright Law, basing its stand on the
constitutional provisions for copyright and the policy of copyright
law, has announced its opposition...because it would violate the
First Amendment prohibition of Congress making a "law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

While the Bar Association's letter urged rejection of this Copyright
"Act," on the grounds of its unconstitutionality and its impingement
on the First Amendment guaranteeing religious liberty, they may also
have seen the grave injustice being done the author, Mary Baker
Eddy, in granting to five persons in Boston no but only a copyright
on the 1906 edition, but on all 432 editions, 418 of which had long
been in the public domain; and the cruelest blow of all to the
author, Mary Baker Eddy, came with granting these five persons in
Boston the right to bring out their own versions and revisions of
Science and Health.

The Bar Association points out that this copyright Act on Science and
Health would have the following unfortunate effects:

In sum, the effect of 1866 would be ...to single out Mrs. Eddy's
works in the following respects: (a) remove all versions published
prior to the 1906 edition from the public domain and impose thereon
until 2046 or 2047, either a new copyright or a copyright for the
first time; (b)extend to the same date the copyright on the 1906
edition; and (c)allow future versions' [of Science and Health] to be
registered for a period of 75 years from date of publication.

(The question many dedicated Christian Scientists are asking is: "If
the Directors of The Mother Church are not planning to bring out
their own revised editions, why was it so important to have the
copyright Act on Science and Health cover "future versions"?)

The Bar Association in its letter urging rejection of the copyright
Act on Science and Health listed the reasons given by the proponents
of S. 1866, and then stated:

We believe that those very arguments [given by the proponents of the
copyright Act] point to the unconstitutionality of the bill--we
confess ourselves unable to perceive how S. 1866 can be other than
unconstitutional. Its purpose and its ultimate effect are to single
out a particular doctrine within a particular church to grant to
writings embodying that doctrine protection [?] that has never been
made available to any other religious or non religious writings, aid
to supply civil and criminal sanctions against those I who,
religiously or non-religiously, whether calling themselves Christian
Scientists or not, may choose to deviate from that doctrine. Indeed
our research...has failed to disclose any constitutional decisions
involving similar statutes--an indication, if constitutionality can
be regarded as quantitative, how "extremely unconstitutional" S.
1866 is.

Think of Christian Scientists advocating an "extremely
unconstitutional" course! No more law-abiding citizen than Mary Baker
Eddy ever walked on American soil. She said genuine Christian
Scientists are or should be the most law-abiding people on earth.
Mrs. Eddy was a strict believer in the Constitution of the United
States. She would have deplored Christian Scientists endeavoring to
circumvent the Constitution in trying to pass an "extremely
unconstitutional" law that deprives dedicated Christian Scientists
of religious freedom and deprives the public generally of the
benefit of Science and Health, and that will permit the trustees of
Mrs. Eddy's estate (the Board of Directors) to publish 'revised
versions' of Science and Health. S. 1866 gives the Board of
Directors the legal right to bring out revised versions of Science
and Health.

Senator Javits summed up his position by stressing that the copyright
Act on Science and Health raised fundamental questions concerning
conflict between S. 1866 and the First Amendment provisions
guaranteeing religious liberty. He agreed with the Bar Association
that S. 1866 violated the basic principle which governs the granting
of copyrights. Javits reminded the Committee that the Senator from
Michigan, Philip Hart, had raised the same objections to S. 1866.3a

It is also clear the the proponents of the bill, representing the
Board of Directors' position, had led Senator Javits to believe that
the 1906 edition of Science and Health was the edition in general
use and sold in Christian Science Reading Rooms. This, of course,
was totally false. The 1906 edition has not been sold in Christian
Science reading rooms since 1907 nor could the 1906 edition be used
by Christian Scientists in "getting their lesson" or in Sunday
Church services, since the pagination and lineation of the 1906
edition is entirely different from any of the more scientific 14
editions Mrs. Eddy subsequently published. Her 1910 edition is the
one that has been in use since 1910. The 1906 edition has not been
in use for nearly three-quarters of a century.

Senator Javits then once again pointed out the Bar Association's
severe condemnation of this bill as unconstitutional, as impinging
on the First Amendment and supplying civil and criminal sanctions
against those who, religiously or non-religiously--whether calling
themselves Christian Scientists or not-- may choose to deviate from
that doctrine.

Javits observed that no doubt Catholics would like to have a
copyright on the New Testament, and he himself knew the Jewish faith
would like to have a copyright on the Old Testament. He indicated
the entire world had as much right to Science and Health as the
world has to the Holy Scriptures--both the Old and New Testaments.
He indicated it did not seem quite right to him that a great work
like Science and Health should become the personal property of five
persons in Boston. "There is a question, " he said, "which a
copyright raises, of a monopoly and accessibility of this great book
to everyone."

Javits then asked to have printed, among other communications he had
received, the following:

To Senator Jacob K. Javits: On behalf of the Committee on Civil
Rights of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, I
strongly urge that no action be taken by the Senate on S. 1866 'for
the relief of Clayton Bion Craig, et al.' which raises serious
constitutional problems relating to the constitutional provisions
prohibiting the establishment of religion, as well as other
constitutional provisions....

>From Robert M. Kaufmanns, Chairman, Committee on Civil Rights, the

Association of the Bar of the City of New York.

The Committee on Copyright and Literary Property of the Association
of the Bar of the City of New York sent the following telegram to all
members of the House Judiciary Committee:

At its meeting last night the Committee on Copyright and Literary
Property, of the Association of the Bar of New York City, unanimously
disapproved that portion of S. 1866 which purports to restore to
copyright protection editions of Science and Health which have long
been in the public domain. The bill would create for the first
edition of that work a copyright term in excess of 170 years. We
believe that such action exceeds the congressional power under
article 1, section 8, of the Constitution and would represent
unsound copyright policy. We urge you to object to the passage of
private bill S. 1866.

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY HEARING

On page 2 of the "Hearing before the Committee on the Judiciary
Representative McClory, a member of The Mother Church, testifying for
the Christian Science Board of Directors, stated:

The final edition of the Christian Science textbook was published and
copyrighted in 1906..."

This statement is not correct. The 1906 edition was not the final
edition because Mrs. Eddy issued fourteen editions subsequent to the
copyrighted 1906 edition. Each of these fourteen editions contained
changes of the greatest magnitude.

Then Representative McClory continued:

The complete and final revelation of Christian Science, as set forth
by Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, is
embodied in the copyrighted edition of the textbook..."

Again, of course, this is not correct. A committee set up to compare
the 1906 last--copyrighted edition with the 1910 more complete
edition found that Mrs. Eddy had made 3,906 additions, changes, and
deletions in the 1910 edition. This means Mrs. Eddy made nearly
4,000 changes in her 1910 edition. Many of these changes had supreme
significance in the unfoldment of her Science. For instance, a
radical change was made in her fourth edition in 1907 when she
changed her definition of God which brought the entire textbook into
line with the Science she was teaching.

The complete and final revelation of Christian Science is not set
forth in the 1906 edition. Fourteen more editions were required to
bring out the final revelation. Mrs. Eddy speaks of her first
edition in 1875 as having been revised only to give a clearer and
fuller _expression to its original meaning. But it took the
unfoldment that came with all 432 editions to make the pure Science
of Christian Science clear to humanity in such a form and manner as
would enable it to be taught in the same way that music and
mathematics are taught. A vital part of this unfoldment came between
1907 and 1910. A science does not need to be copyrighted, and Mrs.
Eddy stated, "Christian Science is not copyrighted." When Mrs. Eddy
made no arrangements to copyright the major developments and
profound unfoldments that came with the last fourteen editions, it
seems evident that she wished Science and Health to be in the public
domain at the earliest possible time.

Continuing on page 3 of the Congressional Record, the Hon. Robert
McClory states:

While I speak only as one member of the Christian Science Church, I
can assure you that I do, indeed, voice the interest and support of
all Christian Scientists...

This seems a rather sweeping statement from Representative McClory
when there are perhaps more Christian Scientists outside than inside
the official Boston church, and those outside the official church
circle (as well as a great many still within the material
organization) would tend to feel Mrs. Eddy's writings should be in
the public domain just as the Bible is. If "all Christian
Scientists" supported taking the copyright out of the name of Mary
Baker Eddy and vesting it in the Board of Directors why was it
deemed necessary to maintain absolute secrecy in planning this
seventy-five year copyright "extension"?

Dr. J. Buroughs Stokes, Manager of the Christian Science Committee on
Publication, representing the Trustees under the Will of Mary Baker
G. Eddy, and "spokesman for all Christian Science church members,"
stated:

Not a single member of our church has indicated any opposition to the
passage of this bill, or is opposed to extending the copyright on
"Science and Health." Our members realize that the last edition of
"Science and Health" is the pastor of this church. To protect this
pastor, it is necessary to extend the copyright on "Science and
Health," which is owned by the Trustees under the Will of Mary Baker
Eddy. The Christian Scientists know that these Trustees must maintain
the book as their pastor in its final form as written by the author,
and will not change it, revise it, annotate it, or issue abridged
versions. (p. 10 of Committee on Judiciary Report)

Dr. Stokes avers: "Not a single member of our church has indicated
opposition..." But he fails to mention that no one knew about the
bill. It had been prepared in absolute secrecy. It had not been
advertised in any of the Christian Science periodicals or in the
Monitor. Shortly before the bill was passed, a student in
Washington, D.C. heard of it, by chance, and did what she could to
alert Christian Scientists. The worldwide stir aroused by the 1934
copyright renewal obviously warned the Directors of the
inadvisability of letting the Field know of their plans. When asked
by the Committee if the bill had any publicity, G. Ross Cunningham,
Christian Science Committee on Publication for Washington, D.C.,
replied:

There has been national publicity about S. 1866 in various
publications, such as Publishers' Weekly, Variety, and the American
Patent Law Association Bulletin. To the extent that this bill can be
considered newsworthy to them, the public and publishing interests
are informed concerning S. 1866. (p. 6 of Judiciary Report)

No notice of any kind had been sent to the more than three thousand
churches or any of the church members. When asked later by an
interested member of the Committee why nothing had appeared in the
Monitor or any of the Christian Science periodicals concerning S.
1866, the answer given was, "We thought it best to keep it quiet and
not to stir up anything."

A second item in Dr. Stokes' testimony asserted that the members
realize the last edition of Science and Health "is the pastor of this
church. To protect this pastor it is necessary to 'extend' the
copyright...." The last edition changes in Science and Health were
never copyrighted. The following letter from Library of Congress
Office, confirms that no copyright exists on the vital changes Mrs.
Eddy made in her last 14 editions:

COPYRIGHT OFFICE

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Washington, D.C. 20559

United Christian Scientists, Inc.

P.O. Box 8048

San Jose, California, 95155

Attention: David James Nolan

Dear Mr. Nolan:

This refers to your letter of August 11, 1980. The following search
report is made:

Search in the indexes and catalogs of the Copyright Office covering
the period 1898 through 1945 under the name Mary Baker Eddy and title
SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES failed to disclose any
separate registration for a work identified under this name and
specific title and bearing the year dates 1907 through 1910.

Your remittance of $20.00 has been applied in payment for this search
and report.

Sincerely yours,

Robert G. Myers

Bibliographer, Reference and Bibliography Section

Furthermore, the Copyright Act of 1971 was not an "extension' " This
"Act" gave the Board of Directors of The Mother Church a brand new
copyright, vesting all rights to Science and Health-on all 432
editions-in the Trustees under the Will of Mary Baker G. Eddy,
namely, the Board of Directors.

Dr. Stokes further declared that the textbook will not be "changed,
revised, annotated, or abridged."

For a number of years, however, rumors have circulated among highly
placed Boston officials that the Board is working on extensive
revisions to Science and Health. In the past the Directors have made
changes to Scienceand Health. They have removed Mrs. Eddy's picture
from the front of the book; they have moved and deleted testimonies
Mrs. Eddy carefully selected; they have changed marginal headings;
they have added "Authorized Literature of The First Church of Christ,
Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts"; they have listed books and
booklets on the flyleaf of Science and Health; they have reduced the
size of the cross and crown insignia on Science and Health, etc. This
is not reassuring for a future policy that "will not change it,
revise it, annotate it, or issue abridged editions" now that they
are legally empowered to make any changes they may wish to make.

Dr. Stokes offered to show the Judiciary Committee how the "lesson
sermon" is carried out with the Quarterly. But this couldn't have
been the 1906 edition of Science and Health for which they sought the
copyright since its pages and lines are not the same as the 1910
edition currently in use. Church members use the 1910 edition "to get
their lesson." It is this edition which corresponds to the page and
line listed in the Christian Science Quarterly The 1906 edition was
last used for this purpose in 1906, and never since.

Mr. C. Ross Cunningham, Manager of the Washing-ton, D.C. office of
the Christian Science Committee on Publication, told the Judiciary
Congressional Committee why the Board of Directors was seeking to
"extend the copyright on the book Science and Health." After
affirming that the most recent copyright was in 1906, and S. 1866
would "extend" the copyright 75 years, he stated that "this book
[the 1906 edition] is used together with the Bible, as the basic
textbook for all instruction in the Christian Science religion, and
for the teaching and practice of the spiritual healing which is a
central part of this religion." He stated a copyright "extension"
was needed on this book since the present copyright was due to
expire December 31, 1971. He said Christian Scientists look to this
book as the pastor of their church, and all sermons throughout the
world are comprised of scriptural readings together with readings
from this book. He explained in detail how necessary his "extension"
on the 1906 copyright was. But these statements are not correct. 14
editions followed the 1906, in which Science and Health "gathered
momentum and clearness and reached its culmination." The latest is
used in Sunday services throughout the world, and by students for
instruction in Christian Science. Few, indeed, are the Christian
Scientists who have ever seen a 1906 edition of Science and Health.

He further stated that without the copyright extension on this [1906
edition] of Science and Health "there would be serious danger that
the course of Christian Science church services and the basis of
individual religious study by Christian Scientists would be
seriously impaired. The result, " he said, "would be a definite
limitation on the freedom of adherents of this denomination to
practice their religion! These statements, again, are not correct.

As has been previously brought out, the 1906 edition of Science and
Health has not been used by Christian Scientists either individually
or in church services since 1906. Mary Baker Eddy never copyrighted
any of the more than 4000 changes she made in the 14 editions of
Science and Health published after 1906. As has been previously
brought out, she made no provision in her Will or elsewhere for an
extension of copyright on Science and Health after it had run its
normal course of 28 years.

Ignoring the fact that the edition of Science and Health currently in
use in all Christian Science churches should have been in the public
domain since 1934, Mr. Cunningham told the Congressional Judiciary
Committee: "Our concern is that if this book goes into the public
domain, as a practical matter, the public will not know whether it is
buying or reading what Mrs. Eddy wrote ....."

Mr. Abe Goldman, General Counsel, U. S. Copyright Office, like
Senator Javits and others, based his testimony before Congress on his
understanding that the 1906 edition was the one now used in church
services and by individual Christian Scientists, which the proponents
of the bill had obviously led him to believe. Mr. Goldman stated:

We understand that the 1906 edition, the one still under copyright,
is the one now used by the Christian Science Church as the basic
text...for instruction in the Christian Science religion, and for
the practice of its teaching and its church services.

Since all the witnesses representing the Board of Directors knew that
the 1906 edition had not been used by Christian Scientists or for
church services for nearly three-quarters of a century, how could
this copyright havebeen legitimately obtained?

Mr. Goldman testified that there had been little opposition to the
bill, S. 1866. But it must be remembered no one knew about the bill.
It was kept a closely guarded secret until the very last minute. It
was only when Senator Javits requested a postponement of the bill
that the supporters of the Christian Science Board of Directors
launched a concerted drive for support.

At this point an interesting episode developed. The Directors of The
Mother Church had hoped to steer the bill smoothly through the
Congressional hearing without the Christian Science Field hearing
about it. And from May, when the bill was first entered, until late
November they had succeeded in keeping it wholly hidden from the
Christian Science Field. But when Senator Javits of the State of New
York requested the bill be held up indefinitely, those supporting
the bill decided the time for secrecy was past. All Christian
Science church members (in New York State) and their friends, and
all Sunday School students and their friends were then urged to send
letters and telegrams to their Senator, Mr. Javits, saying, "Please
release bill S. 1866, protecting copyright on Science and Health,
our Pastor."

Thousands of identical telegrams began pouring into Senator Javits'
office. The great multitude of senders did not realize they were
crying: "Crucify Mrs. Eddy's textbook, crucify Science and Health!"
The flood of telegrams received was in sharp contrast to the
intelligent, meaningful letters received by Senator Javits from
dedicated Christian Scientists unalterably opposed to the Directors'
latest attempt to get the copyright out of Mrs. Eddy's name and into
their own. Membership in branch churches today consists for the most
part of those who believe in material organization and, thus, would
naturally support the Board of Directors' position, since they tend
to read only what is 'authorized" by the Board of Directors. This
probably accounts for Senator Javits hearing mostly from those
favoring the Board of Directors' position, since Christian
Scientists who do not attend church services -and who surely far
outnumber those who do-would have had no way of knowing about the
Board of Directors' copyright action.

Senator Javits, to his everlasting credit, saw the
unconstitutionality of the bill, and voted "No!" However, he did not
continue to take a determined stand on the bill mainly, perhaps,
because true and pertinent facts concerning this copyright action
had been withheld from him, and he also had been led to believe, as
had others, that the 1906 edition on which copyright still existed
was the final edition, the one for sale in Reading Rooms, and used
by Christian Scientists individually and in church services. No
doubt the telegrams received from Sunday School children and their
friends and from church members, had also had their effect. All
these factors, plus the normal Senatorial pressures, weighed against
his taking an uncompromising stand against what he "obviously" felt
in his heart was an unlawful and unconstitutional act.

Mr. Cunningham, Manager of the Washington, D.C. office of the
Christian Science Committee on Publication, stated:

The copyright on Science and Health is owned by...the five
individuals named in the caption of the bill (S.1866)....The
trustees under the will [of Mary Baker G. Eddy]...own many other
copyrights, some of them on the works written by the author
of "Science and Health"....

As previously noted, if the reader will turn to the last Will and
Testament of Mary Baker Eddy in the Appendix he will not find that
Mrs. Eddy bequeathed the copyrights to any of her writings to either
the temporary five-member Board of Directors which the estoppel
clauses in the Church Manual terminated at Mrs. Eddy's demise, nor
to the four-member self-perpetuating Board left legally in control
of the local Boston First Church of Christ, Scientist. That she did
not copyright changes in her last fourteen editions and made no
provision for extending the 1906 copyright is a clear indication
that Mrs. Eddy wanted that copyright to lapse, and go into the
public domain also.

Regarding the $200,000.00 yearly profit from the sale of Science and
Health, the Honorable Robert F Drinan of Massachusetts, member of the
Judiciary Committee, asked:

If the copyright were not renewed, I would assume Bantam Books or
MacMillan...would put out a paperback....And I would assume that this
would mean some dimunition of revenue from the person who now owns
the copyright.

Congressman Drinan said he was making the point because a publisher
had said he was opposed to the bill. This publisher was no doubt
typical of many who feel that after a copyright has run its course
the book should pass into public domain so that everybody, wishing
to, could publish it and derive profits from it.

To this argument Dr. Stokes, representing the Christian Science Board
of Directors, responded that it was the aim of the proponents of the
bill to "protect religion." "We have got to protect religion, " he
said. "We have got to protect what God wants his children to hear."
This, regardless of what the author of Science and Health obviously
wanted when she made no provision in her Will or elsewhere for
extending the copyright on the textbook after its normal run.

Congressman Drinan replied, in substance, that the U. S. Supreme
Court said in the case of Kedoff that state protection of any
particular denomination is forbidden by the "establishment clause."
Congressman Drinan stated that in the U. S. Supreme Court opinion
there is a long line of cases now saying that the establishment
clause means no aid to one particular religion and no aid to all
religions across the board.

When Attorney Peterson, C.S., was asked, "Can you give us an idea how
accessible the copies are?" he responded:

Yes, there is a bookstore edition that is published for sale in
commercial bookstores. We would like it to be much more generally
carried in the bookstores than it is. We make every possible effort
to make it available to them.

The sad fact, here, is that after the new seventy-five-year copyright
was granted, Science and Health and other writings by Mary Baker Eddy
were withdrawn from bookstores and are now for sale only in the
rapidly closing Reading Rooms.

All through the hearing the proponents of the bill insisted the
copyright protection was necessary because of the possibility of
someone publishing a distorted version, but when a member of the
Judiciary Committee asked Attorney Peterson, "Can you give us
examples of where people have tried to distort or change or
misrepresent them? [meaning any of the 418 editions of Science and
Health that have long been in the public domain]. " Attorney
Peterson answered, "No, no one has tried it as far as we know"

Returning for a moment to Mr. Goldman, General Counsel, U. S.
Copyright Office, we can see from his testimony that he had been
entirely misled as to the reason for seeking an "extension" of the
copyright.

His statement on page 33 of the Hearings before Subcommittee No. 3 of
the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, is here
quoted, in part:

They say they need this bill to protect the integrity of the work.
With respect to the 1906 edition, which is the one still under
copyright, and which is the one I understand is the present text
used in the practice of the Christian Science Church, it could be
that its integrity is extremely important to them for the reason
they state that even the pagination, the numbering of the lines, and
the precise wording must be maintained because it is used all over
the world, and references are made to it by page and line number for
the purpose of indicating what text is for the week's service.

These statements by Mr. Goldman indicate he had been led to believe
that the pagination, numbering of lines, and wording in the 1906
edition of Science and Health matched the Quarterly in use by
Christian Scientists in "getting their lesson, " and in church
services. Mr.Goldman's testimony shows he had been allowed to
believe something totally false. The fact is it is the 1910 edition
not the 1906-which in 1971 should have been in the public domain for
37 years--that has been used all over the world since 1910 in church
services, and is the only edition for sale in Christian Science
Reading Rooms.

The fundamental changes made in the 14 editions following the 1906
copyrighted edition were not submitted for registration, as we saw
from the Copyright Office's letter to Mr. Nolan, (see p. 142a).

That the Librarian of Congress had also been misled and was unaware
of the facts, can be seen from The Report of the Librarian of
Congress, dated September 30, 1971, which stated:

We understand that the 1906 edition, which is still under copyright,
is the one now regularly used for the teaching and practice of the
Christian Science religion. (House of Representatives Report No.
92-604, 92nd Congress, 1st Session, accompanying Senate Bill S.
1866.)

This misleading of Mr. Goldman, the Congressional Librarian,
Senators, Representatives, and others, by the church authorities,
shows the length to which they were willing to go to betray Mrs.
Eddy, their professed Leader, in their reach for place, power, and
authority.

Earlier we quoted testimony by the Honorable Robert McClory of
Illinois, found on page 2 of the Congressional Judiciary Report" in
which, testifying on behalf of the Christian Science Board of
Directors, he said:11

The final edition of the Christian Science textbook was published and
copyrighted in 1906.

Evidence has already been produced to show that the 1906 was not the
final edition, that the 14 editions which followed it contained the
greatest fundamental and comprehensive changes Mrs. Eddy ever made in
all her 432 editions. We have also seen that chief among the nearly
4,000 alterations distinguishing the 1910 edition from the 1906 was
the change Mrs. Eddy made in her definition of God in 1907, which
constituted perhaps the most important and basic change Mrs. Eddy
ever made in her many editions.

No doubt Mrs. Eddy purposely did riot copyright vital changes in her
last 14 editions in which the culmination of her discovery of
Christian Science, as a Science, was reached. A Science, she said,
does not need to be copyrighted. In 1906 she had not yet reached
this culmination of her discovery as a pure Science. But once this
Science had reached its culmination, in 1910, she knew it no longer
needed to be copyrighted.

During her last years Mrs. Eddy gave all her messages to the
world-press rather than to the Christian Science periodicals which
reached only a limited number of people. Mrs. Eddy was always eager
for her discovery to reach the entire world, and she yearned for her
students' spiritual progress. The majority of her students, on the
other hand, were always more interested in building up a material
organization.

In December, 1887, Mrs. Eddy asked a student to insert part of one of
her (Mrs. Eddy's) letters in the Journal. It read:

True Christianity began to wane as Truth became hid in churches and
ritualistic forms; and just as you lay more stress on the formation
of church-organizations than you do on the work of healing, will your
cause decline and eventually be lost.

...Not all your churches and preachers will do as much to win people
to the Truth as the few good healers....Science and Health ...is
greater than any Church....This book, or rather the truth therein,
needs no church to proclaim it or bolster it...I condemn the
mistaken policy of embalming any truths. [The last statement no
doubt refers to the fact that church organizations tend to embalm
Truth, to fix it in a static condition, leaving no opportunity for
growth or development.]

In the June Journal of 1887 in an article, Mind-Healing History, Mrs.

Eddy wrote:

My discovery promises nothing but blessings to every inhabitant of
the globe. This glorious prospect seems to incense some degraded
minds, and stimulate their unscrupulous efforts to thwart its benign
influence and defeat its beneficence.

Many earnest dedicated students of Christian Science are today
asking:
"Since Mrs. Eddy did not make provision for extending the copyright
on Science and Health, and did not copyright the revisions, doesn't
this prove beyond cavil that she wanted Science and Health to have
the widest possible exposure and acceptance, rather than be confined
and limited by copyright regulations? As was pointed out, the Old
Testament has not suffered because those of the Jewish faith did not
protect it by copyright regulations, and the New Testament has not
suffered because neither Catholic. Mrs. Eddy counseled: "Let the
Word [the scientific Word embodied in Science and Health] have free
course and be glorified."

Almost from the beginning Mrs. Eddy's students tended to confuse her
idea of Church as "the structure of Truth and Love" with material
organization. This cast a heavy burden on Mrs. Eddy As we learned
earlier she stated, "All the trouble I have had has been with my
students' " In Science and Health she comments sadly, "If the Master
had not taken a student he would not have been crucified. The
determination to hold Spirit in the grasp of matter [to hold the
spirit and the absolute letter in a church organization] is the
persecutor of Truth and Love. " While Mrs. Eddy turned unreservedly
to God for comfort and direction, her students occupying the highest
offices were turning to human law and legal power. We saw this was
true even before Mrs. Eddy left us-when they turned to legal opinion
in the matter of the estoppel clauses in the Church Manual.

As we have been seeing, there was considerable determined opposition
to S. 1866, but it was successfully throttled. It is a matter of
record, and of deep regret, that unbelievable manipulative pressure
was brought to bear upon those members of the Judiciary Committee--
Congressmen and Senators--to rescind their objections to the bill.

Senator Philip Hart, who voted against the bill, stated that this
copyright would grant a monopoly over _expression, and limit what may
be freely said and heard in public, thus conflicting with the
guarantees of free speech under the First Amendment. (See page 12 of
Committee on Judiciary Hearing, Appendix p. 303.) Senator Hart also
insisted that Congress does not have the power to grant copyrights to
trustees of an estate. He was concerned the bill might put the
support of the government on the side of the established Christian
Science Movement in any dispute it might have with groups differing
from the view of the official Boston hierarchy.

Some opposition surfaced on the present difficulty of obtaining the
earlier editions of Science and Health. A letter read into the
Congressional record stated:

Dear Sirs: I am a member of The Mother Church and have been for over
25 years. I urge the Committee to vote against S. 1866 on the ground
that it would shut off completely availability of all earlier
editions of Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy, none of which The
Mother Church publishes or makes available to its members or the
general public...

The Board of Directors' refusal to make available the early editions
of Science and Health has effectively eliminated a most useful aid in
understanding Christian Science, namely, the help of following the
evolution of the Science as Mrs. Eddy developed it in her many
revisions. Former high officials in the church report that early
editions were bought up by the church so they would not be available
to students seeking them. They also report that the fear of the
Board of Directors' legal arm prevented any but the most intrepid
from reproducing a few of the earliest editions.

In the Christian Science Journal, April, 1891, p. 7, Mrs. Eddy,
through an article dictated to her student, Rev. Norcross, urged all
Christian Scientists to keep their editions. In this article Mrs.
Eddy stated:

A practical suggestion or two regarding study of the new edition: In
the first place, do not attempt to dispose of the earlier editions.
Some are asking, "Can we be permitted to exchange?" Probably not; but
you do not want to do so, even if you can. Fortunate is he who has
all former revisions with the original edition of 1875! They are
indicators of successive stages of growth in Christian Science; and
as such, a some future day will not only possess historic value, but
will be extremely difficult to procure. Keep them all; they will
prove a "treasure trove ." Again, Let the new volume be studied in
connection with earlier editions. The very contrasts help to see how
the thoughts have risen only as we have been able to receive them.
This, again, will reveal why the new edition could now be written
for us. It is simply because the advancing thought, or
demonstration, of Christian students has ascended to that plane
which makes it both possible and practicable for us to have the new
work. [Italics are in the original.]

Many Christian Scientists have been led to believe that Mrs. Eddy
warned against studying the earlier editions. This is not true as can
be seen from her article in the Journal, just quoted. She, of course,
recommended that her last edition, published in 1910, be the basic
edition used, since it alone contained the full and final revelation
of her great discovery. As we saw in comparing it with the 1906
edition, the 1910 editions contained nearly 4,000 changes,
additions, and deletions.

Genuine Christian Scientists dread the consequences of robbing the
world of the privilege of having all 432 editions of Science and
Health in the public domain.

The Christian Science Field owes a great debt of gratitude to Mr.
Ralph Geradi of Rare Book Company for reprinting a number of the
early editions, principally the much sought after and highly prized
first edition.

Mrs. Eddy left a good share of her estate to the church to be used
for the promotion and extension of the Science taught by her. This
would surely mean, for one thing, the reproduction of the books
written by her. Also in her Deed of Trust given to the Publishing
Society she stipulated the profits were to be used for the promotion
and extension of the Science taught by her. Again, what is more
important than making available the "treasure trove" of her 432
editions of Science and Health to students of Christian Science?
Most of the funds, however, were spent to support the organization,
and as we saw, for such things as quadrupling the Directors'
salaries shortly after Mrs. Eddy's departure, and for legal fees,
funding of lawsuits, etc. This apparent lack of a genuine interest
in the promotion and extension of the Science taught by Mary Baker
Eddy was a substantial factor contributing to the precipitous
decline in the spread of Christian Science that became noticeable as
early as 1935.

When the Congressmen asked if any publishers were known to be
interested in publishing Science and Health, representatives for the
Board of Directors said, "No. " This was not entirely true, of
course, because over the years there have been those who wished to
do so but feared the legal arm of Boston. Recently, however, Eric W.
W. Taylor of Seven Lakes, West End, North Carolina, 27376, published
a magnificent reproduction of the 1910 edition of Science and Health
with all details exactly as Mrs. Eddy left them, including the
frontispiece picture of Mary Baker Eddy.

Mr. Ralph Geradi of Rare Book Company reports he has had many
requests for copies of the 1910 edition, meaning, of course, the
1910 edition just as Mrs. Eddy left it, containing her picture, 700
full pages, and without the various changes that were made in
Science and Health after Mrs. Eddy's departure.

TESTIMONY OF ATTORNEY HACKMAN

The last witness to be questioned by the Committee on the Judiciary
concerning the copyright on Science and Health, was Attorney Mary
Cook Hackman of Arlington, Virginia. She apparently believed
strongly that the 418 editions of Science and Health should remain
in the public domain, and that the 1906 should also be allowed to go
into the public domain along with the 14 subsequent editions, having
had 65 years of copyright protection. She said:

The proponents have basically advanced two arguments: One, that what
they have asked you to do is a legal thing for you to do; that is, it
is constitutional. I would question that, on the First Amendment
basis. And as for the citations they have given you, they all go
back to 1898 and before, and we all know that the Constitution is
interpreted very differently in the last 30 years than it ever was
prior to then. I also feel that there is some question as to whether
the Trustees [C.S. Board Of Directors] under the Will of Mrs. Eddy,
as a matter of fact, violate the rules against perpetuities....

The second argument that the proponents use is that they need this
legislation for protection....We feel that the better understanding
of Christian Science itself requires the greatest possible
distribution of the textbook, Science and Health.

Attorney Hackman advanced the feeling that the motives of those
seeking this copyright legislation "are the perpetuation and
protection of the church as an organization and this, of course, is
specifically in violation of the Constitution. The church
organization is what they [the proponents of the bill] feel is at
stake here. " The church organization is what the proponents want to
maintain at any cost.

Christian Scientists, she said, are by nature non-contentious people,
and that is why there is not more opposition. This aside from the
fact, of course, that only a dozen or so non-church Scientists knew
about the copyright action. And they only heard about it at the very
last minute, when it was too late to organize any type of resistance.

Miss Hackman felt there would be no problem at all about maintaining
the purity of the contents of Science and Health, just as there has
been no problem maintaining the purity of the Bible. This argument
about "purity," she maintained, was only the decoy; what the
proponents of the bill were really seeking, was absolute control of
the church organization: "And that, " she said, "is the real purpose
of this bill, it is to protect the organization of the church rather
than the spiritual teachings of Mrs. Eddy."

One senses from Miss Packman's testimony that this copyright action
is sought more to protect the public from access to Mary Baker Eddy's
writings than to protect the writings from possible distortion by the
public. Mrs. Eddy wanted everyone to be blessed by the teachings of
Science and Health: "My discovery," she said, "promises nothing but
blessings to every inhabitant of the globe." With Francis Thomson she
knew that:

All things by immortal power

Near or far

Hiddenly

To each other linked are,

That thou canst not stir

a flower

Without troubling of a star.

Mary Baker Eddy's great work on earth was not done for her own self,
nor for God; she dipped her pen in the well of Love and wrote for all
people wherever they might be, to bless them and show them their
divinity Innately all humanity has the capacity to understand what is
in Science and Health; it should have the widest possible
distribution rather than have its accessibility restrained and
shackled by copyright regulations.

Attorney Hackman had been given only five minutes in which to present
the side of perhaps the vast majority of Christian Scientists in the
world today. Her excellent arguments for obedience to the laws of the
land and for the religious liberty our great Constitution provides,
fell largely on deaf ears, however. The 75-year copyright on Science
and Health "For the relief of Clayton Bion Craig, Arthur P. Wuth,
Mrs. Lenore D. Hanks, David E. Sleeper, and DeWitt John," was passed
by both Houses of Congress and was signed into law by President
Nixon.

Having secured a new copyright in their own name, on all 432 editions
of Science and Health, the Christian Science Board of Directors in
Boston is now free to remove Mrs. Eddy's name entirely from Science
and Health, as in 1911 they removed her name and office as Pastor
Emeritus from the Church Manual when, at that time, they put out a
Manual of their own. Her name remained removed for fifteen years
until pressure from the Field caused its restoration.

Writing in the April edition of the National Educator, Ron Bartlett
(not a Christian Scientist) stated in part:

Haldeman and Ehrlichman, those two so-called Christian Scientists,
were able to get the government under President Nixon to carry out a
copyright on the writings of the Founder of the Christian Science
religion, when she expressly wanted her works to go completely public
as the Bible [is], as her book must be studied with the Bible. She
prayed for her country; asked others to pray for our country; but
apparently the Directors of The Mother Church took over after her
death and did her in. The religion declined, members vanished from
the churches....

Writing from the Republic of South Africa, a Christian Scientist of
world renown gives his opinion:

It can now be said that in those copies of Science and Health --
printed after 1971--the seemingly innocent and harmless words, "1971
The Christian Science Board of Directors copyright under special act
of Congress. All rights reserved in all editions, " constitutes--by
all that is sealed beneath them--a ghastly vilification of Mrs. Eddy.

It can be clearly shown that this so-called copyright is the very
antithesis of Mrs. Eddy's committal of Science and Health to "honest
seekers for Truth"....Science and Health has a rebuke for every
action taken by the Christian Science Board of Directors to achieve
that Act of Congress, and divine Principle will not allow that evil
work to stand.

Then, writing about the Board of Directors' current legal action in
which they are claiming they own the term "Christian Science," this
same gentleman writes: "Now, what must surely be the final act of

their [the Christian Science Board of Directors'] own self
destruction, the Board places "Christian Science" on trial by its
own god, legal power."

Another student writes, "the more one studies the history of
Christian Science, the more one becomes aware of the intent of evil
to separate the Discoverer of Christian Science from her discovery.
This is as true today as it was a century ago. Evil's design and aim
is, secondly, to separate the students from Mrs. Eddy through
denying her place in prophecy- denying that Mrs. Eddy fulfilled step
by step Jesus' prediction to St. John regarding the woman of the
Apocalypse in chapter twelve of the Book of Revelation. This Woman
brought Science and Health, the Comforter, promised by Jesus in
chapters 14 and 16 of the Gospel of St. John which, in turn,
fulfilled his parable of the 'leaven, which a woman took and hid in
three measures of meal, till the
wholewas leavened.'"

Robbing Mrs. Eddy of her rightful place in scriptural prophecy, world
esteem, and human history is an error that must be exposed. 'It
requires courage to utter truth Mrs. Eddy states, and also, it
requires the spirit of our blessed Master to tell a man his faults and
risk
displeasure ...... Writing in Historical Sketch of Metaphysical
Healing, Mrs. Eddy says, "There is but one way to deal with sin;
namely, if you can't stop it, expose it, for the safety of others."

Writing in the 1885 May Journal, on Love and "over what worlds of
worlds it has range and is sovereign", she says she stands in awe
before it, but states that

Sometimes this gentle evangel comes to burst the pent-up storm of
error with one mighty thunder-bolt, and clears the moral atmosphere,
foul
with human exhalations. It is a born blessing at all times, either
as a rebuke or a benediction.

Many alert Christian Scientists have been asking: "Was the 1971
copyright on Science and Health--which took the copyright away from
Mrs. Eddy and gave it to the five individuals--legal? Or was the
75-year copyright obtained by misrepresentation and fraud?"

On page 253 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy writes:

If you believe in and practice wrong knowingly, you can at once
change
your course and do right.

Nothing prevents those who advocated a wrong course of action from
admitting a mistake was made, and from doing all in their power to
rectify the error. This would require moral and spiritual courage,
but
it would attract respect.

Elsewhere she tells us, "All bonds that hinder progress will be
broken." Evil will be seen powerless, and God, good, will be seen as
infinite and omnipotent. In Science and Health we read, "It is
Christian Science to do right, and nothing short of right-doing has
any
claim to the name."

CHOOSE YE THIS DAY WHOM YE WILL SERVE

Chart prepared by Dr Harry R. Shawk of Lacey, Washington

In an article (13) a few years ago the Board of Directors declared
the organization to be "the watchful and tender guardian of human
consciousness in its ascent God-ward"! and in a letter to a Christian
Science teacher in England, John Lawrence Sinton, the Board asserted
that "any attempt to teach or lecture on Christian Science in any
manner other than as provided for in [the Board's interpretation of]
the Manual, constitutes an attack upon the sufficiency and finality
of the revelation embodied in the textbook, its author's
establishment of the church organization, and her divinely inspired
provisions for its growth and progress. "14 At this time the Field
had already been warned, says Braden, that any preference for
the "irregular and unauthorized (literature] is distinctly a
manifestation of mortal mind," and the Field had been reminded that
if there were need of additional literature on the subject of
Christian Science "it would naturally be recognized and satisfied by
the Board of Directors."

A vast gulf yawns between such "paternalism" and Mrs. Eddy's basic
teaching that every individual is entitled to freedom of thought and
action in religion and Science, since the only "enemy" is the belief
in a power apart from God. So, she counseled,

Let us serve and not rule...and allow to each and everyone the same
rights and privileges we claim for ourselves" (Mis. 303).

Christian Science is not copyrighted....A student can write
voluminous works on Christian Science if he writes honestly...
(Ret. 76).

Spiritual rationality and free thought accompany approaching Science,
and cannot be put down... (S&H 223)

Let the Word have free course and be glorified. The people clamor to
leave cradle and swaddling clothes...Truth cannot be stereotyped; it
unfoldeth forever. (No. 45)

RESULT OF THE 70-YEAR RULE IN

DISOBEDIENCE TO THE CHURCH MANUAL

What has been the result of the seventy-year rule in disobedience to
the Church Manual's estoppel clauses?

Mrs. Eddy's estoppel clauses were intended to terminate the five-
member ecclesiastical Board of Directors. This was her way of
assuring that there would be no one to stand between her writings
and the world. She wanted all mankind to be the owner of her
writings and to be blessed by them.

Mrs. Eddy was betrayed; her plan was scuttled.

The chart prepared by Dr. Shawk, p. 160 shows how the number of
registered Christian Science practitioners has dwindled from a
magnificent 12,000 to perhaps less than 5,000 today Of the
approximately 800 churches that have closed, more than 500 have
closed in just the last four years. As the churches close, the
Reading Rooms they maintained also close. The closing of the Reading
Rooms at this alarming rate makes it increasingly difficult and
inconvenient for the public to obtain the writings of Mary Baker
Eddy since the Christian Science Board of Directors in Boston allows
Mrs. Eddy's writings to be sold only in Reading Rooms, as the
profits are doubtless needed to support the church organization.

Fortunately, today thousands of Christian Scientists are awakening,
and as they do, they find it almost impossible to conceive how free
people can be deluded into supposed obedience to such dictatorial
rules controlling their lives and their thinking.

How many spiritually-minded, gifted writers have been prevented by
the Boston hierarchy from sharing their divine inspiration with the
field through the media Mrs. Eddy provided--the Christian Science
Publishing Society--the only 'official" teaching institution Mrs.
Eddy established legally, under a perpetual and irrevocable Deed of
Trust to continue the spiritual education of the world when she was
no longer here.

How many divinely gifted teachers have been prevented by
Board-of-Director edicts from teaching and sharing their Christly
input? Mrs. Eddy freed everyone to teach, requiring only that our
great desire be to live the life of Love. Mrs. Eddy closed her
College at the height of its prosperity. When it was re-opened,
under her control, she used an estoppel clause to make sure
that "organized" teaching would cease when she was no longer here to
supervise it. Teaching Christian Science was, to Mrs. Eddy, a proper
preparation of the heart from which teaching, practicing, and living
would follow naturally. A prepared heart can give to the world the
benefit of its preparation, and teach and heal with increased
confidence, speaking, teaching, and writing freely the truth of
Christian Science-the absolute letter combined with the spirit. The
kingdom of heaven is within you, Mrs. Eddy emphasized-not afar off-
but right within that which you accept as mind, as consciousness,
and this includes all that you call person, place, or thing, all
that appears as a book, a church, or a remedy.

Speaking to the "remnant" Mrs. Eddy counseled:

The letter of your work dies, as do all things material, but the
spirit is immortal. Remember that a temple but foreshadows the idea
of God, the "house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, "
while a silent, grand man or woman, healing sickness and destroying
sin builds that which reaches heaven. Only those men and women gain
greatness who gain themselves in a complete subordination of self.15

It is only "the adamant of error" that keeps us from this complete
subordination of self, which is gained through obeying the sixteen
chapters of Science and Health. These sixteen chapters of our
textbook constitute our true body and our true Mind. Mary Baker
Eddy's writings give us a whole new frame of reference, a totally
new standpoint. As we learn to reason and deduce from our one divine
Principle, we achieve that paradigm shift out of the world's way of
thinking, into oneness with our true divine being. Our only need is
to discover our divinity, and in that divinity every need is met.

This divinity is gained as we assimilate the divine character through
exchanging mortal beliefs for the divinely scientific facts taught in
Science and Health. This is why Mrs. Eddy felt that suppression of
the textbook, such as has been accomplished by the 1971 Congressional
Copyright Act, was far more dangerous than copyright violation. In
Mary Baker Eddy's Six Days of Revelation Richard Oakes writes: "Mrs.
Eddy's concern was not that someone else might print and sell her
book....so much as the possibility of legalized suppression.... Mrs.
Eddy wrote William G. Nixon: 'Some worldly-poor Christian in England
and elsewhere, can publish it for the good of our race; or translate
it with more facilities than we can, in the old countries (Europe).
Let them do it. It is God's Book and He says give it at once to the
people.. . . There is a great sin being committed by delaying or
suffering my Book, Science and Health, to be delayed for money
consideration. If this course is pursued the unprecedented
prosperity of this Book that I have always conducted on the opposite
basis will go down in the hands of those who do this. This I know.

"God's law to 'feed my sheep,' to give Science and Health at once to
those hungering for it, must be obeyed and held paramount to an
international law on copyright."

CONCLUSION

EMBOLDENED by their success in wresting the copyrights on all
editions of Science and Health from Mrs. Eddy, the Board of
Directors are now claiming they own the term "Christian Science"-
that the term Christian Science is a trademark, and as such it is
the property of the Boston Board of Directors. The Board, as we saw
in the Preface, is now in the process of suing the Independent
Christian Science Church of Plainfield. The question before the
Court today is: Do five individuals in Boston own the
term "Christian Science"? Can the members of Independent Christian
Science Church of Plainfield be deprived of their constitutional
right to religious liberty and freedom to practice their
religion in accordance with their interpretation of the teachings of
Christian Science? Can any Christian Scientist anywhere in the world
be summarily stripped of his right to call himself a Christian
Scientist? Can only those who have permission from the Boston Board
of Directors call themselves Christian Scientists?

The last By-Law

No new tenet or By-Law shall be adopted, nor any Tenet or By-Law
amended or annulled, without the written consent of Mary Baker Eddy,
the author of our textbook, Science and Health.

When Mrs. Eddy lifted this By-Law out of the ecclesiastical document
(the Church Manual) and placed it in the heart of her legal Deed of
Trust (see Manual, p. 136) it made all 26 or more estoppels in the
Church Manual a part of that Deed. By annulling the estoppel clauses
every Director since 1910 has been in breach of the trusts contained
in the 1903 Deed. This 1903 Deed, conveying land for church purposes
is a legal instrument over which the Courts of the land do have
jurisdiction. The Board of Directors in their suit against the
Plainfield church may find their legal action has no basis whatever.

Furthermore it may well develop, at long last, that the Courts will
recognize that the five-member ecclesiastical Board of Directors was
made non-existent through the operation of Mrs. Eddy's estoppel
clauses.

Mary Baker Eddy faced a world sunk in materialism. But she brought
the message from God which was to bring change. On the capstone
marking the place of her birth were four inscriptions--facing North,
South, East, and West. The inscription facing west reads:

NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM

(NEW ORDER OF THE AGES)

This new order of the ages which Mary Baker Eddy's writings initiated
points "westward,(16 ) to the grand realization of the Golden Shore
of Love and the peaceful sea of harmony. Mrs. Eddy's "MANUAL"
embodying the spirit of her Magna Charta and her Declaration of
Independence, breathes the omnipotence of divine justice which is
the matrix of that peace which passeth all understanding . It lifts
thought to the point of ascension where organized animate matter is
no longer a legitimate state of man's conscious evolvement , and
mortality is no longer seen "to be the matrix of immortality."17

'This is the higher spiritual message of the Manual and the reason
Mrs. Eddy said, "Notwithstanding the sacrilegious moth of time,
eternity awaits our Church Manual, which will maintain its rank as
in the past, amid ministries aggressive and active, and will stand
when those have passed to rest." 18

In studying the Church Manual, one's admiration and profound respect
and gratitude for Mrs. Eddy is immeasurably heightened : one's heart
overflows with love for this lone brave woman who single-handedly
laid the foundation for the new order of the ages--a world
government based on divine Love manifesting itself in brotherly
love. Her Manual estoppel clauses lead the way: "It remains for the
church to obey(them)." Mrs. Eddy finished the work God gave her to
do. Of the kingdom her Science brought there can be no end. It will
unfold forever.

FINIS

Working with evangelical Christians who often fear & oppose CS

2007-09-03T12:54:00.000-07:00

Friends,

Recent posts pertaining to inter-communication between and betwixt
students of Christian Science and those of our brethren who are
momentarily identified as Christian evangelicals and
fundamentalists, have re-instilled in me a keen desire to return,
once again, with joyous expectancy, to our sacred Scriptures, for
insights and realizations that prior to Christian Science, were
heretofore unknown. All the while remembering full well that, when
pressed by the Pharisees, Sadducees and the Herodians to address
and resolve an enigmatic perplexity, our Master first responded,
"Why tempt ye me?" and then asked, "Do ye not therefore err,
because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God?"

Recently, when speaking with an Episcopalian priest about the
Master's Ascension, he responded, in effect, "I am not at all
comfortable with the idea of Jesus disappearing." "Well, neither am
I," I replied, and went on to say, "nor were the men of Galilee
who, after having gathered on the hillside to hear the Master
speak, watched in awe as "a cloud received him out of their sight"
Acts 1:9. To all of those earthly witnesses left standing there
"gazing up into heaven," the Master had just "disappeared!" Yet,
did Jesus' `disappearance' constitute his dissolution and
discontinuation? Did Jesus cease to exist when he ceased to be
seen?

Let's consider, as did I with my Episcopalian friend, what Paul
writes about the sacred event, . . . "while they beheld, he [Christ
Jesus] was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.
Moreover, while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went
up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; which also
said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this
same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come
in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven."

We have just touched the "Plymouth Rock" of Christian Biblical
fundamentalism upon the shore-line of scholastic theology which
interprets this Scripture, literally, to mean that Christ Jesus
will, at some unknown time in the future, reappear again a second
time here upon earth. How? Well, "in like manner as ye have
seen him go into heaven."

Christian Science, however, focuses an entirely different light
upon this Scripture -– an illumination of such radiant profundity
that it naturally gives rise within consciousness to the
development of spiritual discernment and understanding. Such an
afflatus settles, with divine authorization, the question on the
minds of all humanity regarding whether there is a post-earthly
preservation and continuation of individual conscious identity!

The four Gospels hold the chronicle of the earthly life, teachings
and works of Jesus, of Nazareth, from the time of his arrival in
Bethlehem as an infant to the time of his Ascension at Mt. Olivet
at age thirty-three. At each epochal occurrence of the Master's
earthly sojourn, we read of attending angels that appear at each
occasion. Just prior to Jesus' earthly appearance, an angel
appeared to Joseph informing him that "that which is conceived in
her [Mary] is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son,
and thou shalt call his name JESUS."

At Jesus' natal hour, a summoning angel appeared to shepherds who
were "abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by
night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory
of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And
the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good
tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is
born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the
Lord. And this [shall be] a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe
wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there
was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God,
and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good
will toward men."

In the Garden of Gethsemene, when "alone with his own being and the
reality of things", an angel appeared to "strengthen" Jesus. And
when, at the pool of Bethesda and surrounded by "a great multitude
of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving
of the water," an angel troubled the pool's water converting it
into the "healing balm of Gilead," and, "whosoever then first . . .
. stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had."

Three days following his crucifixion, "the angel of the Lord
descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the
door, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his
raiment WHITE AS SNOW: . . . And the angel answered and said unto
the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was
crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see
the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell his
disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth
before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told
you."

Do not these Scriptures constitute justifiable precedence to look,
at the time of Jesus' Ascension, for the appearance of an angelic
presence? They most assuredly do! And, behold, when reading of the
Master's Ascension, what through the eyes of Paul do we see? We
see, "two men stood by them [the men of Galilee] [dressed] "in
WHITE apparel!"

A fact, well known, is that the garb worn not only by the
Galilaeans, but also, by all peoples in the regions round about,
were fashions fabricated of sack cloth –– a coarse, dark cloth of
goats' or camels' hair. The distinguishing "white apparel" that was
worn by the two assuring messengers identifies them, not as men of
the earth, earthy, but rather, as "angel" visitants from the
heavenly realm, reappearing upon earth to once again deliver, "good
tidings of great joy!"

What message, precisely, did the two angels convey to a bewildered
and grief stricken humanity at the very moment when the Lord and
Saviour of all mankind had just up, and, "disappeared?"

To understand the "good tidings of great joy" that was spoken to
the Galilaeans some two-thousand years ago, and that, today,
re-echoes within the hearts and minds of all of His sheep, one must
first identify from what state or stage of consciousness the
angelic message was/is being uttered!

The angelic message didn't come from a man of the earthly realm,
but rather, it came directly from two angels who had descended from
within the heavenly realm to appear here upon earth to bring
reassuring comfort to those who believed themselves bereft of their
Lord and Saviour! This being the case, to be understood, the
angelic message must not be interpreted `literally' as it
conceivably may mean here upon earth, but rather, `spiritually' as
it most assuredly does mean in heaven! And, Christian Science is
what divinity gave to humanity to enable the Scriptures to receive
their heavenly interpretation of that being both revealed and made
understandable, right here and right now, upon earth!

God, divine Mind, revealed to Mary Baker Eddy, the truth that,
"Divine Science is not an interpolation of the Scriptures, it is
redolent with health, holiness, and love. It only needs the prism
of divine Science, which scholastic theology has obscured, to
divide the rays of Truth, and bring out the entire hues of God. The
lens of Science magnifies the divine power to human sight; and we
then see the allness of Spirit, therefore the nothingness of
matter."

Let us subject what the two in "WHITE APPAREL" said to the
Galileans at the moment Christ Jesus "disappeared." They began
with a question; namely, "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up
into heaven?" Having engaged their attention, they delivered the
following comforting assurance, "this SAME Jesus, which is taken up
from you into heaven, shall so come. . "

"Come where?" . . . the Galileans wondered . . . .

"Well," answered the angels, "come into heaven!"

"And how shall this come about," the Galileans queried?

"In like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven!"

Here, then, is positive Scriptural instruction that confirms the
irrefutable fact that the individual identity known to and beloved
by the world, and who was named JESUS, although no longer visible
to those still identified as "earth-bound," continued to progress
spiritually onward, uninterrupted and undisturbed as the same
IDENTICAL, or "SELF-SAME" identity as attested by the heavenly
angel visitants, who knew and identified the SAME Jesus whom humans
beheld being raised up, the angels within the heavenly realm beheld
this identical Jesus coming into heaven! In a word, the heavenly
angels beheld the arrival of the SAME Jesus whom those in Galilee
beheld rising up and "disappearing" as he departed their sight when
leaving earth!

Now, and forever, by the holy Grace of our Father-Mother God and
their sacred Christ Jesus and Christ Science, may we all, "sanctify
the Lord God in [our] hearts: and [be] ready always to [give] an
answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in
you with meekness and fear!" Now we have Scriptural evidentiary
proof of the eternal and perpetual preservation and continuation of
individual conscious identity both before and after that
"parenthesis in eternity" –– that trip between the womb and the
tomb that we identify as being our earthly life and existence!

It is we within that "pair-in-thesis" [the birth-death syndrome]
who saw the eternal Christ manifest and "appear" here, upon earth,
within the visible realm, as the baby Jesus, and then, as the
thirty-three year old Jesus, ascend, and "disappear" upon earth
when returning to heaven to be one of the "two witnesses . . .
standing before the God of the earth."

Christian Science further reveals, "Jesus' true and conscious being
never left heaven for earth. It abode forever above, even while
mortals believed it was here. He once spoke of himself (John 3:13)
as "the Son of man which is in heaven," — remarkable words, as
wholly opposed to the popular view of Jesus' nature." It is
precisely this Christianly scientific view, not only about Christ
Jesus, but about every son and daughter of our Father-Mother God
that every "honest seeker for Truth," is desiring with all their
heart and soul to both assimilate, and then, through the Grace of
God's sacred Science, to demonstrate!

I hope these ideas are comforting and helpful to anyone who is ever
called upon to redress that scholastic theological
misinterpretation regarding Jesus Christ's second reappearance here
upon earth, for truly, neither Christ Jesus nor anyone else for
that matter, ever "disappears!"

In Unity of Good,

David James Nolan, Chairman
United Christian Scientists, Inc.

1.888.592.4215

A Message From The Chancellor

2007-08-22T23:31:00.000-07:00

Dear _____________,

Many years ago when I was engaged in a circuit tour both throughout
North America as well as abroad, for the main purpose of interviewing
the very few individuals then alive upon earth who had the priceless
privilege of having been taught Christian Science by our beloved and
forever Leader, the Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, an invaluable bit of
spiritual instruction and wisdom was imparted to me by Dr. William V.
K. Shepard, C.S.D., of Philadelphia. What he told me was of such
profound import and value that not a day of my life has transpired
since receiving his instruction that I haven't reflected deeply upon
precisely how truly Solomonic his wise instruction has proven to be.
I was told, "David, whenever you find yourself wondering and
questioning whether the Cause of Christian Science is growing, always
affirm understandingly, "YES! Christian Science is growing because I
am growing!"

Obviously, from the content you've inscribed within your manifold
writs that have appeared here upon this Group, you have consistently
expressed umbrage whenever other Issue2 Group posters have endeavored,
each in his/her own way, to address a fact that, in Science, is
absolutely incontrovertible; namely, collectivism, expressed in any
mode, manner or means, is absolutely inadmissible either when
undertaking to demonstrate or when attempting to promote this most
sacred Science –– the very prototype Science of Being! The deific
Being which is revealed in and identified by this Science deals,
exclusively, with the "nature, essence, and wholeness" of its own
intrinsic yet invisible Self, as well as it does when manifesting
infinitely, as the totality of all individual, yet visible, conscious
human identities. Deity neither includes, and thus, never does it
impart any awareness whatsoever of any matter, means, modes or
methods of collectivism, extant anywhere, at any place in space or at
any moment in time, and this, either within its invisible or
throughout its visible ALL-ness! "I am ALL. A knowledge of aught
besides Myself is impossible." Unity of Good, 18:25.

A collective group or assemblage of individuals never attain, and
thus, never do they experience as a Group that perpetually unbroken
'oneness' we come to identify in Science as 'atonement.' However, at
any given moment in time and/or eternity, any and sometimes often
many from within a collective group or assemblage of individuals
may, indeed, both attain as well as maintain individual 'atonement'
whenever any individual, conscious, human identity discovers his/her
own intrinsic divinity. At such a moment as this, a holy anointing of
consciousness occurs which Science identifies as the "coincidence of
the divine and the human" –– a profound and gloriously dynamic
conscious experience transpires that results naturally and
irrepressibly at that given moment in time when a human ceases to
regard and identify itself 'human' because from that holy moment
thenceforth, and continually on, thereafter, does that human cease to
live its life humanly because its long-dormant divinity, now
resurrected, takes over and lives Itself, as the Life of that human,
and thus, is that human's life thenceforth being lived divinely!

The following expresses how every non-anointed individual feels and
identifies him/herself:

"I can of mine own self do nothing . . . ." John 5:30.

The the moment God's Holy Comforter descends upon an individual's
conscious awareness and thereby in-fills and indwells that
individual's entire being, that individual feels and identifies
him/herself thusly:

"I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me."
Phillipians 4:13.

The Master Metaphysician, Christ Jesus, eloquently epitomized this
principle/fact when he stated, "I and my Father are one." We have no
canonical evidence of Christ Jesus ever declaring, "I and my Father
are a bunch or a group!" Mind relates to each one of its ideas,
spiritually, sacredly, individually, in much the same manner as the
Sun relates to each rose bud upon a bush, and this, individually,
although the bush may, indeed, be covered with dozens of rose buds!
One by one, as each rose bud reaches the moment of its development, it
begins to un-peel each part of its penta-protecting, outer, green
encasement, to reveal a still tightly un-blossomed rose. Again, one
by one, at the touch of the Sun, each petal of that rose begins to
peal back until the full rose and its perfume rare are beheld upon the
same stem that only a day or so earlier was the sole means of support
for the still un-blossomed rose!

When venturing upon a subject so broad, such as 'reform' most
assuredly is, it would prove entirely frustrating and futile to do so
without first identifying what, precisely, is in need of reformation?
Are you envisioning the reformation of Christianity? . . . . of
Science? . . . . of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston,
Massachusetts? . . . . of the Mother Church? . . . . of every and all
of those individuals who identify with and are actively engaged in any
and/or all of these just identified entities and activities? Or,
does the 'reform' you have in mind deal exclusively with each
individual and the precise particular impediment/s that each
individual faces that tend to weaken his or her active participation
within any or all of these just cited venues? We'll await your
answer until after you've completed what I'm sure you'll grow to
regard as being a glorious metaphysical treat!

Several hundred plebes were gathered in an auditorium on their first
day of arrival at the Coast Guard Academy. They were waiting to be
greeted by the Admiral/Commandant. After being greeted by the
Admiral, they were told to listen carefully as the Commandant painted
a word-picture. He told each young man to picture himself adrift on a
mirror calm sea, in a small, wooden dinghy. A dense London-type fog
was heavily settled down upon the sea, and not a breath of air was
moving. So dense was the fog that not even the blazing Sun could be
seen up above. No navigational devices, or compass or sextant were
available for use. Only a pair of ores were in the boat. Not a
sound could be heard, no, not even from the seagulls that normally fly
overhead. At this point the Commandant asked all the plebes, "In
which direction is the boat going?" Not a single indication was
forthcoming from the several hundred plebes. After a generous
amount of time had passed the Commandant broke the silence and
said, "If you were to move to the aft of the boat to its stern,
you would notice that there are two points, one on the port side
and one on the starboard side where the two sides of the dinghy
conjoin to the stern at the back. Now, if you look upon the smooth
surface of the water, you'll notice there are two very faint lines
that are seen upon the surface of the water that have been created
by each of the points at the rear of the dinghy. In whichever
direction these two lines are pointing, know that you and the dinghy
are going in the opposite direction!"

When undertaking something so monumental and cosmic in scope
as the reformation of the Cause of Christian Science, it behooves
all who may dare to place their hands upon something so grandiose
in scope and spiritually critical to first get a reading, like the
plebes were taught how to do, and one which analyzes and scrutinizes
where, precisely –– the exact direction from which the Cause has
come! Until and unless so mandatory a perspective is well defined
and understood, all attempts to blaze a new path for tomorrow's
Cause to pursue is fraught with havoc and abundant with
frustration!

_________, as the 'johnny-come-lately' whom you are to this Group,
you would be doing yourself and all of the Group's other members and
visitors a great deal of good if you would cease just long enough to
take a "crash-course" that would contribute greatly to you "catching
up," before your zeal and enthusiasm to just strike off in pathways
yet untrod gets out of hand. It is exceedingly evident to most, if
not all, of this Group's members and participants that you haven't
taken the time nor have you made the effort to bring yourself up to
date on certain subjects and factors which pertain exclusively to the
Cause of Christian Science. Surely, you don't wish to continue coming
across as being so abysmally deficient. do you? We'll wait for you,
and wish you God-speed, if you'll heed the following advice and elect
to undertake the following suggestion; namely, just click on the
following link, and you'll be transported to a rather remarkable piece
of writing that, once read and made your own, will contribute
immeasurably to satisfying your pent-up desire to bring about what you
deem as being some much needed reform. It takes an entire deck of
cards to play cards, and it takes a thorough familiarization and
understanding of what you're about to be exposed to, before
undertaking something so monumental as the 'reform' of the Cause of
Christian Science.

The title of the book is, "Mary Baker Eddy's Church Manual and Church
Universal and Triumphant." It may be accessed at:

http://www.mbeinstitute.org/chmantri/chmanintro.html

Let us hear from you after you've completed reading and assimilating
this most remarkable piece of writing!

In Unity of Good,

Dave Nolan

1.888.592.4215

http://tinyurl.com/286he7

http://tinyurl.com/yt722d

2007-07-10T22:39:00.000-07:00

EXCERPTS FROM AN ADDRESS GIVEN TO THE DEPARTMENT OF CARE

AT CHESTNUT HILL, MASSACHUSETTS, BY RALPH E. WAGERS, C.S.B.

Now I thought I would like to talk to you just a little about my present work and why I am doing what I am doing. Let me just say that I entered the practice of Christian Science in Chicago, in 1925, and I was actively engaged in it until 1946, when I went on the Board of Lectureship, and was on the Board of Lectureship until 1960, and then I served as associate editor of our religious periodicals until 1965, and then I went over as manager of the Board of Lectureship until January, 1969. And then I decided that I wanted to withdraw from the administrative work and I would like to tell you why.

I have witnessed tremendous growth in our movement. You folks will remember that from along in the 1920’s and 1930’s we just grew by leaps and bounds, and then in the ‘40’s we sort of leveled off, and then in the ‘50’s and 60’s we have been going down hill. There is no need of our denying it, that is just what has been going on, and that has troubled me greatly. I have wondered why, and I wondered why I wasn’t doing better healing work and just what I needed to know. And so I decided that I would like to devote my time wholly to the practice and to research, if we want to call it that, to learn, to understand some of the things I had been talking about and teaching. You know it is awfully easy to teach what you have been taught to teach, but what does it mean?

I have felt that what I wanted to do was to find out where we are going wrong. Altogether too many Christian Scientists are not being healed, or not being healed quickly and permanently -- fine workers, good practitioners, good teachers, and all. I kept asking myself why, why is this going on, why am I not doing better work? I could certainly talk it in pretty good shape, but what about proving it? And so I just decided that I would like to spend as much time as possible in research, and it was something our Leader said that encouraged me and it awakened me to the term of “animal magnetism.” And I really believe that all the way through the difficulties that we are really enduring is due to our lack of ability to perceive and handle the claims of animal magnetism.

I believe that un-handled animal magnetism is at the bottom of all our difficulties. But our Leader said this: “I shall not forget the cost of investigating, for this age, the methods and power of error. While the ways, means, and potency of Truth had flowed into my consciousness as easily as dawns the morning light and shadows flee, the metaphysical mystery of error -- its hidden paths, purpose, and fruits -- at first defied me. I was saying all the time, “Come not thou into the secret” -- but at length took up the research according to God’s command.” Misc. 222:29. And I thought, how grateful I am that she did, because if she hadn’t taken up this research, it is possible that we wouldn’t have Christian Science today. And I have wondered, if we don’t take up that research and follow our Leader in it, if we will have Christian Science tomorrow. That’s the thing that disturbs me.

And so, in really digging into this thing, I find the 12th Chapter of Revelation to be more and more meaningful to me, and perhaps if we just spoke about it a little bit. Mrs. Eddy speaks of the 12th Chapter as having a special suggestiveness in conjunction with the 19th Century. She speaks of the distinctive feature as reference to the present age. So, this isn’t just something in old literature, this 12th Chapter of Revelation has something to do with us right now, and I began to appreciate it more, to see as Mrs. Eddy says, the woman in the Apocalypse symbolizes the spiritual idea of God, and that this spiritual idea of God is typified by the woman in travail, bringing forth a man child.

And then, the dragon she says, stands for the sum total of human error and it is holding untiring watch, to impede the offspring of the spiritual idea, which is Science. Mrs. Eddy says, from Genesis to the Apocalypse, the serpent and dragon pursue with hatred the spiritual idea. S&H 564:30. Where? In individual and collective human consciousness.

Then, that Chapter speaks of a war in heaven, in which Michael overcame the dragon and casts the dragon to earth. There is where I began to prick up my ears. Here, the dragon was endeavoring to stop the unfoldment, the coming of Christian Science, and it couldn’t do it. Now what is it doing? Being wroth with the woman, it has come to the late war with the remnant of her seed. Who is the remnant of her seed? You. Me. And then the attempt of the dragon is to prevent the fulfillment of Christian Science. It couldn’t prevent the appearing of it, the unfolding of but, now it would try to prevent the fulfillment.

Now, I want to read just a couple of paragraphs from Adam Dickey’s Memoirs. I know that they are not legitimate as far as the publication of the book is concerned, but the things that he has in there, there is no question about it at all. Mrs. Eddy told Mr. Dickey, “If you stay here until you learn to handle animal magnetism, I will make healers of you. I had to do it and did it for forty years and I understood it all. Now it has gotten to the point where the students must take up this work and meet animal magnetism. I cannot do it for you, you must do it yourself, and unless it is done, the Cause will perish and we will go along another 1,900 years with the world sunk into the blackest night.”

Then, she says, “Now will you rouse yourselves. You have all the power of God with you to conquer this lie of mesmerism. The workers in the field are not healing because they are not meeting animal magnetism, which says they cannot heal.” That’s pretty straight stuff, don’t you see, and it is something that gave me a great deal to meet in my own thought, because, “What, me?” Why, I handle animal magnetism, I teach my pupils to handle animal magnetism, of course I do. Sure, superficially, perfunctorily. I know in a way what the claim of animal magnetism is, Mrs. Eddy has outlined it. I know what its intent is, and I have been teaching that and trying to handle it, but there was something I learned that I hadn’t seen before and that was its strategy!

Its claim is one thing, its intent is another, its intent is its “what” but its strategy is its “how,” and that is something I hadn’t been awakened to. I could see that what it would do would be to substitute error for truth in my consciousness, or substituting sense for Soul, which it does, that is its way, but there was something I had to learn. And it was this, that it would substitute the lesser for the greater in my consciousness, and get me so involved with the lesser, that I would lose sight of the greater.

I could see that it would substitute organization for church, or movement, and get us so involved with organization that we would lose sight of movement. It would substitute human effort for divine unfoldment, and how it would do that -- and this is something that was awfully hard for me to take, it would substitute healing for demonstration!

With all that Mrs. Eddy said about healing, I just couldn’t see how that was the lesser. But, you see she said that Jesus’ healing was not alone to restore health, but to demonstrate his divine Principle. And, one of the definitions of “Church” is, “and the demonstration of divine Science, thereby casting out devils, or error, and healing the sick.” S&H 583:17. It would substitute “servant” for “son,” it would substitute “labor” for “work,” it would substitute “mechanics” for “inspiration.”

For instance, in the reading of our Lesson, suppose we just go through it mechanically, and lose sight of the inspiration that it brings us. What good would it do us? What good would it do us just to go through the motions of it as perhaps others would in religious exercises. And, then I could see how, in connection with nursing, it would substitute the physical for the metaphysical, and get us so involved in the physical that we would lose sight of the metaphysical.

Now, to me, I haven’t anything against organization as you know, but I do believe that church, or movement, is greater and includes the lesser, and that if we approach the organization from the standpoint of the movement, we have a much more vital organization. And, now with healing, I just feel that healing is so important, but I think it is of lesser importance than demonstration. Perhaps I can give you an illustration of that.

A fine practitioner came to see me one day on crutches, and she had had a fall and had injured her hip, and she had had, I think, four or five practitioners over a period of a couple of years and wasn’t getting anywhere, and when she came to me I thought, well gee whiz, am I just going to be another practitioner on this case, she has worn out four or five of them already and so I said to her something like this, “Do you really believe that God can take care of this?” And, she said, “Of course I do, don’t you?” “Well,” I said, “you know I have a question about it. I have a doubt about it..” “You do?” “Yes, I do.” “Well,” she said, “what do you mean?”

I said, “Answer this; where was God when this accident happened? Was he on the job or was he off on a little picnic or something? He certainly didn’t cause it to happen, but did he permit or allow it to happen?” She said, “But, here it is!” I said, “That’s the trouble. If God had permitted it or allowed it to happen, I don’t believe that I am bigger than God that I can pick up the pieces and put it back together again, so I suppose I just will have to let it continue as it is.”

She said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I said, “It never happened! That’s the fact! Accidents are unknown to Mind. And, here we are assuming that something happened under the government of God and we are going to try to correct it, we are going to try to heal it.”

“Well,” she said, “if we demonstrated that it never happened, that would be the healing of it, wouldn’t it?” And, I said, “It sure would.” And I do believe that we are going on healing, and healing and healing something, assuming that it has happened under God’s government and care, and just keep going and going and going, rather than checking ourselves and saying, “How could this thing be?” That is just one phase of the demonstration. I might say that very soon she was coming in with a cane rather than crutches, and she moved out of the country and the last I heard from her was that she was working out in her garden, so I feel that perhaps something had happened there.

There is something that, if we are looking for it, that there are going to be two words that I am going to stress, as I have stressed them with myself, they are “animal magnetism” and “metaphysics.” I think those two words we have used and used, and have gotten so familiar with them that we lie right down beside them and go to sleep with them. But, we have to wake up and see what these terms mean. And, in this week’s Lesson, if we are looking for things that will be helpful to us, we will find them, but so often we just go over them and read them and read them. In this week’s Lesson there is a statement, “Matter examined in the light of divine metaphysics, disappears.” S&H 274:31. I think that is a marvelous statement, but body doesn’t disappear, matter disappears!

Now, the last time I had the privilege of talking to superintendents of nurses, we got into the subject of the distinction between the human and mortal, in order to understand the relationship of the human to the divine. I believe that throughout the movement there is not a clear-cut recognition of the distinction between the “human,” and the “mortal.” We sort of take those words as meaning one and the same thing. Haven’t you found that to be the case in your experience?

Mrs. Eddy, in many instances, doesn’t make any distinction between “human” and “mortal,” but when she does, she does it in no unmistakable terms, like when she speaks of the coincidence of the divine with the human being the “acme of Christian Science.” Misc. 100:22.

She never speaks of the coincidence of the divine with the mortal. I am going to use a little chart here that has been helpful to me and has been helpful to others, just to get straight on this human and divine, human and mortal.

Just head the first column: “Divine,” the second column: “human,” and the third column: “mortal.”

divine---------------human--------------- mortal

All right, where do we go from here? Let’s go to the dictionary. We find that the word, “divine” means, “of and pertaining to God.” The word, “human” means, “of and pertaining to mankind. And, the word, “mortal” means, “of and pertaining to death, or subject to death.” So, now we have the technical distinction between those three terms. Suppose now we see the human and mortal as related. Underlying every normal human footstep, or concept, that includes body, home, church, or whatever it might be, there is the adverse influence of mortal mind, limiting, restricting, perverting, destroying, distorting, and about the only thing we can be completely sure of with this is that sometimes the “human” is willing to completely fulfill the “mortal” and die. Then, maybe get around to the “divine” in some unknown way.

divine---------------human---------------mortal

Now, if we put a line from the Divine to the human, and see the relationship of the human to the divine, we will see that underlying every normal human footstep or concept there is a “divine” law, sustaining it, protecting it, preserving it, and making it fruitful, and in the degree that this is fulfilled, this is overcoming, step by step by step, and that is putting off mortality and putting on immortality.

Now, we have this example: Let us assume that the first column represents $10.00 of gold or its equivalent in the treasury, and the second column is a $10.00 bill, and the third column is a $10.00 counterfeit:

$10.00 gold---------------$10.00 bill---------------$10.00 counterfeit

Now, the $10.00 counterfeit bill looks exactly like the genuine $10.00 bill, but it has nothing back of it in the treasury, so it is a rank deception.

The genuine $10.00 bill has no intrinsic value, no value in the paper it is written on, its value is in the $10.00 of gold [silver] with which it coincides, as long as this relationship is maintained, the $10.00 bill will do anything that the $10.00 of gold [silver] will do. Then, the integrity of this bill is not in the paper it is written on, it is in the law which relates it to the gold or the silver. The genuine $10.00 bill has redemptive value; when it is redeemed you get something in its place, and then it is put out of circulation. But, the counterfeit $10.00 bill has no redemption value, it has nothing back of it, so the moment it is detected, it is put out of circulation.

Now, we go a little further here, and say that the first column represents “Christ,” the second column represents “Jesus,” and the third column, “Adam.”

“Christ”---------------“Jesus”---------------"Adam”

The coincidence of the “Christ” with “Jesus” is the remedy for “Adam,” or error. Now, in connection with this there are two terms, “resurrection,” and “ascension.” Resurrection is the human YIELDING to the divine. S&H 593:9. The ascension is the human YIELDED to the divine. We are in the resurrection now, where we experience, “spiritualization of thought, a new and higher idea of immortality and spiritual existence, material being yielding to spiritual understanding.”

In the resurrection, mortality is overcome. In the ascension, the human is yielded up and we have only the Divine, which is all we had in the first place from an absolute standpoint. Now, every bit of healing that is taking place today in Christian Science is taking place in the resurrection. Let’s be sure of that! It is where spiritualization of thought is entering in, where a newer and higher idea of immortality or spiritual existence is coming to the fore, where material being is yielding to spiritual understanding.

Now, I’m going to do something here. I am going to make another column, and under the divine, I’m going to call it “metaphysical,” and under the human, “physical,” and under the mortal, “material.”

Divine-------------------------Human---------------Mortal

Metaphysical----------------Physical-------------Material

Now, we are going to gain some sense of the relationship between the physical and the metaphysical rather than the physical to the material! I think right here I would like to give you an illustration. We’ll use a hand, and let’s say I ask you what it is, and you say, “it is matter, flesh, blood, bones, mortal, material.” And I say to you, “would you be willing to refer to it as a ‘human concept,’” and you say, “a human concept of what?” “Well, a human concept of some faculty or capacity of the divine Mind.”

“Oh, yes!” you respond!

“Then the integrity of this hand is not in the hand, but rather, in the divine Mind, just as the integrity of the genuine $10.00 bill is not in the bill, but what is back of it in the treasury!”

Now, suppose an abnormal growth comes on this hand. You say, “is that a human concept too?”

“No, I would call that a mortal belief.”

You say, “Well, is the integrity of that abnormal growth in the divine Mind?”

“No,” I would respond, “there is nothing abnormal in the divine Mind to which the growth can be related in any way, any more than the counterfeit $10.00 bill has in relation to the $10.00 of gold in the treasury.”

All right. Now you see that the integrity of this hand is in the divine Mind but not the integrity of the growth would be a Christian Science treatment, which would destroy the growth, but not the hand! If they were both the same, the treatment would destroy the hand too!

So, let us be sure that in metaphysics, in Christian Science, nothing normal in the human sense of things is destroyed. It is preserved. The only thing that is destroyed is that which would limit or restrict, or pervert, or destroy, or distort it, because only the mortal is put off, whereas the human is redeemed and saved!

Now, I think this is basic to our approach to the human body, to the human situation, to an organ, a gland, or a cell. If it is true that the integrity of the hand is in the divine Mind, then the integrity of every organ, cell, gland, tissue of the human body, is in the divine Mind, and the divine Mind preserves it. You remember Mrs. Eddy says, “Sin, sickness and death must at length quail before the divine rights of intelligence, and then the power of Mind over the entire functions and organs of the human system will be acknowledged.” S&H 384:30.

So, we have to realize that Christian Science teaches a very close relationship between the divine and the human, just as it does in Christ and Jesus, don’t you see? She says, “John saw the human and divine coincidence shown in the man Jesus, as divinity embracing humanity in Life and its demonstration, reducing to human perception and understanding the Life which is God.” S&H 516:16.

Now, to go on from there. Sometime ago, I was asked to write an article on “Spiritual Healing,” for our periodicals, and I was just thrilled. I liked that, so I want to get busy on it, and I thought I would find out what Mrs. Eddy has to say about the subject. How many times do you think Mrs. Eddy mentions spiritual healing in “Science and Health?”

Once!

How many times does she mention spiritual healing in her “Prose Works?”

Three times!

That’s all she says about it. But what about “metaphysical healing?” She mentions metaphysical healing seven times in “Science and Health,” and twenty-five times in “Prose Works.” And, I tell you, it gave me a much better appreciation of this word, “metaphysics.” As I said, I had been so familiar with it, so acquainted with it, that I could lie right down beside it and go to sleep. And now I am beginning to see that we should all consider very seriously, getting a right sense of body, a right sense of the physical; and I would bet you, and I’m not a betting man, that if most of you would be honest you would say that you have always thought of the physical and material as practically the same thing. Haven’t you? I had!

It is going to surprise you greatly to see that metaphysics takes the physical out of matter and puts it into Mind, and we are going to see how it does it, right now. The thing that awakened me to this, I think, more than I can say, is that wonderful statement of Paul’s, where he said, “Present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service, and be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

“Living sacrifice,” I couldn’t get that, for mostly a sacrifice is a dead sacrifice, you know. But, “present your bodies “a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” Rom. 12:1. To me, that means that, today, if we will understand our body rightly, every heart beat glorifies God, every breath we take glorifies God, every action of the body glorifies God. See: I Cor. 6:20. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could get that sense of body?

Now, I am convinced, that our greatest difficulty in healing is our faulty sense of body. I don’t think there is any question about it. Suppose now that I have a lens here that has a distortion in it and I give this lens to you and say, “Now look at this picture,” and I take a lens that hasn’t any distortion and I look through the undistorted lens at the picture. You are going to see a distorted picture and I am going to see a picture that is straight. So we get to talking about it. Well, we can’t get together, and so I say to you, “Take that to the shop and have them take the distortion out of it.” So, you take the picture with you, keeping on the distorted lens, and you come back and say, “I can’t do anything with it, the distortion is just there!”

Now then, if I give you my undistorted lens, and you look at it, you see the thing as it is. There never were two pictures, and the distortion was never in the picture!

We look at the physical body through the lens of material sense and we see it to be material. We look at it through the lens of spiritual sense, metaphysical sense, and we see it as it really is, and we are going to see what it really is! That is one illustration that I have, but I want you to pass this around. I want to show you a nice blue sheet of paper. Isn’t that a nice blue sheet of paper? (Much laughter) (Blue sheet encased in a clear yellow plastic, so it appeared green!)

Now, I know that’s a blue sheet of paper, but everyone of you thinks it is a green sheet, don’t you? Because its green, isn’t it?

All right, but it’s blue! Only, its been put behind yellow plastic. But its blue and it was always blue, it wasn’t green at all.

Now, suppose we think of the blue as the divine and the green as the human. Isn’t that what it appears to be? It doesn’t appear to be blue, does it? It appears to be something else! But, isn’t it blue? You say, “well, if this isn’t green, if it is blue, I am gong to throw this green thing away and put it in the waste basket.” But, you are throwing away the blue!

You say, “well, if the human isn’t real, why not let’s dispose of it, destroy it?” You can’t do it, any more than you can dispose of the green here, without disposing of the blue. You see what I mean? How we get fooled by the senses.

Now, I wish you to make a note of this article I wrote in the December, 1957, Journal, “What Of Our Bodies?” It has to do with a healing that I had when I was on the Board of Lectureship. I had a terribly infected finger and it just loomed up there and it touched everything! Even a handkerchief was like a knife going through it. I had done everything I knew how. I was taking a train from Sacramento to Portland and I didn’t relish that long day’s trip. I sat down in the parlor car and turned to God and said, “God, what can I do?” And I heard the voice, “You can read “Science and Health,” and I thought, “For heaven’s sake, I have read “Science and Health” and read it and read it and read it.”

“All right,” I said, and I found myself opening to page 427:23, where it says, “Immortal Mind, governing all, must be acknowledged as supreme in the physical realm, so-called, as well as in the spiritual.” I was a little disturbed by the “physical realm” business there. Being material, how could immortal Mind be supreme in it?

“But,” I said, and I found myself opening to page 384:30, and read, “Sickness, sin and death must at length quail before the divine rights of intelligence and then the power of Mind over the entire functions and organs of the human system will be acknowledged.”

These two statements brought to thought more clearly than ever before that unless we consciously place our human bodies under the jurisdiction of immortal Mind, and keep them there, we unconsciously permit them to be under the jurisdiction of mortal mind with its numerous oppressive beliefs. The acknowledgment of immortal Mind’s supremacy in the physical realm, so-called, brought welcome relief and soon the finger was normal.

The practitioner should also endeavor to free the minds of patients from any sense of subordination to their bodies since God maintains human health and life.

Now, I am going to switch a little and consider the physical as related to the metaphysical, rather than to the material, and I’m going to use two inter-locking columns here.

Physical---------------------- Moral

Mental ---------------------- Spiritual

Even the doctors are recognizing that the mental and physical have a great deal in common, in fact, that the physical is more or less mental. We know it is mental. We are dealing with the physical as a mental state rather than a material state. You say, “No! You have to have matter to have form and structure!”

That isn’t true!

Form and structure are mental, not material. Mind forms! Mrs. Eddy talks about body and soul and she says, “Identity is the reflection of Spirit, the reflection in multifarious forms of the living Principle, Love.”

When we separate the physical and mental, as we ordinarily do, from the moral and spiritual, we get into all kinds of difficulties. But, here the Christ comes along and says, “there is no separation, these are one.” So we see the spiritual, moral, mental, physical, AS ONE, and inseparable. And this removes the belief that the physical is material!

Now, would you believe that Mrs. Eddy has said some things about mental and physical perfection, as related to Spirit? Let’s see what she says here. I am going to read a little bit here that you are all familiar with but I don’t think it will do any harm. “In the material world, thought has brought to light with great rapidity many useful wonders. With like activity have thought’s swift pinions been rising towards the realm of the real, to the spiritual cause of those lower things which give impulse to inquiry. Belief in a material basis from which may be deduced all rationality, is slowly yielding to the idea of a metaphysical basis, looking away from matter to Mind as the cause of every effect. In this revolutionary period, like the shepherd-boy with his sling, woman goes forth to battle Goliath." S&H 268.

Now the thing I want to call particularly to your attention are these statements about metaphysics. “Metaphysics is above physics, and matter does not enter into metaphysical premises or conclusions. The categories of metaphysics rests on one basis, the divine Mind. Metaphysics resolves things into thoughts, and exchanges the objects of sense for the ideas of Soul.” S&H 269:11.

Let me read to you from Misc. 252:15, and take these down, if you will please, “Christian Science is not only the acme of Science but the crown of Christianity. It is universal. It appeals to man as man; to the whole and not to a portion; to man physically, as well as spiritually, and to all mankind.” See how she relates the physical and the spiritual there?

Then, on page 234:18 of Misc., I will read the little preamble where she says, “That one should have ventured on such unfamiliar ground, and, self-forgetful, should have gone on to establish this mighty system of metaphysical healing, called Christian Science, against such odds, -- even the entire current of mortality, -- is a grave wonderment to profound thinkers.” But this is it: “That in addition to this, she has made some progress, has seen far into the spiritual facts of being which constitute physical and mental perfection, in the midst of an age so sunken in sin and sensuality, seems to them still more inconceivable.” She says she “has seen far into the spiritual facts of being which constitute physical and mental perfection.”

Then, take this, “Message for 1901, page 1, line 10: “Today you meet to commemorate in unity the life of our Lord, and to rise higher and still higher in the individual consciousness most essential to your growth and usefulness; to add to your treasures of thought the great realities of being, which constitute mental and physical perfection.”

Now, what I want to bring out here is how we are under the domination of materia medica. Materia medica considers the physical and material to be one and the same thing, and all of its theories, its doctrines, all of its beliefs, are built upon that, that the physical and material are one and the same thing.

All right. We go along accepting that premise. What do we do but bring ourselves under the mesmerism of materia medica by accepting that premise? And the diseases that your patients and mine are contending with are the diseases that have been imposed upon them by materia medica.

You see, disease has to be thought before it can be objectified, or manifested, and the business of materia medica is to formulate diseases into names, nature, character, course, and set them down as entities, and make you and me and everyone else subject to them. But, that’s mesmeric! Then, they go along and try to heal the very things they have formed. Their whole healing activity is based upon trying to correct the things they have already formed. And so, they are in an endless circle.

Now, suppose we see that the physical, the body, is related to metaphysics, not to matter, and we see that in metaphysics, matter does not enter into its conclusions, that it rests upon one basis, the divine Mind. And so we begin to relate the physical to the metaphysical, just as we relate the human to the divine, rather than to the mortal.

You see what does this to us. There is never a disordered physical body; there is no disorder in the physical. What we are dealing with here is that picture through the lens, we look at it through the lens of material sense and we see it distorted. It isn’t! Jesus had a physical body but it was not material, so he could walk on the water! He could transport himself! He could go through the resurrection, the Ascension, and he could present the same body. In a conversation with Mrs. Eddy, someone said, “Mother, what would you do if someone stood in a window and shot an arrow through your heart?” She said, “Well I think I would probably fuss around a bit, but I couldn’t make you understand, so I would take my body and go about my business and you would take my body and bury it.” Now, what did they bury, but their concept of Mrs. Eddy.

If I were to pass away, which I am not going to do, you would bury me. However, you have buried your concept of me, but this is my concept of me just as much as it is yours, because we embrace our body in our thought. We will never be without it as long as we are in the resurrection; in the ascension, I don’t know what happens there. But, as long as we are in the resurrection, we are going to have a body that is visible, and you can call it physical if you want to.

Now, in the little pamphlet, "Substance" that you have probably seen, I have an article in there, "Substance is Spirit, Not Matter," and I tell in there of a healing of a heart condition by realizing that the action of heart, rightly understood, is the action of Mind, not the action of matter, and Mind rests in action. That was the metaphysical aspect of heart action, and when the practitioner saw it, there was a complete healing.

Another time, a friend of mine had a paralyzed bowel and she never had a normal bowel movement. When she was born something went wrong in the delivery and her bowel was supposed to have been paralyzed. The doctor gave a prescription that she could take to move her bowel. So, she went through the Sunday School, she went through class, and she went into the practice part time, and she was taking this stuff all the time.

One day, up in the woods where we had a cottage, she said, "Ralph, I wonder if I am doing just right," and I said, "I wonder," and so we got into it. I said, "Well, now you are talking about bowel movement. That’s action, isn’t it? Well, there is only one action, isn’t there, the action of Mind, and Mind isn’t labored or paralyzed in its action in any way."

We went on with this illustration and finally she said, "Well, if that’s the case, it doesn’t make any difference what the condition of the bowel is, does it? It’s what the condition of Mind is."

I said, "That’s exactly right." The next morning she had a normal bowel movement and has been having them ever since. And she lives in Sun City now. When I taught the Normal Class I wanted to mention this; I wanted to be sure it was permanent, so I called her out there and she said she had had no trouble since. Now you see that was getting it into metaphysics. It was really lifting the physical. She still had a bowel, don’t you see -- but she has lifted it into the realm of Mind.

So, I think that in this relation of the physical to the metaphysical, we get a new and much needed approach that will strengthen the healing thrust of our movement and improve our ability to respond to the needs of mankind by spiritual means. Then it enables us to see the healing aspect of Christian Science in a new light. We are demonstrating metaphysical facts in the healing work, don’t you see, and that what is doing the healing.

I teach Sunday School, a class of awfully smart 19-year old kids and believe me, you don’t put anything over on those kids. And they are there with questions, and one of the things I have found is that they want to be sure that you are honest. If you don’t know, tell them so. If you try to bluff it through, they will catch you every time.

One day a new fellow in the class who had been baiting other teachers, said, "Mr. Wagers, would you please explain to me how we happen to be in this mortal, material state, when we are spiritual and perfect." Well, I had had that sprung on me before, so I said, "You know, that is an interesting question, but it is the wrong question to ask." He said, "Why?" And I said, "Because there isn’t any answer to it. Now, if I were going to ask a question, I would ask, how am I going to get out of this thing that I seem to be in? There’s an answer to that!" He said, "I’ll buy that."

I want to tell you of my early experience. In my early 20’s I was healed of a difficult physical condition just by reading "Science and Health," and I never have had the difficulty since! But, I didn’t know there was such a thing as a Sentinel or a Journal, I knew there was a practitioner, but I didn’t know there were church services or anything of the kind; I was just a lumberman up in the north woods. And then I got to a place where there was a little Society, and oh boy, to be able to talk to other Christian Scientists, to have a service, there was just a handful of us, was wonderful!

I was enthusiastic, I was in my middle 20’s then, and all at once, they elected me Reader. Well, I didn’t know enough to be a Reader, but I didn’t know enough not to, so there I was.

I didn’t know enough about Christian Science to carry on a decent conversation with anybody about it. Along in the fall, I was elected in the summertime, a young man who had been attending our services up there for the summer and I had met him and knew he was up there working on his father-in-law’s berry farm, came to me and said, "Ralph, I want you to help me in Christian Science."

I said, "All right, what is it?" So he told me. He had what doctors called "empyema" and I understand that is a little different from what doctors call "emphysema," -- the space between the ribs and the lungs fills up with pus, and the doctors take out a rib and insert a tube and then drain, and drain, and drain, and it seems that one who is subject to that is apt to have it every time they have a cold.

So, he had gone to the hospital three times and been there a month or two at a time with this thing. So they told him he had better build himself up physically. His wife’s father had a berry farm, and they came up in the summer to work on the berry farm, and when they were through with the berries he wanted to stay there longer so he got a job in the grist mill.

Well, here this fellow was coming to our services, he and his wife, and this pus was beginning to go through his system. His head was getting a little larger, his clothes didn’t fit exactly right, and I told Mrs. Wagers what I was doing, and she said, "Please give that up, if he should die on your hands you would never forgive yourself."

And, so I went down to tell him to get somebody else, but he said, "But you are the Reader, aren’t you?" What was I going to say? So he said, "I tell you what; my wife and I have this thing all figured out, we have shaken hands on it. We are going to play this thing out to the end of the string and you are going to be our practitioner. If I die, that’s all right. I’m no good anyway, the way I am. So we have decided that’s what we’re going to do."

I had to go away on business that night, down to Milwaukee, and I had just worked and worked, and when I came back the next morning I could hardly wait until I found out how Mort was, so I called his wife and said, "How is Mort?" She said, "He’s all right," but I didn’t like the way she said it, and she said, "Where are you?" I said, "Over at the office," and she said, "I will be right over."

She said, "The night you left, his back opened up as naturally as could be and pints of that stuff drained out, pints of it. I didn’t know what to do, so I washed it off the back, put a pad on it and waited for you to come back." Within seventeen days after he was away from his work as a common laborer in the gristmill, he was back at work, and he has never had an experience of it since then. And, when I was lecturing up in that area, he would call me. He always liked to get a group of people together and he would say, "I’m the reason this fellow is there."

Well, people began to hear about it around town, not Christian Scientists, and they began to come to me with all kinds of things, and they were healed, just like that. Well, you can imagine what that would do to you. So, pretty soon I had class instruction, and this healing work kept working. I couldn’t go on with the lumber business, I had to get into this work, so we went down to Chicago and I went into the practice.

Once in Chicago, things didn’t work out that way. By golly, it was tough. I thought that things were going to click right along. And, so when one of our good teachers and lecturers was in town, I asked him if he would talk to a young buck like me and he said, "Come on over." Then I told him about this. He got very interested. He said, "Mr. Wagers, when you healed you said you didn’t have any understanding, what did you have?" I said, "I don’t know."

He said, "I’ll tell you what you had. You had a rare, active, living faith. Now what happened to that faith when you began to get understanding?" "Well," I said, "you don’t need faith when you have understanding."

"Oh," said he, "is that so?" He said, "You need 100% of your faith, you have got to have faith in what you understand and you have got to understand what you have faith in. Then nothing will stop you." He gave me this illustration: "Faith is a fruit-bearing tree with its roots buried in understanding. The understanding feeds the tree and the tree bears the fruit." I thought that was wonderful.

Mentality has to do with thinking and feeling. Thinking is related to Mind and feeling is related to Soul. "Felt ye the power of the word?" "Let us feel the divine energy of Spirit leading us into newness of life," etc. Feeling and faith are very much alike, so when she says, "The prayer that reforms the sinner and heals the sick is an absolute faith [feeling] that all things are possible to God, a spiritual understanding of Him. . ." You can use feeling for faith there because you have got to feel it, don’t you see?

Mrs. Eddy says, "The healing action of Mind upon the body has its only explanation in divine metaphysics." She uses metaphysics so much! May I read to you a couple of things here? Put this down, Misc. 194:29, "To reach the consummate naturalness of the life that is God, good, we must comply with the first conditions set forth in the text; namely, believe; in other words understand God sufficiently to exclude all faith in any other remedy but Christ, the Truth, that antidotes all error. Thence will follow the absorption of all action, motive, and mind, into the rules and divine Principle of metaphysical healing."

Then, there is something on page 232:21 of Misc., that I think is marvelous: "Metaphysical healing, or Christian Science is a demand of the times. Every man and every woman would desire and demand it, if he and she knew its infinite value and firm basis."

Then, in Ret. 25:3, she makes this statement: "The Bible was my textbook. It answered my questions as to how I was healed; but the Scriptures had to me a new meaning, a new tongue. Their spiritual signification appeared; and I apprehended for the first time, in their spiritual meaning, Jesus’ teaching and demonstration, and the Principle and rule of spiritual Science and metaphysical healing, -- in a word, Christian Science." See how she uses the word, "metaphysical healing," there?

Now I am going to wind this up because I don’t want to impose upon you any more. Mrs. Eddy says this, and I think it is marvelous. She says, "The Science of Christianity comes with fan in hand to separate the chaff from the wheat. Science will declare God aright, and Christianity will demonstrate this declaration and its divine Principle, making mankind better physically, morally, and spiritually." S&H 466:26. Now, just think of it! Christian Science declares, Christianity demonstrates! When I am as scientific as I would be Christian, and as Christian as I would be scientific, then I am a Christian Scientist. That is what a Christian Scientist is.

Now I am going to close on this statement. We talked about the dragon and Michael and his angels fighting, and the dragon fought and was overcome. Now what about that Michael, is he a character way back 2,000 to 3,000 years ago or something of the kind? Let’s see what Mrs. Eddy says about that. "Michael’s characteristic is spiritual strength. He leads the hosts of heaven against the power of sin, Satan, and fights the holy wars. Gabriel has the quieter task of imparting a sense of the ever-presence of ministering Love. These angels deliver us from the depths. Truth and Love come nearer in the hour of woe, when strong faith or spiritual strength wrestles and prevails through the understanding of God. The Gabriel of His presence has no contests. To infinite, ever-resent Love, all is Love, and there is no error, no sin, sickness, nor death. Against Love the dragon warreth not long, for he is killed by the divine Principle. Truth and Love prevail against the dragon because the dragon cannot war with them. Thus endeth the conflict between the flesh and Spirit."

Now Michael represents Truth and Gabriel represents Love, and our church is the structure of Truth and Love. Therefore, wherever Christian Science is operating, right there is Gabriel and Michael, right there with us, Truth and Love, and when we realize that, we realize that that is the answer to the dragon that hates the spiritual idea and is attempting to prevent the fulfillment of Christian Science in you, and in me, but here we have with us, Michael and Gabriel both, and when we are aware of that, we have two allies that we can depend upon.

I remember a practitioner we had several years ago who was a Michael. She was a fighter. She would fight at the drop of a hat. She became ill and she called upon me to help her, and I saw this thing very clearly. I said, "Alice, you have been a Michael, but what about Gabriel? Mrs. Eddy says, "These angels deliver us from the depths." You haven’t made up with Gabriel very much. You have taken up practically all of your time with Michael." "Why," she said, "that’s right." She saw the point and was healed very quickly!

So, in our work, and I know that what you want to do is to bring forth the very best nurses you can, and you give them the skills they need, there is no question about that, and I imagine they will be as skillful as medical nurses are. But here is something, that is the physical aspect of the work, what about the metaphysical aspect? Now, church manifests itself as movement and organization. Movement is the metaphysical aspect of church, organization is the physical aspect of church, and the physical derives its vitality from the metaphysical.

So, your nurses could probably be as skillful as a good Reader, in reading out of "Science and Health" without ever making a mistake. But does that constitute being a good Reader? To be a good Reader, you must understand what the words mean! Now, your nurses don’t want to be only skilled nurses, but they want this metaphysical approach to it, that gives vitality and power and healing to the physical aspect of their work.

I guess that is about all I have to say. I have some more things I could say, but I don’t think you are going to take this thing regarding the physical and the metaphysical without some struggle. I think you are going to be sort of backing up on that a little bit, so do please read what our Leader has to say about metaphysical, metaphysics, and divine metaphysics. She says, "Divine metaphysics explains away matter." S&H 278:3. But it doesn’t explain away body, or the physical, and Jesus proved that when he explained away the palsy but not the hand.

And so, if I could just leave you with this, that there are two words in our book here that I believe you are slighting, just as I have done, and they are the words, "animal magnetism," and "metaphysics." I believe if you will just undertake to do a little research on the subject of animal magnetism, or error, and metaphysics, that you will find it a thrilling experience. I’ll tell you the truth, there are some nights when I can hardly get to sleep; I get to going on some of this and I see something new and I go to bed and I just can’t do anything but let it unfold and unfold and unfold, and I believe that is what is meant by, "I make all things new."

Do you know that the trouble with us, the apathy and lethargy etc., that we get into is just the old stuff, going over and over and over the same old stuff without any renewing at all. Life is always new, it is always renewing itself. And let me tell you another thing that will be helpful to you. We are living in the eternal new, your patient is living in the eternal now; your patient is not living in the past or in the future. Your patient could not live yesterday if he wanted to, nor can he live tomorrow. He is living now, and he cannot allow himself to try to live in the past, and repeat, repeat, repeat things of the past and bring them into the now. He has got to realize that now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation, now the divine Mind governs the functions and organs of the human system.

I had a patient a while ago who was having quite a time with her stomach, and I said to her, "Do you love your stomach?" She said, "I should say not, and neither would you." I said, "yes, I think I would." And I explained to her that the word love means to identify the object of your love with its divine source. That’s what the word love really means. Could she identify her stomach with its divine source? She said, "Yes, I guess I can. If immortal Mind is supreme in the physical realm as well as in the spiritual, and if I can acknowledge the power of Mind over the entire functions and organs of the human system, then even the normal functioning of my stomach glorifies God, because if there wasn’t God there wouldn’t be any functioning of the stomach. There wouldn’t be any harmony, there wouldn’t be any perfection." She was healed within a week, and has been having quite a nice time.

So many of your patients, they hate their bodies! Oh, if I could only get rid of this old body, don’t you see, or whatever it might be, and with a right sense of body they wouldn’t say that. "Present your body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." Rom. 12:1.

FINIS