Understanding Science and Health

 

Here are Joyce Voysey’s answers Part 2:

8. Has reading Chapter 12 helped you to better understand Science and Health?

I found this question somewhat of a puzzler...

 

Until I got to contemplating the last piece in the chapter (“How to understand Science and Health”), I was going to say that I felt that every testimony that I have read has helped me to understand the textbook and how the Science it proclaims can be demonstrated.  I can still say that, however, I particularly remember being very impressed with that letter to a friend, on how to understand CS.  I am sure it helped me tremendously in my early grasp of Christian Science through the study of S&H. 

 

Actually, I remember asking my guardian to read this letter in the hope that he would understand something of what I saw in Christian Science, and particularly the textbook.  He read it without comment.  (I can still place him on our verandah as he read it.)

 

9. Who wrote the following: “Mrs. Eddy’s works are the outgrowth of her life. I never knew so unselfish an individual”?

Mrs. Eddy’s husband, Asa Gilbert Eddy

 

10. What characteristic does Mrs. Eddy say is “the great red dragon of this hour”? (p. 254)

Envy

 

11. What happens when error is left to itself? (p. 348)

It accumulates

 

12. Can you find at least 10 examples where Mrs. Eddy quotes Scripture?

348:14; 56:25; 226:11; 313:21; 271:13; 124:26; 266:32; 127:17; 157:22; 263:7

 

13. Who was Charles Carrol Bonney? (p. 312)

In the history of Christian Science, he is noted as having an active role in organizing the Parliament of the World’s Religions (1893) at which an address, composed of excerpts of writings by Mary Baker Eddy, was read and later mis-published against her explicit order.

BEAUTY - GRANDEUR - ORDER

Readers may be interested in this lovely article about the remarkable Linden trees at The Mother Church in Boston.

http://sustainablecitiescollective.com/deeproot/115706/boston-s-christian-science-plaza-approved-landmark

Ongoing Income

We don’t have to know everything all at once.  Phew.  That’s good.  We can just be glad to learn a little (or a lot) new each day and to put what we know into practice, to use it to improve our lives and the lives of others.

 

Some books provide us with ongoing income.  Mary Baker Eddy’s collection called Miscellaneous Writings is one of those books.  The Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures provide other examples.  Some of the classics can be read over and over again and give ongoing instruction and inspiration.  You might add Shakespeare and poetry.  They yield more and more treasure as the years go by.

 

It’s difficult to choose one’s favourite treasure.  Like the message of a children’s book our daughter just purchased for her nephew, maybe there’s no need to choose a favourite, because each is worthy and special in its own way.  However, we have been asked to nominate our favourite article and sermon from our book Miscellaneous Writings.

 

Among the many articles here, I find that I have been so helped by the wise counsel of Love Your Enemies (p. 8).  And with this week’s Bible Lesson on Love, maybe it’s appropriate to quote from p. 11: “We must love our enemies in all the manifestations wherein and whereby we love our friends; must even try not to expose their faults...”  I also love Taking Offense (p. 223), especially “To punish ourselves for others’ faults, is superlative folly.”  And Improve Your Time (p. 230): “Success in life depends upon persistent effort...A great amount of time is consumed in talking nothing, doing nothing, and indecision as to what one should do.”  But maybe tonight, as I flip through the pages of this amazing book, I could settle on Angels (p. 306): “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...”  Finally, this passage from Fidelity (p. 339-343) is a stand out: “There is no excellence without labor; and the time to work, is now.”

 

As we know, sermons in Christian Science churches today are offered as selected citations from the Bible and Science & Health with Key to the Scriptures.  But in the early days, both Mrs. Eddy and her students provided their own remarks for their sermons.  Chapter VI presents us with examples of several very helpful sermons by Eddy:

1.     A Christmas Sermon (delivered in Chickering Hall, Boston, Mass., on the Sunday before Christmas, 1888) – pp. 161-168

2.     Editor’s Extracts from Sermon with the text from Matt xxii. 29 “Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God” (see Joyce Voysey’s post of 27^th Jan) – pp. 168–171

3.     Extract from a Sermon Delivered in Boston, January 18, 1885 with the text from Matt xiii. 33 “The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.” pp. 171-176

4.     Sunday Services on July Fourth – Extempore Remarks – pp. 176-177

5.     Easter Services – pp. 177-180

6.     Bible Lessons

a.     John i. 12,13 “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” – pp. 180-185.

b.     I Cor xv. 45 “And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit” – pp. 185-190.

c.      Luke xi. 14 “And he was casting out a devil, and it was dumb.  And it came to pass, when the devil was gone out, the dumb spake” – pp. 190-192.

d.     John xiv. 12 “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father” – pp. 192-196.

e.     Acts xvi. 31 “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” pp. 196-199.

f.       2 Cor. xii. 10 “Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake” pp. 199-202.

 

And how about this: “Christians of to-day should be able to say, with the sweet sincerity of the apostle, ‘I take pleasure in infirmities’ – I enjoy the touch of weakness pain, and all suffering of the flesh, because it compels me to seek the remedy for it, and to find happiness apart from the personal senses. ...Paul...took pleasure in ‘necessities,’ for they tested and developed latent power.” (p. 201) That goes nicely with this passage: "A knowledge of the Science of being develops the latent abilities and possibilities of man," writes Mary Baker Eddy (Science and Health, p. 128).

 

Latent: present but not visible, apparent, or actualized; existing as potential

 

What an inflow of good we can expect as knowledge of the Science of being develops our latent abilities and possibilities!

 

Julie Swannell

TREASURED BOOK LOVED TO BITS!

Here are one Book Club member’s answers to our questions about this month’s book, Miscellaneous Writings (Mis.) by Mary Baker Eddy.

Part 1

 

1. When the articles were first written, what else was happening in the Christian Science movement?

- Wow! What a question! 

Robert Peel’s books Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Trial and Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Authority deal with those years.  He writes on p. 34 of Trial: “Through much of 1878 Mrs. Eddy felt that she was literally battling for the life of her movement, and in retrospect it seems something of a miracle that it did escape obliteration at that time.” 

This warfare had been with her since her discovery, and the beginnings of her teaching of this Science.  She says that, “In compiling this work, I have tried to remove the pioneer signs and ensigns of war, and to retain at this date the privileged armaments of peace” (pp. xi & xii).

In his books, Peel gives a Chronology of Notable Events through the years.  It would be interesting to know in what order the articles were published.  The Chronology says the first edition of Science &Health was published in 1975 and Christian Healing in 1880; Retrospection and Introspection in 1891; Pulpit and Press 1895.    

 I do wonder about Love Your Enemies (p. 8): was that written specially for inclusion in Mis.?

 

2. When and why did Mary Baker Eddy decide to collect them into a single volume?

- Copyright 1896; Preface date 1897.

- She had received requests for a book for reference and she saw the need for a guidebook. 

-  She was concerned about the quality of the Class teaching being done by her students, and students of her students.

 

Peel writes in Authority that “It marked, in a way, the watershed between the formative and productive years of the church’s history” (p. 101).   And that “the new book, gathering up the lessons of the past, had a good deal more of the personal Mrs. Eddy in it than did Science and Health” (p. 103).  He quotes her as having written to Carol Norton: “My heart speaks to you in my last book” whereas Science and Health has so much of “the divine heart”, and less of her own human feelings.  And on p. 104: “...Miscellaneous Writings gave practical instruction on how to be a more effective student and church member.”

           

 

3. To whom was the book dedicated?

- “To loyal Christian Scientists in this and every land”

 

4. Which, to you, is the most interesting question and answer in Chapter 3?

 - “What course should Christian Scientists take in regard to aiding persons brought before the courts for violation of medical statutes?” (p. 79)

 

5. Which is your favourite article and why?

- This could be a trick question.  I read and wonder at Mrs. Eddy’s Christian Science in Tremont Temple (p 95).  Surely I must say this is my favourite!  Then the Extract from My First Address in The Mother Church, May 26, 1895 (p. 106), with its three cardinal points or stages, the second stage of which – repentance – mortals must hasten through, and on to the third stage – the understanding of good.  Surely that must really be my favourite. 

 

But the Message to the Annual Meeting of The Mother Church, Boston, 1896 (p. 125), really must take pride of place in my affection.  Do not I read from it every day, especially p.127:7, as one of my Daily Duties?  And opposite, on page 126: “No reproof is so potent as the silent lesson of a good example.”   And here, on page 127, we have “the human heart, like a feather bed, needs often to be stirred, sometimes roughly...” Actually, those two pages are shiny with use. 

 

 By the way, I have decided to pension off my original copy of Prose Works.  You are probably glad!  But the leather one has a long way to go to be as comfy as the old one.  Already I am consulting the old one for marked passages.

 

6. Which is your favourite sermon from Chapter 6 and why?

- The first one which begins on page 168, mostly because of the Bible text (Matt xxii. 29): “Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God.”  It seems to encapsulate all that keeps folk from accepting God as their Saviour.  The first paragraph on page 169 is so uplifting.  Here she speaks of her own experience.  How beautiful that the “uplifting of spirit was the upbuilding of the body” for her.

 

7. What is the over-riding sentiment in the letters in Chapter 5?

- The Rule for Motives and Acts from the Manual of The Mother Church (p. 40) comes strongly to mind: 

“Neither animosity nor mere personal attachment should impel the motives or acts of the members of The Mother Church.  In Science, divine Love alone governs man; and a Christian Scientist reflects the sweet amenities of Love, in rebuking sin, in true brotherliness, charitableness, and forgiveness.  The members of this Church should daily watch and pray to be delivered from all evil, from prophesying, judging, condemning, counselling, influencing or being influenced erroneously.”

 

Joyce Voysey

Do you have questions?

Children always have questions, but do adults sometimes forget to be inquisitive, and swallow whatever they are told as being the truth?  Have you noticed that when you are with inquisitive young children, the world takes on a new hue?  You SEE so much more. 

I love that the queen of Sheba had lots of “hard questions” to ask when she visited the famous King Solomon.  See I Kings 10.  We know that the 12 year old Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, peppering the “doctors” with questions, even while his parents were frantic that they couldn’t find him.   See Luke 2: 46.  And years later, lots of people asked Jesus lots of “hard questions”!

Our present experience throws up many questions, and it’s so interesting and helpful to seek the answers to those questions.  The internet allows quick and wide access to many sources of information – some reliable, some not.  In our daily study of the Christian Science Bible Lesson, LOTS of questions arise, and I find it helpful to ask: “What is the significance of that for us today?” A friend from Sydney helpfully suggested years ago that the answers are always right there in the Lesson as we keep reading!

Book Club readers will have their own favourite questions from Chapter Three of our book this month, Miscellaneous Writings. I like them all, but was struck by this one on page 74/75 the other day:  “If God does not recognize matter, how did Jesus, who was “the way, the truth, and the life,” cognize it?”

Eddy’s answer is awesome!  She reminds us that his nativity was unlike any other; he “walked upon the waves”; “turned the water into wine”, “healed the sick and the sinner”; “raised the dead”; and “rolled away the stone from the door of his own tomb”!!  That sort-of gives us the feeling that Jesus’ concept of matter was a little different from the ordinary!

Questions are great – let’s keep asking them, and the answers will come in the way we need them.  Isa 28: 10 - “For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little.” KJV

“He tells us everything over and over again, a line at a time and in such simple words!” The Living Bible

Julie Swannell

Note: Three POSTS have been added today.  You will find the other two ("To Loyal Christian Scientists" and "Sing Your Heart Out") on the Blog under this one.

To Loyal Christian Scientists

 Miscellaneous Writings is dedicated to “LOYAL CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS in this and every land”.  Eddy adds the following on her dedication page:

 

“I lovingly dedicate these practical teachings

indispensable to the culture and achievements which

constitute the success of a student

and demonstrate the ethics

of Christian Science.”

 

Dedicate: to offer formally (a book, piece of music, etc.) to a person, cause, or the like in testimony of affection or respect, as on a prefatory page.

Practical: adapted or designed for actual use; useful: practical instructions.

Teachings: doctrines or precepts: the teachings of Lao-tzu.

Indispensable: 1. absolutely necessary, essential, or requisite: an indispensable member of the staff.

2. incapable of being disregarded or neglected: an indispensable obligation.

Culture: 1. the quality in a person or society that arises from a concern for what is regarded as excellent in arts, letters, manners, scholarly pursuits, etc.

2. that which is excellent in the arts, manners, etc

3. a particular form or stage of civilization, as that of a certain nation or period: Greek culture.

4. development or improvement of the mind by education or training

5. the behaviours and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group: the youth culture; the drug culture

Achievements: act of achieving; attainment or accomplishment: the achievement of one's object.

Constitute: to compose; form: mortar constituted of lime and sand.

Success: the favourable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavours.

Student: 1. a person formally engaged in learning, especially one enrolled in a school or college; pupil: a student at Yale.

2. any person who studies, investigates, or examines thoughtfully: a student of human nature.

Origin: 1350–1400; Middle English < Latin student- (stem of studēns ), present participle of studēre to take pains; see -ent; replacing Middle English studiant, aphetic variant of estudiant < Old French, noun use of present participle of estudier to study

Demonstrate: 1. to make evident or establish by arguments or reasoning; prove: to demonstrate a philosophical principle.

2. to describe, explain, or illustrate by examples, specimens, experiments, or the like: to demonstrate the force of gravity by dropping an object

3. to manifest or exhibit; show: He demonstrated his courage by his actions in battle

4. to display openly or publicly, as feelings: to demonstrate one's anger by slamming a door

5. to exhibit the operation or use of (a device, process, product, or the like), usually to a purchaser or prospect: to demonstrate an automobile

Ethics: 1. a system of moral principles: the ethics of a culture

2. the rules of conduct recognized in respect to a particular class of human actions or a particular group, culture, etc.: medical ethics; Christian ethics

3. moral principles, as of an individual: His ethics forbade betrayal of a confidence

4. that branch of philosophy dealing with values relating to human conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions and to the goodness and badness of the motives and ends of such actions

 

It’s an interesting study to see how these terms are used elsewhere in Mrs Eddy’s writings.

Julie Swannell

Sing your heart out!

Hymnal Note for Hymn 78 “King’s Lynn”, (God is my strong salvation), is very interesting regarding the town of Lynn, Mass.; Mrs. Eddy’s first hymn composed for the dedication of a temperance hall there; her fall; her discovery; her writing of S&H.

Joyce Voysey

Editor: Readers may like to listen to Betty O’Neal’s beautiful Daily Lift “Humming God’s Goodness” which includes reference to, and gorgeous humming of, hymn 224 “St. Leonard” (O Lord, I would delight in Thee).  I LOVE IT! 

Here’s the link:  http://christianscience.com/prayer-and-health/inspiration/your-daily-lift/1-21-humming-gods-goodness?utm_source=iContact&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Lift&utm_content=Daily+Lift+Layout

Col 3: 15 – 16 Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other in step with each other.  None of this going off and doing your own thing.  And cultivate thankfulness.  Let the Word of Christ- the Message – have the run of the house.  Give it plenty of room in your lives.  Instruct and direct one another using good common sense.  And sing, sing your hearts out to God! 

The Message - Eugune Peterson

The beloved physician and potions for the sick

I digress a little… Today, in my consecutive daily reading of Science &Health, I came to page 369, line 14: “We never read that Luke or Paul made a reality of disease in order to discover some means of healing it.”  How interesting that Mrs. Eddy names Luke in this context.  How many times have I read this without questioning, “why Luke”?

This is Mrs. Eddy’s only reference to Luke, except for where she mentions his Gospel in opening the chapter Christian Science Practice.  Does she reckon that Luke must have been a spiritual healer?  Does the phrase “the beloved physician” apply to him as a spiritual healer? 

We find this in Colossians 4:14: “Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas, greet you.”  Luke was Paul’s almost constant companion, and so are we to understand that he may also have been his practitioner?  Surely, in all Paul’s trials (which we heard about at our church’s Wednesday meeting this week – see II Cor.11:23-33) he needed the support of a spiritual physician.

Joyce Voysey

Ed. In searching the Bible and Mrs. Eddy’s writings regarding use of the word “physician”, the following passage from Miscellaneous Writings p. 268:14 (though not actually using the word “physician”) caught my attention -

“The Christian Scientist keeps straight to the course.  His whole inquiry and demonstration lie in the line of Truth; hence he suffers no shipwreck in a starless night on the shoals of vainglory.  His medicine is Mind – the omnipotent and ever-present good.  His “help is from the Lord,” who heals body and mind, head and heart; changing the affections, enlightening the misguided senses, and curing alike the sin and the mortal sinner.  God’s preparations for the sick are potions of His own qualities.  His therapeutics are antidotes for the ailments of mortal mind and body.  Then let us not adulterate His preparations for the sick with material means.”

I am also reminded of a beloved church solo I sang years ago: “Pour in truth through flood-tides of Love” – see S&H p. 201 “The way to extract error from mortal mind is to pour in truth through flood-tides of Love.”

The Great Physician is at hand!

THE ‘CANNY’ CRUMB

 Question 2:  When and why did Mary Baker Eddy decide to collect her “miscellaneous writings” into a single volume?

 

An early page of Miscellaneous Writings indicates an original copyright date of 1896 (renewed 1924).  Eddy explains that she had had “oft-repeated requests” to republish her writings so that they could be “accessible as reference” – see page x, which also explains that “the opportunity [had] at length offered itself”.

In reviewing the Preface’s opening idea about charity, it occurred to me that by giving her students these priceless writings, Mrs. Eddy was providing the means for her students to support themselves as metaphysicians. 

I notice also that the writings are “an offering” to God of her “fervent heart and willing hand” (page xi).  Going back over words written over a period of thirteen years, during which momentous and often turbulent changes occurred in her world, must have been a most interesting experience and she must have felt that the lessons she had learned could certainly help future Christian Scientists.  Indeed, she expresses the desire that the Christian Scientist will find a “canny” crumb in these writings.  www.Dictionary.com gives some lovely meanings of the Scottish term “canny” -   

1. careful; cautious; prudent: a canny reply.

2. astute; shrewd; knowing; sagacious: a canny negotiator.
3. skilled; expert.
4. frugal; thrifty: a canny housewife.
5. Scot.
a. safe to deal with, invest in, or work at (usually used with a negative).
b. gentle; careful; steady.
c. snug; cosy; comfortable.
d. pleasing; attractive.

How lovely that we are now having the opportunity to find a “canny” crumb as we review the pages of this momentous collection of writings during the month of January this year.  And I like what Eddy has written in her article “The Cry of Christmas-Tide” (see p. 369):

“Meekly we kneel at our Master’s feet, for even a crumb that falleth from his table.  We are hungry for Love, for the white-winged charity that heals and saves; we are tired of theoretic husks, – as tired as was the prodigal son of the carobs which he shared with the swine, to whom he fed that wholesome but unattractive food.  Like him, we would find our Father’s house again – the perfect and eternal Principle of man. We thirst for inspiring wine from the vine which our Father tends.”

Julie Swannell