|
So she went to the public waiting room
and sat down and just declared silently these truths:that in God man is made
whole, and that "nothing can be put to it, nor thing taken from it" (EccI
3:14). Because God made man whole no man can take from us what God has given to
us. In a short while a man came into the waiting-room and came up to her and
said, 'Excuse me, have you lost anything?' She almost blurted out, my purse,
but she said, 'Thank you, I have lost nothing,' which was in keeping with her
declaration. The man looked very surprised walked out.
She must have thought, What now? But she
stuck her truth. In a minute the man came back again and said, 'Are you sure
you have lost nothing?' She said, 'Thank you, I have every that belongs to me.'
Again, he turned on his heel and walked out, but immediately he came back and
said, 'Is this yours?' holding the purse. She said, 'Yes, that is mine, thank
you,' and she took it. He said, 'You know, of course, I stole it. I had no
money.but something would not let me keep it. Would you tell me why I had bring
it back to you?' She said, 'Yes, I will. Sit down.' So he sat beside her and
she told him about these healing truths found in Bible, these truths made
practical again in the teaching of Christian Science. He was deeply interested.
She went off on her holiday, and he went his way. A couple of years later, in a
Christian Science church in London, on a Wednesday evening when in these
churches they have testimony meetings, she stood up and recounted this story.
At the end of the service a man came up to her and said, 'Do you remember me?'
It came round full circle.
If we will really choose the good and
stick to it vigorously as a spiritual fact of our being, —that God has
endowed us with our good, our substance, our faculties, our health, our
relationships, and that nothing on earth can take those things from us,
—then we bless not only ourselves but also those around us who, as in this
instance, believe they have need of our property. It is not our property, it is
God's property. It is yours and mine on trust, that is all. Everything belongs
to God, which is the keynote of the spiritual.
Christian Science teaches that God is
Spirit and man is spiritual. Man is born of the Spirit. As the Bible says, "The
Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God"
(Rom 8:16). Spirit is our real substance, our real nature. It focuses for us
the real side of our consciousness and our character. It cleanses and separates
us from all the unworthy, unspiritual, unlovely characteristics. We are all
aware in the course of a lifetime of a lot of unpleasant things having passed
out of our makeup very often without much conscious effort. That is because God
is Spirit, and Spirit baptises, purifies and makes us new. The Christian
Science textbook is full of this term Spirit operating in this way. For
example: 'We should strive to reach the Horeb height where God is revealed; and
the corner-stone of all spiritual building is purity. The baptism of Spirit,
washing the body of all the impurities of flesh, signifies that the pure in
heart see God and are approaching spiritual Life and its demonstration...
Through repentance, spiritual baptism, and regeneration, mortals put off their
material beliefs and false individuality" (S&H 241:24). Baptism is defined
in part as, 'Purification by Spirit; submergence in Spirit" (S&H
581:23).
«
Previous Page | Next Page
»
|
