CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 27 October 1934, Page 9

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

LECTURE AT HAWERA MISS GLENN, OF BOSTON A lecture on Christian Science entitled “Man’s Spiritual Nature as Revealed by Christian Science,” was delivered at the Grand Theatre last night by Miss Margaret M. Glenn of Boston a member of the Board of Lectureship. Mr T. M. Elis presided over an attendance of about 300 and briefly introduced the speaker. A summary of the lecture supplied for publication is as follows: “A question of vital import to us all is, Wbat constitutes our nature, our substance, our being? In other words, What is man ? Natural science explains man as a wholly material creation; medicine treats him as a material body, with a mentality resident in the brain; theology believes him to be material and spiritual. The natural scientist is correct in believing that there must be a science to explain man’s nature, but this science is the Science of Spirit, not of matter. The theologian is correct in maintaining that God created man in His image, but this image, in order to be a likeness, must be wholly spiritual, for God is Spirit, not flesh. The Science of Christianity does not deprive the natural scientist of science, but gives him a higher concept of it. Neither does it rob the religionist of his belief that man is God’s image, but it reveals man in the perfection of his spiritual being as that image. The discoverer and founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Elddy, writes: “Nature reflects man and art pencils him but it remains for Science to reveal man to inan’ and the Psalmist indicated man’s purely spiritual nature when he said, “What is man, that thou art mindful of him?”

MAN’S SUBSTANCE

“What is man’s substance, that God is mindful of it?” continued the lecturer. “If the answers of the physical sciences are correct then are we of all creatures, most miserable, for according to their analyses a mortal man consists, of matter-substance which is subject to discord, decay, and disintegration. Can God really be mindful of a substance that is discordant, decadent, destructible, and can this unsubstantial, so-called substance constitute man, who is God’s most noble creation ? Assuredly not, and the Science of man, opposed to the so-called science of mortals, reveals man’s substance as consisting of spiritual ideas, which are as immutable as their source, the one divine and infinite Spirit, God. Man’s substance cannot be perceived by the material senses, for it it spiritual and mental. In order to judge others correctly we must have some comprehension of their motives. Mrs Eddy gives as her life-motive the following: “The motive of my earliest labours has never changed. It was to relieve the sufferings of humanity by a sanitary system that should include all moral and religious reform.’ Could there be a more comprehensive or unselfish mothive ? It was never Mrs Eddy’s desire to thrust her personality forward or in any way to r court "personal adulation. In order, however, to understand Christian Science it is essential to have a proper appreciation of Mrs Eddy’s place as its discoverer, founder and leader. Just as we could never grasp the meaning and portent of the Lutheran religion without some understanding of the motives, aims, and place of Martin Luther, so w r e cannot apprehend the purpose and scope of the Christian Science movement without discerning the place and work of its Leader.’