CHRISTIAN SCIENCE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3833, 30 August 1927, Page 23

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE.

DR JOHN M. TUTT’S LECTURE.

SPIRITUAL NEEDS OF HUMANITY,

At His Majesty’s Theatre on Sunday a f. a lecture on “ Spiritualisation ?7c. « e ? vas given Dr Jolln M- Tutt, C. 5.8., of Kansas City, U.S.A., before a large audience. The lecturer is a member ot the Board of Lecturership of the Mother Church, the First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass., U.S.A. Mrs C. I, Fyfe, who presided and introduced the lecturer, said that for tire reason that students of Christian Science were grateful for the help they had received from a knowledge of truth gained through study uig tho works of Mary Baker Eddy, the is coverer and founder of Christian Science, they desired to share this blessing with others, and a lecture on Christian Science afforded an opportunity for all to learn something of this teaching. Throughout all ages mankind had been striving to understand God, yearning and seeking fora better knowledge of Him and His truth, and for tho truths which Jesus declared would make the people free. In latter years many had found this truth in the teachings of Christian Science, the study of which had brought to £ hem health, comfort, and joy unspeakable. Through this study thousands of hopeleii sufferers had come to know God as a loving Father, had experienced His care and protection, and had been freed from all manner of sickness, sin, and other discords with which humanity was burdened.

Dr Tutt, in the course of his remarks, said: The world to-day is experiencing a. revival of interest in the things of the Spirit. Public expression abounds with references to the spiritual needs of humanity. Materialism, even in its refinements, has failed to satisfy human aspiration. Everywhere men are turning from matter to spirit, instinctively confident that, under Divine direction, spiritualisation of life will meet human need to-dav and will justify the longing and the hope for a spiritual tomorrow. This spiritualisation of thought and life is the peculiar work of Christian Science in human consciousness. The purified state of consciousness is the kingdom of heaven on earth for which Jesus prayed and taught all Christians to pray. How much of this kingdom of harmony can one experience here and now? Just the degree of his leavening, just the measure of his spiritualised thought. Before one can go to heaven, heaven must come to him on earth. That is the import of Mis Eddy’s great discovery. To her the spiritual leaven came, as through her selfless ministry it has come to countless others: “A divine influence, ever present in human consciousness, coming now as was promisee aforetime, to preach deliverance to the captives (of sense) and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.” '

Have you ever considered the changes in genera] thought and life since Christian Science began its reformatory mission? Not only have individuals been affected directly, but the transforming influence has extended to the universal thought, s 0 that those who have not yet come to know Christian Science have nevertheless conformed to much of its basic teaching. Surely.’ though slowly, and oft-times oy devious by-paths, thought has come into agreement with the great spiritual facts revealed in Christian Science Coincidently basic changes have occurred in human affairs, touching the academy, the pulpit, and the medical forum to higher, even to more spiritual issues. Science, theology and medicine are so woven into tho warp and woof of human existence that 1 y constitute its motif. Indeed, involving as they do salvation, both here and hereafter, these are the indispensable factors in human life to-day, they are the basis of the hope of a to-morrow. Now the human mind is finite; its every sense is, of-course, limited. The human mind’s concepts of science, theo! ;y and medicine never rise above the limits by which the human thought is bounded, for it can of itself rise no higher than itself. That self is material, and hence Io the unenlightened thought science, theology and medicine seem material. Physical science, scholastic theology, and material medicine have operated in human consciousness to belittle God with finite form and nature, and to bind man with the trammels of matter.

Spiritually considered and therefore riglily viewed, science, theology, and medicine express' modes of divine consciousness, activities of divine Mind, or the innnite Principle, God. To be true, to be Christian. religion must take into account these divinely mental modes: human action based on them is most Christian, most spiritually scientific, hence nearest right. Christ esus. science, His theology. His medicine, were spiritual and therefore were true. Christian Science, without the limitations of matter, was the science of Jesus Christ: Christian theology, without scholastic dogma, was the religion of Jesus Christ; Christian healing, without materia medica, was the medicine of Christ Jesus. It will be understood that Christian Science does not come to destroy science, theology, and medicine, but rather to leaven the human concept of them. It comes to purge out the old lump. In the leavening, science is shorn of physical fetters, theology is cleansed of tho misconcepts of creed and dogma, and medicine is relieved of matter and properly related t o Mind. .’lms spiritualisation of thought raises the concepts of science, theology and medicine to a higher basis, reveals them to be in truth modes of Divine Mind, and restores them in human consciousness to their rightful place, from which material theories nave debased them.

Physical science from the first has been fettered to matter. It does not pretend t o deal. with ultimate cause. Rather it accepts matter as its starting point, leaving to theology, the explanation of origin. This natural science makes of matter an absurdity, »an effect without a cause. Matter having no origin, the conclusion is inevitable, though not admitted by physics, that matter has no existence in fact. From such a basis, this so-called science, with altogather material inconsistency. declares matter to be indestructible. Now it is true that matter cannot destroy matter. Contemplating the kaleidoscopic history of humanity, its struggles, its unrest, its present state of fermentation, one is struck with this obvious fact—there has never been any real progress in matter. Always there has been change in matter,in incessant action and reaction, building

up anu tearing down. But these mutations af e changes only of form. No essential progress occurs till the leaven of Spirit works in human consciousness that fundamental change from the material to the spiritual. All permanent progress ir, mental, spiritual, not material, and is manifest’d humanly in the overcoming of matter. Thus man’s true advancement has been recorded not in material history, but in spiritual development. The truth about anything begins to unfold to human consciousness at the vanishing point of mat-ter-beliefs about it.

“Th, proper study of mankind,” said the poet, “is man,” and that is metaphysically true. Had the poet been a Christian Scientist, he might have declared further the proper study of man is God, his Maker. The great barrier to human progress has been ignorance, ignorance of God, ignorance of man. Christ Jesus said to the woman at Sychar, “We know what we worship.” Thereby He separated all other religious beliefs from true Christianity and indicated both the possibility ’and the necessity to know God. To know God is to know man, for man. the Bible says, is God’s image and likeness.

Because of ignorance, the earliest concepts of God involved fear, taboo, and penalty. The basis of scholastic theology was God as a punisher of man. Whatever the concept of God, He was alwaysxa terrible Being to be feared and lienee to be, if possible, appeased. Because of the proscription of love, some of the blackest crimes in history have been committed in the name of Deity. The practice of religion has always tended toward discipline, toward the citation to love, obev. and serve God through the exercise of fear of punishment. In consequence of this false belief of Deity, men have had little faith in good, in health, and well bein~ as the natural sequence of events under God’s ca.e and government, but have shown unbounded and ever-present expectation of evil. Fear of punishment never made men good, yet the very meaning of the word, God, is good. Christian Science is changing the human thought of God from fear to love, and Christian Scientists are coming to expect at the hands of a loving Father the gifts of love. We are coming t- expect with confidence the destruction of sin and sickness, and to realise the consciousness of health. Thus fear is disappearing from human lives because it is going out of human consciousness. In the absence of fear we can always see good. We are gaining the higher concept that God is divine Love, ever responsive to human need, ever mindful of His own, remembering His children. Christian Science teaches, as most religious beliefs agree, and as reason confirms, that there must be a primary cause for all things that exist, and .at this great first Cause is the Creator, or God. Christian Science teaches men that God is a God not to he feared, not merely t be worshipped, but a God to be loved and lived and understood. Mrs Eddy discerned that everything that really exists has a Cause or Principle. This Principle produces and controls the object, this Principle gives to its object both function and identity, it is to be found always in the presence of its object and is inseparable from it. The wonder of Christian Science is that as one grasps the fact that God is divine Principle, cue loses the false belief that He is an object, yet gains the sense of His nearness. His everpresence. As it becomes clearer that God is a God at hand one can reach out and utilise His power. Because He is Principle, God becomes available for one’s needs, hence the ability of Christian Scientists to demonstrate God.