Sunday, August 18th, 2019 Roundtable

Oh, my God, I offer as a consecrated gift upon Thine altar, a heart dedicated to Thy service, lips speaking only words of charity, love, and truth, thoughts striving to be only the true thoughts of the Mind of God. Help me to endure unto the end, strong in the faith, powerful in the truth, all the influence that I can bring to bear, all the force of tongue or pen that is mine, I offer in Thy service. May heaven help, consecrate, and accept.

— Mrs. Eddy’s Prayer, given at the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, found in both the April 1885 Christian Science Journal and in Mary Baker Eddy’s Six Days of Revelation, page 171

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304 — WATCH lest, after you come into Christian Science, you retain the old concept of a destiny that is subject to chance and change. The destiny of a flower is subject to every wind and storm that comes, until it is transplanted into a hothouse. There it develops under ideal conditions, and is safe from depredation. When we become Christian Scientists, we are transplanted into God’s hothouse. There we are under His perpetual care and no longer subject to chance and change. We are governed by the law that all things work together for good, because we love God.

— from 500 Watching Points by Gilbert Carpenter

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Golden Text — “The Lord redeemeth the soul of his servants: and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate.” — Psalm 34 : 22

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The one who is demonstrating Soul will not seek to do it, but the beauty of his Soul will be manifested in his surroundings.

Soul particularly stands for the things that beautify human experience and make life more enjoyable. Soul is a word that signifies beauty, happiness, harmony, peace, and so on. Soul indicates a higher attainment of Science than Mind. Mind signifies reasoning faculties. Soul is the spontaneity of knowing without process. Soul is the ISNESS of ALL.

Soul is the substance of all beauty, the principle, the activity, the law of all that is beautiful. It is the impulsion of all true expression. Man is a state of revelation, spontaneously showing forth Soul.

He who believes that he has a soul in his body will have to get rid of that belief; there is nothing to that at all. There is just one Spirit, one Soul, and that is God. Soul is the divine Mind, and it is that particular quality of Infinity that expresses itself in infinite beauty and grandeur throughout creation.

Soul is all there is to music and the arts. Everything that is beautiful, noble, and grand, has its origin in Soul, in divine Mind. Human emotion is not altogether a quality to be avoided. Sometimes emotional people are much more scientific. If a person gets rid of his fear, and his human emotions are redeemed by Soul, he will become very intuitive and often have a very clear perception and wisdom that will be sufficient to heal cases quickly, when a quality less loving and beautiful will fail to see the truth.

Soul is the spontaneous nature of man, the epitome of natural knowing. Soul is true inspiration. As you advance in the Science of Soul, you will see beauty where you never saw it before. A Christian Scientist attains his dominion in the proportion that he seeks not the image and likeness, but the original. In that original, which is in Principle, Spirit, Soul, resides and shines in full effulgence, all comeliness, originality, receptivity, beauty, and joy.

The fact is, you cannot demonstrate the kingdom of heaven unless you demonstrate beauty and joy in everything.

There is not an ugly thing in heaven; not one idea could ever show forth anything less than infinite Soul, which means infinite beauty and joy. We will never come into an experience where we cannot see and appreciate beauty; where we will appreciate by thinking a spiritual sense, and not have any evidence of that fact. The fact is that the evidence is to accumulate and be more desirable and abiding than it is at present, because the kingdom of heaven is the kingdom of beauty.

— from 1937 College by Bicknell Young, page 64-65

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Beauty, as well as truth, is eternal; but the beauty of material things passes away, fading and fleeting as mortal belief. Custom, education, and fashion form the transient standards of mortals. Immortality, exempt from age or decay, has a glory of its own, — the radiance of Soul. Immortal men and women are models of spiritual sense, drawn by perfect Mind and reflecting those higher conceptions of loveliness which transcend all material sense.

Comeliness and grace are independent of matter. Being possesses its qualities before they are perceived humanly. Beauty is a thing of life, which dwells forever in the eternal Mind and reflects the charms of His goodness in expression, form, outline, and color. It is Love which paints the petal with myriad hues, glances in the warm sunbeam, arches the cloud with the bow of beauty, blazons the night with starry gems, and covers earth with loveliness.

The embellishments of the person are poor substitutes for the charms of being, shining resplendent and eternal over age and decay.

The recipe for beauty is to have less illusion and more Soul, to retreat from the belief of pain or pleasure in the body into the unchanging calm and glorious freedom of spiritual harmony.

— from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 247-248

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By its own volition, not a blade of grass springs up, not a spray buds within the vale, not a leaf unfolds its fair outlines, not a flower starts from its cloistered cell.

— from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 191

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Forum post — Redeemed If We Trust. by Florence Roberts

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In some way, sooner or later, all must rise superior to materiality, and suffering is oft the divine agent in this elevation. “All things work together for good to them that love God,” is the dictum of Scripture.

— Citation 4 in this week’s Lesson from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 444 : 2-6, 10-12

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Dictum: a formal pronouncement of a principle; a formal pronouncement from an authoritative source.

— from Webster’s 1828 Dictionary

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It matters not what be thy lot,
So Love doth guide;
For storm or shine, pure peace is thine,
Whate’er betide.

And of these stones, or tyrants’ thrones,
God able is
To raise up seed—in thought and deed—
To faithful His.

Aye, darkling sense, arise, go hence!
Our God is good.
False fears are foes—truth tatters those,
When understood.

Love looseth thee, and lifteth me,
Ayont hate’s thrall:
There Life is light, and wisdom might,
And God is All.

The centuries break, the earth-bound wake,
God’s glorified!
Who doth His will—His likeness still—
Is satisfied.

— by Mary Baker Eddy, Christian Science Hymnal Hymn 161

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Trials teach mortals not to lean on a material staff, — a broken reed, which pierces the heart. We do not half remember this in the sunshine of joy and prosperity. Sorrow is salutary. Through great tribulation we enter the kingdom. Trials are proofs of God’s care. Spiritual development germinates not from seed sown in the soil of material hopes, but when these decay, Love propagates anew the higher joys of Spirit, which have no taint of earth. Each successive stage of experience unfolds new views of divine goodness and love.

Sorrow has its reward. It never leaves us where it found us. The furnace separates the gold from the dross that the precious metal may be graven with the image of God. The cup our Father hath given, shall we not drink it and learn the lessons He teaches?

— Citation 6 in this week’s Lesson from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 66 : 6-16, 30-3

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Forum post — “”To Keep Them Alive in Famine”” by Parthens

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Who that has felt the loss of human peace has not gained stronger desires for spiritual joy? The aspiration after heavenly good comes even before we discover what belongs to wisdom and Love. The loss of earthly hopes and pleasures brightens the ascending path of many a heart. The pains of sense quickly inform us that the pleasures of sense are mortal and that joy is spiritual.

The pains of sense are salutary, if they wrench away false pleasurable beliefs and transplant the affections from sense to Soul, where the creations of God are good, “rejoicing the heart.” Such is the sword of Science, with which Truth decapitates error, materiality giving place to man’s higher individuality and destiny.

— Citation 7 in this week’s Lesson from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 265 : 23-5

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“Work out your own salvation,” is the demand of Life and Love, for to this end God worketh with you. “Occupy till I come!” Wait for your reward, and “be not weary in well doing.” If your endeavors are beset by fearful odds, and you receive no present reward, go not back to error, nor become a sluggard in the race.

When the smoke of battle clears away, you will discern the good you have done, and receive according to your deserving.

— Citation 9 in this week’s Lesson from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 22 : 11-20

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Forum post — “…stedfastly minded to go with her.” by Lynda from PA

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Dear Lord and Father of us all,
Forgive our foolish ways;
Reclothe us in our rightful mind;
In purer lives Thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.

In simple trust like theirs who heard,
Beside the Syrian sea,
The gracious calling of the `Soul`,
Let us, like them, without a word
Rise up and follow thee.

Breathe through the pulses of desire
Thy coolness and Thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind and fire,
O still small voice of calm.

Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from us now the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.

— Hymn 49 from the Christian Science Hymnal

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We should examine ourselves and learn what is the affection and purpose of the heart, for in this way only can we learn what we honestly are.

— from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 8

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Final Readings