Sunday, February 17th, 2019 Roundtable
Developing Moral Courage
This week’s Lesson Sermon Subject: Soul
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Morning Prayers
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
We, to-day, in this class-room, are enough to convert the world if we are of one Mind; for then the whole world will feel the influence of this Mind; as when the earth was without form, and Mind spake and form appeared.
— from Miscellaneous Writings by Mary Baker Eddy, page 279: 27-2
Discussion points
Golden Text — “The Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.” — I Samuel 16 : 7
287 — WATCH lest you consider animal magnetism anything more than an argument designed to interfere with your spiritual progress, so that you will slow up or stop in your spiritual journey. If you refuse to do so, have you not handled error? If you were skating over thin ice and you heard it cracking, it might frighten you and tempt you to slow up or stop; but if you did you might fall through. The remedy is to increase your speed.
When we hear error’s frightening arguments, they should have but one effect upon us, just as the presence of a chicken hawk has but one effect upon the little chicken. It hurries to the shelter of its mother’s wing. It does not stop to try to fight the hawk, because it knows that it cannot. So we cannot stop to fight the error and expect to win, since only divine power can vanquish the foe. To God there is none. Once, when a student of Mrs. Eddy’s was frightened by the argument of death to the point where she was endeavoring to fight the last enemy single-handed, the Leader sent her this message, “God gave you an abiding sense of Life that needs not to be fought for. Remember this and you will live forever.” At once the claim of death was vanquished, and she was restored to harmony.
When the cracklings of error only serve to speed us joyfully on our journey to the Father-Mother God’s love and care, they become a blessing, so that we can say with Paul, “I take pleasure in infirmities,” because they become a means of keeping us close to God.
— Watching Point 287 from 500 Watching Points by Gilbert Carpenter
Forum post — …until mortal error is deprived of its imaginary powers by Truth Jeremy from NJ
The integrity of the upright shall guide them:
— Proverbs 11 : 3 (to : ) from citation 6 in the Bible portion of this week’s lesson
Materiality, worldliness, human pride, or self-will, by demoralizing his motives and Christlikeness, would have dethroned his power as the Christ.
To carry out his holy purpose, he must be oblivious of human self.
Of the lineage of David, like him he went forth, simple as the shepherd boy, to disarm the Goliath. Panoplied in the strength of an exalted hope, faith and understanding, he sought to conquer the three-in-one error: the world, the flesh, and the devil.
— from Miscellaneous Writings by Mary Baker Eddy, page 162
The divine Principle of healing is proved in the personal experience of any sincere seeker of Truth. Its purpose is good, and its practice is safer and more potent than that of any other sanitary method. The unbiased Christian thought is soonest touched by Truth, and convinced of it. Only those quarrel with her method who do not understand her meaning, or discerning the truth, come not to the light lest their works be reproved. No intellectual proficiency is requisite in the learner, but sound morals are most desirable.
— from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page x
The divine Mind is the Soul of man, and gives man dominion over all things. Man was not created from a material basis, nor bidden to obey material laws which Spirit never made; his province is in spiritual statutes, in the higher law of Mind.
— Citation 1 from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 307 : 25 (The divine)-30
Forum post — First On the List Parthens
Moral and spiritual might belong to Spirit, who holds the “wind in His fists;” and this teaching accords with Science and harmony. In Science, you can have no power opposed to God, and the physical senses must give up their false testimony. Your influence for good depends upon the weight you throw into the right scale. The good you do and embody gives you the only power obtainable. Evil is not power. It is a mockery of strength, which erelong betrays its weakness and falls, never to rise.
— Citation 5 from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 192 : 17-26
Moral courage is “the lion of the tribe of Juda,” the king of the mental realm. Free and fearless it roams in the forest. Undisturbed it lies in the open field, or rests in “green pastures, … beside the still waters.” In the figurative transmission from the divine thought to the human, diligence, promptness, and perseverance are likened to “the cattle upon a thousand hills.” They carry the baggage of stern resolve, and keep pace with highest purpose.
— Citation 6 from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 514 : 10-18
“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.” — Calvin Coolidge
But how shall we reform the man who has more animal than moral courage, and who has not the true idea of good? Through human consciousness, convince the mortal of his mistake in seeking material means for gaining happiness. Reason is the most active human faculty. Let that inform the sentiments and awaken the man’s dormant sense of moral obligation, and by degrees he will learn the nothingness of the pleasures of human sense and the grandeur and bliss of a spiritual sense, which silences the material or corporeal. Then he not only will be saved, but is saved.
— Citation 8 from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 327 : 24-3
CHURCH. The structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle.
The Church is that institution, which affords proof of its utility and is found elevating the race, rousing the dormant understanding from material beliefs to the apprehension of spiritual ideas and the demonstration of divine Science, thereby casting out devils, or error, and healing the sick.
— from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy
“How you do one thing is how you do everything.” — Author unknown
Final Readings
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.
From lack of moral strength empires fall. Right alone is irresistible, permanent, eternal. Remember that human pride forfeits spiritual power, and either vacillating good or self-assertive error dies of its own elements. Through patience we must possess the sense of Truth; and Truth is used to waiting. “Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him; and He shall bring it to pass.”
— from “Vainglory” in Miscellaneous Writings, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 268