Sunday April 25th, 2021 Roundtable

Probation, progress, goes on, until there is no life, substance, or intelligence in matter.

Repeat the following affirmations silently several times each day not with strained anxiety to get something out of them, but trying calmly to realize the meaning of the words:

All is harmony; there is no discord.
God is All; there is no evil
All is health; there is no sickness.
All is Spirit; there is no matter.
All is joy; there is no sorrow.
All is Truth; there is no falsehood.
All is faith; there is no fear.
All is Life; there is no death.
All is Love; there is no hate.

We must cease quibbling, cease to admit in our thinking the reality and power in themselves, of misery, pain, and evil in all its forms. We must think steadily and persistently the Truth which stands opposite to them. We do in this way overcome our discordant conditions of consciousness.

— from Divinity Course and General Collectanea, (the “Blue Book”), by Mary Baker Eddy, page 195 and 282

301 — WATCH lest, when you are sick, you ask, “Oh, God! Why have you done this to me?” Rather should you ask, “Oh, God! Why have I done this to you?” There are times when we need a rude awakening from our mental lethargy. Perhaps we have become indifferent to God and to our obligations to Him. Perhaps we have put effect ahead of cause in our procession, put matter at the head of it, where only God, Spirit, belongs.

Perhaps we have been sailing along so smoothly that we have thrown our skipper overboard. Divine guidance is so essential that we must have experiences that convince us that, if we let go of it, we are liable to go on the rocks. Once a boy stumbled over a stone as he walked along with uplifted eyes, thinking about God. He was thinking about God, but he was not using His guidance, since he did not see a pit that lay in his path. Stumbling over the stone so shocked him out of his reverie, that he was saved a plunge into the pit. When he realized what had happened, he was grateful for the very stone at which he was at first angry.

— from 500 Watching Points by Gilbert Carpenter

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GOLDEN TEXT: Ephesians 5 : 14

“Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.”

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Article — “Caution in the Truth” from Unity of Good by Mary Baker Eddy, pages 1-7

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Intellectualism is the bane of Christian Science. It has no heart in it. If the heart is not there it is meaningless.

— Plainfield Roundtable

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Students expect more and more teaching. This is the work of the evil one. God alone teaches. He says something to us all every hour. When will they all awake to hear His voice and stop looking to me?

— from Divinity Course and General Collectanea, (the “Blue Book”), by Mary Baker Eddy, page 196

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In the Blue Book, Martha Wilcox is quoted saying that one of the first lessons she learned in Mrs. Eddy’s house was that “the ‘objects of sense’ when correctly understood, are really ‘ideas of Soul’.” “There are not two groups of creation — but just one.” So, in reality, there is no material world apart from the spiritual. Whenever we go out we can declare that we only meet Spirit today, whatever and whoever we come across, whatever we touch, whatever we hear, whatever we see, whatever we receive is Spirit, good, is already approved and blessed by God and can only bless us. Be prepared!

—Forum post, “No Two Worlds – Material and Spiritual” by Melinda for March 29th, 2020

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The Way to Begin in Christian Science. (Extract from a letter written to a friend in the darkness, crying for light.)

I do not know that you could have written to one who has greater reason for gratitude than I have; for I have been lifted out of the abyss in which all was lifeless and when all material supports had failed! But I then learned that with God there are no degrees nor distinction in degrees.

Know as a certainty that God is your life; this is absolute; then, with this realization, know that God is not the author of disease. …

Now let every thought from morning until night, and from night till morning (when awake), dwell on the perfection of God, in whom you live and move and have your being. God is not sick — is not diseased, and He is your life, and there can be no other life. It is hard (at first) to ignore the old race beliefs, sense testimonies, and material evidences, for they seem to carry conviction,— but, dear sister, it is certain that every thought externalizes itself on the body, and brings its corresponding sensation. …

My dear sister, this at-one-ment with Christ is a wonderful work. The healing of your body is a very small affair compared to what is to be accomplished in the “putting off of the old and the putting on the new.” Say often, “God is my life, my strength, my health, in Him is my dominion, my wisdom, my understanding.” You have dominion, in Him, over the world, the flesh, and the devil,— a dominion that is omnipotent. You cannot be overthrown, for He is not only omnipotent, but omnipresent; and your life is in Him. No power can limit you. My first upward step out of the darkness into the light, out of sickness into health, was through persistently affirming, for three days and nights, “God is my life, God is my life.” At the expiration of this time the symptoms were — as we measure physical conditions — worse. I would not allow this to move me, but still continued to silently declare truly, God is my life, for four days more; then there came a perceptible change. From that on, I slowly but steadily improved, until those who were opposed to Christian Science, learning I had repudiated the old ways, rolled upon me their opposing thoughts. (This you cannot yet comprehend, but you will.) With this came the need of help, — for I had then no understanding of animal magnetism,— and with help from a Scientist, victory was again reached. I then resumed the work alone. Through all this time, some weeks, I never ceased to affirm my place in God.— Yours in the triumph of Christ.

— from The Christian Science Journal, September 1889

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Hypnotism, mesmerism and theosophy are mindless and powerless because Godless and Christless. God reigns.

— from Divinity Course and General Collectanea, the “Blue Book,” by Mary Baker Eddy, page 286

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Final Readings