Sunday March 7th, 2021 Roundtable

Goodness never fails to receive its reward, for goodness makes life a blessing. As an active portion of one stupendous whole, goodness identifies man with universal good. Thus may each member of this church rise above the oft-repeated inquiry, What am I? to the scientific response: I am able to impart truth, health, and happiness, and this is my rock of salvation and my reason for existing. … Goodness and benevolence never tire. They maintain themselves and others and never stop from exhaustion. He who is afraid of being too generous has lost the power of being magnanimous. The best man or woman is the most unselfed.

— from Miscellany, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 165-166

191 — WATCH lest you fail to follow St. Paul’s admonition to rejoice in infirmity. Wood choppers cut down trees during the winter. Then they rejoice when the spring freshets come, because they furnish the motive power to sweep the logs down to the mills.

Our study of the letter of Science and our effort to establish its truths in consciousness correspond to cutting down the trees. Then through the compelling nature of affliction and infirmity, we are forced to seek the divine remedy, to translate our understanding into demonstration, so that it becomes practical and established.

On page 254 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy says to fear not the mighty floods and storms which we encounter when we launch our bark upon the ever-agitated but healthful waters of truth, but the quiet surface of error, where in human harmony we are lulled into the sleep of stagnation and death.

Rightly understood, the storms which come to overflow the placid waters of human harmony, help to sweep our understanding down the rivers of demonstration to the ocean of divine Love, where spiritualized thought mingles and unites with God. Hence we should rejoice in such storms.

— from 500 Watching Points by Gilbert Carpenter

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Golden Text — “Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory.” – I Corinthians 15 : 57

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The Hon. Charles Evans Hughes, former Governor of New York State, who ran for President of the United States and later became Supreme Court, summarized Eustace v. Dickey (1921) thusly:

“It seems most unjust to Mrs. Eddy, most contrary to her teachings, to assume for one moment that she relied upon the despotic power which these Directors have arrogated to themselves. The unity  that these Directors wish, the unity of despotic power, the absolute control of the entire government of Christian Science in the church and in the publications, and everywhere else, is the unity which might well destroy the very faith, to which they profess to be devoted.

“There is nowhere now any more ‘centrally controlled’ religious organization than the church founded by her [Mrs. Eddy]”. It is the rigidity of the organizational structure with its extraordinary controls over branch churches, practitioners, and other responsible leaders, that has been the occasion for most of the conflict that has been aroused..

“Every measure the Directors have taken to guard their authority has stifled freedom of thought and expression, inhibited initiative and responsibility, and has closed off the means of inspiration and instruction. Their every step has tended to dilute and emasculate Christian Science.”

— from Christian Science: Its ‘Clear Correct Teaching by Herbert W. Eustace, C.S.B

Link — The Achievements of the Honorable Charles Evans Hughes, Sr.

Link — Details of the Great Litigation, the Proceedings in Equity.

Slavery is an example of “organized sin,” the Rev. David Hughes said in a sermon published in the July 5, 1861 issue of The Glens Falls Messenger. “If it be right for Africans to come over to America and go through all the cities and villages of ourcoast, burning whole towns, and murdering men, women and children, and capturing one out of one hundred that they murder, and take us to Africa, and sell, and bind and compel us to work for them as slaves, then the slavery of the Southern States is right,” Hughes said. “Does time make any difference with sin?” he asked. “We have winked at it as Christian men and Christian churches,” he chided. “Our religious associations have degenerated in their sentiments and opinions concerning this enormous and legalized sin.”

— by The Rev. David Hughes, father of the Hon. Charles Evans Hughes

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Now the point is how do you handle animal magnetism, not as evil to be destroyed but as in its true sense as the angel of God uring you forward in your footsteps heavenward.

— from Letter Excerpts, Statements on Christian Science by Herbert W. Eustace, C.S.B

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We never can know who is in reality a Christian Scientist until he is tested under fire; then what is left are dregs unfit for use till purged and purified, or they are qualities that evil cannot destroy and are held by the power of God.

— from Divinity Course and General Collectanea, the “Blue Book,” by Mary Baker Eddy, page 96

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Trials are proofs of God’s care.

— from Science and Health, 1910, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 66

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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 rereward ward, 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 is sluggard in the race.

— from Science and Health, 1910, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 22

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My angels are exalted thoughts, appearing at the door of some sepulchre, in which human belief has buried its fondest earthly hopes. With white fingers they point upward to a new and glorified trust, to higher ideals of life and its joys. Angels are God’s representatives. These upward-soaring beings never lead towards self, sin, or materiality, but guide to the divine Principle of all good, whither every real individuality, image, or likeness of God, gathers. By giving earnest heed to these spiritual guides they tarry with us, and we entertain “angels unawares.”

— from Science and Health, 1910, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 299

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Dictum: A formal pronouncement of a principle, proposition, or opinion regarded as authoritative.

— from 1828 Webster’s Dictionary

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What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?

— Romans 8:31 from the King James Bible

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