Sunday, August 9th, 2026 Roundtable

Entirely separate from the belief and dream of material living, is the Life divine, revealing spiritual understanding and the consciousness of man’s dominion over the whole earth. This understanding casts out error and heals the sick, and with it you can speak “as one having authority.”

“When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and, when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.”

So spake Jesus. The closet typifies the sanctuary of Spirit, the door of which shuts out sinful sense but lets in Truth, Life, and Love.

from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, pages 14 to 15

109 — WATCH lest you regard the attainment of spirituality as a purification of your own thinking rather than a receiving of wisdom from God. The purification of thought is the preparation, and this requires a certain amount of study. But study will not bring spirituality, unless that which one learns is put into practice. Spirituality is reflection. It is what flows through the pipes after they are clean rather than the effort to cleanse the pipes.

500 Watching Points by Gilbert Carpenter

Responsive Reading: Romans 13 : 1, 2, 5, 8-10
1. Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.
2. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.
5. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.
8. Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.
9. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
10. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

We have it only as we live it.

from Miscellany, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 126

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The error of the ages is preaching without practice.

from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 241

John 15:4, 5
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.
I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

Psalm 127:1
Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.

A heart touched and hallowed by one chord of Christian Science, can accomplish the full scale; but this heart must be honest and in earnest and never weary of struggling to be perfect — to reflect the divine Life, Truth, and Love. Stand by the limpid lake, sleeping amid willowy banks dyed with emerald. See therein the mirrored sky and the moon ablaze with her mild glory. This will stir your heart. Then, in speechless prayer, ask God to enable you to reflect God, to become His own image and likeness, even the calm, clear, radiant reflection of Christ’s glory, healing the sick, bringing the sinner to repentance, and raising the spiritually dead in trespasses and sins to life in God. Jesus said: “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”

from Miscellany, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 150

THE WORD reveals my path in life, shows me the way I should go, and makes clear every footstep. Therefore I move forward in light, trusting and confident; I cannot be befogged, uncertain or anxious, for “He knows the way He taketh, And I will walk with Him” (CSH. Hymn 148).

Some Notes on True Vision by John L. Morgan

John 4:25
“God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”

Religious men often seek to worship God through symbolic acts, man-made rituals, fleshly works, or emotional outbursts, but God desires a worshipful heart that is clean before Him, dependent upon Him, submissive to Him, and full of humility and grace… God is invisible, eternal, omniscient, and omnipresent, and He is not confined to a particular building, nor is He impressed by any outward show of religiosity.

God is Spirit, and they that worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth. There must be no hidden agenda, selfish motive, religious pride, or hypocritical heart. Worship does not require a series of religious rituals nor is it necessary to have an appointed place of worship: “God is Spirit and they that worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”

Though man looks on the outside and is drawn to religious acts of pomp and ceremony, God looks on the heart and delights in the one that approaches Him humbly, reverently, and in the fear of the Lord. God is close to those that are humble in heart; He saves those who are crushed in spirit; He feeds those that are hungry for Him, and streams of His living water will flow in and through the man or woman that worships the Lord in spirit and in truth.

Source: https://dailyverse.knowing-jesus.com/john-4-24

The Joy of Unity, from the March 3, 1928 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel by Jane Beilby Carey

When I cease to judge, criticize or condemn, I begin to make progress.

A Treatment for Every Day by Mary Baker Eddy

Truth, Life, and Love are a law of annihilation to everything unlike themselves, because they declare nothing except God.

from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 243

The Vesture Of Truth by Virginia C. Chinn

from the August 1909 issue of the Christian Science Journal

IN St. Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians we read: “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed…. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.” In these words the conditions for entering heaven are clearly set forth, viz., that corruption and mortality cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Therefore this mortal must put on the garments of immortality,—a process which is clearly mental, not physical.

The “gateway of death” through which mortals must pass to enter heaven is shown to be the death of a false sense of being. We are told that we must “put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” Jesus taught that the kingdom of heaven is within our consciousness, and that unless we become as little children we shall in no wise enter into this kingdom. What is it to become as a little child? Is it not to put off our mortal garments of pride, fear, self-will, self-love, human wisdom,—”the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,”—and to be clothed in the sweet, pure garments of spirituality? What a beautiful description our Master gave of the white garments of purity: “Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” Our Leader says: “The robes of Spirit are ‘white and glistering,’ like the raiment of Christ. Even in this world, therefore, ‘let thy garments be always white'” (Science and Health, p. 267).

In Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress,” the two pilgrims, Christian and Hopeful, after many struggles and victories, reach the country of Beulah, where they are blessed with glorious glimpses of the Celestial City to which they are journeying. The glory of this city dazzled and blinded them at first. In this country, we are told, the “shining ones commonly walked, for it was upon the borders of heaven.” Now these pilgrims rejoiced greatly, and hoped to enter straightway through the golden gates of the city, but two men, clothed “in raiment that shone like gold,” met them and showed them that between the country of Beulah and the gate of the Celestial City there ran a river, “and there was no bridge to go over.” The waters of the river were “not all of a depth.” “For,” said they, “you shall find it deeper or shallower, as you believe in the King of the place.” So these two pilgrims crossed the river safely, although not without great difficulty. When they reached the other side they found the two “shining ones” waiting for them, and with their aid the pilgrims went up the hill upon which the city was situated, with great ease; besides, “they had left their mortal garments behind them in the river, for though they went in with them, they came out without them.” So now these two faithful pilgrims were ready to enter into the joy of their Lord.

In the Glossary of “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” we find this definition of river: “Channel of thought. When smooth and unobstructed, it typifies the course of Truth; but muddy, foaming, and dashing, it is a type of error” (p. 593). Does not this definition throw wonderful light on the passage of these two pilgrims through the river? “The waters are deeper or shallower, as you believe in the King of the place.” We must all go through this process of purification. We must all be cleansed of the impurities of the fleshly mind. “The old man with his deeds” must be put off. Then, dear fellow-pilgrims, let us hasten to put off error; “not that we would be unclothed,” says the apostle, “but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.” Let us heed the warning given by our blessed Master in the parable of the great supper. We are all familiar with the excuses which come from those who are bidden to this feast. One has bought land; another, cattle; another has married a wife, and therefore cannot come.

It is worth while to stand quite still for a moment, and consider the call of Spirit which invites us to the feast of Soul,—to hear the tender, pleading voice of the Christ: “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” And again, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” Are any too busy buying and selling, marrying and giving in marriage,— multiplying nothing,— to heed this call of Spirit? Would any send excuses? Then let us consider for a moment! Does the world offer us this rest? Listen, and our own heart answers. No; we can never find this rest in materiality, nor can we ever be filled with its husks. Mortals may become surfeited and nauseated, but satisfied—never! Again those tender tones of the Christ ring in our ears and touch our hearts with their sweetness: “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”

But better—yes, a thousand times better—even to refuse the invitation and go your way for a time, than to suffer the fate of the one who came to the feast without a wedding garment. Jesus tells us that “when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment: and he saith unto him, Friend, how camest them in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless.” Then the king commanded his servants, and they bound the hapless guest hand and foot and cast him into “outer darkness,” where there is “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” This seems cruel treatment, but was his punishment more than his presumption deserved? Had not the king provided wedding garments for all his guests? And this man need only to have discarded his filthy rags and accepted joyously the gracious gift of the king,—put on the shining garments prepared by him for each guest bidden to the feast! The king had surely not neglected to prepare for each guest the wedding garment.

Christian Science bids us all lay aside our mortal thoughts and put on immortality. We have heard the call of Spirit, the sweet invitation to the marriage supper of the Lamb. Do we really desire to accept? Then let us not shrink from the cleansing, purifying process which must take place before we are fit to be clothed in the pure white garments of Spirit. If we address ourselves to the waters as did those pilgrims in Bunyan’s allegory, we shall pass safely through them, for Love is with us, and we need not fear nor be dismayed. On the other side of the river the shining ones await the true pilgrims. Those angels—”pure thoughts from God” (Science and Health, p. 298)— are waiting to clothe with the glistering garments those who have “put off” the false and illusive mortal vesture, and, clothed in the wedding garment, the shining ones will conduct them to the king. This garment wherewith we are to be clothed is the spotless robe of Christ,—the vesture without rent or seam.

In Revelation we are told that at each gate of the Holy City an angel stands guard to see that nothing may enter which defileth or maketh a lie. Nothing mortal can enter into the heavenly city. We must drop the mortal, and awake in His likeness,—find our real identity as children of the heavenly Father, and abide with Him in the realm of light and glory. Heaven is the eternal dwelling-place of our Father-Mother and of all His children, for His children can never be separated from Him. (The belief that they can is hell.) John saw the Lamb’s wife, the spiritual idea, “arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints…. Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb.” “The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come.”

God. The great I am. the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting, all-wise, all-loving, and eternal; Principle; Mind; Soul; Spirit; Life; Truth; Love; all substance; intelligence.

from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 587

Living Stones by William P. McKenzie

from the September 6, 1924 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel

Peter begins his epistle with an invocation of blessing because of the living hope established by the resurrection. He says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” Very soon he begins to develop a figure from the building of the temple, whose stones were cut in the quarries and required only to be set in place by the builders. It was said that one stone, rejected by the builders, became an obstacle and an annoyance until at the very last its place was found for it; hence the words of the psalm: “The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner. This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvellous in our eyes.”

Speaking of the graciousness of the one whom he had once so clearly identified, saying, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,” Peter invites those with newborn desire for purity to come to him. “To whom coming,” he says, “as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house.”

To human sense, which views humanity personally, the metaphysical meaning of the apostle would not be discerned. Human history would make us believe that there never has been an equality of opportunity for all men, never an equable sharing of good. Always, it would say, there have been prince and pauper, baron and serf, opulence and penury, arrogance and servitude. The conception Christianity introduced was revolutionary in this respect, that old things passed away. Not through catastrophe, but through enlightenment, did all things become new; and the change is well expressed by Paul when he says, “We should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter,” and declares that we should “walk in newness of life.” Simply expressed, the newness is in our expecting good from Spirit, not from matter; looking for praise from God, not from men; finding our life not in body, but in sonship with God.

When Peter speaks of redeemed men and women as living stones builded into an unseen temple, he certainly takes away the sense of human differences and grandeur, presenting orderliness and usefulness, a place for every one and a fitness for each one, without interference of one with another. Paul uses the same figure when assuring the Ephesians that they are not outsiders, but belong to “the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone.”

A stone in its proper place both supports and is supported. It is integral with the whole, which would be uncompleted were there a vacancy where it should be; and yet individuality is preserved. So, likewise, in true life, the whole of good is manifest through many individual ideas, all dwelling together in unity. This is the temple of God, “an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”

Christian Science has come to comfort, correct, heal, regenerate, and unify mankind by leading men, as it were, from sectarian tents and medical tabernacles, where they dwell in fear, back again to the house of God, to the simplicity and unity of primitive Christianity. Concerning this, Mrs. Eddy says in “Christian Healing” (p. 3): “The primitive privilege of Christianity was to make men better, to cast out error, and heal the sick. It was a proof, more than a profession thereof; a demonstration, more than a doctrine. It was the foundation of right thinking and right acting, and must be reestablished on its former basis. The stone which the builders rejected must again become the head of the corner. In proportion as the personal and material element stole into religion, it lost Christianity and the power to heal; and the qualities of God as a person, instead of the divine Principle that begets the quality, engrossed the attention of the ages.”

It is evident that differences of opinion concerning a quality outside a man’s experience must operate to establish bigotry and, therefore, in his relation to other men, division and human warfare; whereas unity in obedience to Principle must operate to qualify the obeyers to become manifesters of the quality; hence John says, “As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God;” and Mrs. Eddy says in “Miscellaneous Writings” (p. 196): “When the Life that is God, good, shall appear, ‘we shall be like Him;’ we shall do the works of Christ, and, in the words of David, ‘the stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner,’ because the ‘I’ does go unto the Father, the ego does arise to spiritual recognition of being, and is exalted,—not through death, but Life, God understood.”

From two cases of healing might be learned the way in which those who are to become living stones are cleansed and purified. One who spoke of having had for a long time the patient and friendly help of practitioners, and who finally received healing, writes, “It did not come until I made a sincere effort to cast jealousy, envy, hatred, malice, resentment, and sensitiveness out of my thought, and tried to have love and kind thoughts toward my fellow-man.” The stone roughly cut out of the quarry still has attached to it much that is of no use in the building. The stonecutter lays upon it the measure and cuts it according to the plan, so that when it is put into its place there need be no sound of hammer, but simply a discovery of its fitness to be where it belongs. Another, who required a period of years for her healing to be worked out, says: “Not until the habit of worrying was overcome did the trouble leave me. I have passed through deep waters, but God’s strong arm has upheld me. I can truthfully and joyfully say that I owe all my happiness during these years to this compassionate religion, Christian Science, discovered and founded by that divinely inspired woman, Mrs. Eddy.” If to these and a multitude like them the discovery has come that enables them to fit harmoniously into a new sense of life and joy, is it too much to hope that the whole world will yet be benefited and blessed by this compassionate religion?

People are aware that there is a non-material element in the universe called thoughts, attitudes, emotions, feelings, consciousness. Now God is not to be found in material concepts, but in the very depths of Spirit, in true non-material being. In the symbolical language of the first chapter of Genesis, we are told that God made everything, and looked at it and behold it was very good. In the symbolism of the allegory found in the second chapter of Genesis, Eve said, “But suppose that God were not All-in-all, that there were something beside Him — then what?” And she was soon faced with the “what.” Eve’s sin was the wrong attitude toward life, a failure to worship God as All-in-all, a supposing that He had an opposite.

Are you going to assume the attitude of Eve and suppose that God is not the All-in-all of your being, of all being? It is in the depths of Spirit, in the depths of your positive attitude toward life and reality, that you find God. When you claim the positive, affirmative attitude, you find God. When you think in terms of the reality of good and evil, as Eve did, you seem to lose Him. You’re thinking there is something besides God, Spirit, called matter. Before long, you find yourself tilling the ground with the sweat of your brow, until you become a slave to matter, cast out of the garden of Eden. Before long you’re crying, “Where shall I find God?” There is only one answer — in the depths of Spirit, in the recognition that there is none else besides His infinite goodness, in the correct attitude toward life. Most people think in terms of the reality of both positive and negative, good and evil, Spirit and matter, life and death, truth and error. In such thinking they lose God just as Eve did. Where shall we find Him? Only one place — in the depths of Spirit.

Nicodemus was found wandering outside of the Garden of Eden, asking how he might find God and His heaven. Jesus gave him the answer: “He must be born again, born of the Spirit.” He must see Spirit as the inner-source, the All and Only of his being. It is in the depths of pure spiritual being that we find God.

The physical scientists, assuming that there is something besides God, Spirit, have searched deeper and deeper into their supposition that God, Spirit, isn’t All-in-all. And when they have arrived at the end of their rainbow of materiality, what have they found? A “hole in nothing.” That’s what their supposition finally amounts to. Is that where you find God — in a hole in nothing? By no means — you’ll find Him in the depths of Spirit, in the recognition that good is All-in-all.

from DEPTHS OF SPIRIT in 1963 Association Address by Herbert Rieke

A Century of Christian Science Healing