Sunday, February 8th, 2026 Roundtable

Inasmuch as I am God’s child, spiritual, and not material, I must be perfect. I am whole; I am free; I have all I need every hour; I am without fear, without anxiety; I live in Spirit, not in matter (error); I am not in danger; no one can harm me or deprive me of any good. I know no such thing as pain, suffering, or disease, for I am a reflection of Life, Truth and Love. I am never disappointed or grieved. The harmony of my being is never broken, because I live in the infinite. No condition of the body is essential to my happiness, for God, good, only, is the spring of all my joys. My life is hid with Christ in God. Therefore, I am immortal, for nothing can be lost or die in God.

from Watches, Prayers, and Arguments, as given by Mary Baker Eddy, page 120

108 — WATCH lest you believe that, unless you go through certain scientific arguments, or study the lesson, every morning, some accident, or dreadful catastrophe might happen. Such a mistaken attitude shows an ignorance of the purpose of mental work. One does not fill his automobile with oil every morning. But he does watch the gauge, and replenish the oil when it is necessary to do so. Is divine power like an automobile which will run into something, if we are off guard for a moment?

The student should constantly strive to keep his thought balanced or adjusted on the spiritual side. Then that which emanates from his thought will be constructive and healing. If he finds that he has temporarily lost his balance on the right side, he must make a sincere effort to regain it.

Our Leader forbids the use of formulas. When one uses a formula in his healing work, it means that he has more faith in the letter than in the Spirit. Part of our training and growth is to learn how to formulate through divine guidance, our own scientific tools, or statements, to fit each problem and then to put back of these declarations the expectancy and inspiration that makes them efficacious.

Those who use formulas not only lose the growth that comes of building their own tools, but they erroneously believe that it is the statements which they use that do the healing. In this way they neglect and overlook the need of the Spirit. A correct understanding of Christian Science rules out faith or belief in the efficacy of the letter without the Spirit. Such were vain repetition, such as the heathen use.

500 Watching Points by Gilbert Carpenter

Matthew 22:37-39
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Psalm 127:1
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.

John 6:63
It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

God Is Individual Consciousness by Bicknell Young

Golden Text: Deuteronomy 4 : 36
“Out of heaven he made thee to hear his voice, that he might instruct thee.”

Reverse the case. Stand porter at the door of thought.

from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 392

Listening to God by Gilbert Carpenter

Matthew 11:30
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

On page 232 of Miscellany is to be found one of the most enlightening and yet perhaps baffling criticisms Mrs. Eddy ever wrote — that is, to the human mind. John B. Willis, who for years had been a trained writer, being on the staff of the Youth’s Companion at one time, wrote an editorial called, “Watching versus Watching Out.” Students liked the article, declared it to be helpful, and could see no flaw in its metaphysics. Yet Mrs. Eddy assailed it vigorously, declared that it misstated Christian Science, and required the Sentinel to publish an apology stating that no more such misteaching would be permitted to appear in its columns.

What could Mrs. Eddy have meant but that this editorial was lacking spiritually, meaning that there was a lack of inspiration in Mr. Willis’ thought when he wrote it? She sensed the lack of the healing consciousness in it, and since the presence of this healing thought is all that makes anything worthy of the name of Christian Science, she rejected it. It was a spiritless article. People love pillows made of the needles from the balsam tree, because of their sweet odor. But what would one say of such a pillow that had no fragrance whatsoever? It would be labelled a fraud. Mr. Willis’ article was a fraud. It claimed to be a Christian Science article; yet it lacked the essential element which would make it Christian Science! Reading it would not heal the sick.

Thus it was that Mrs. Eddy set the standard for articles for our periodicals, as well as all writing, reading and speaking Christian Science, namely, that a student should write, read or speak only from the standpoint that God is writing, reading or speaking through him. If his spiritual consciousness and conviction seem to wane, he should never feel that it is right for him to fall back on his intellectual training as a satisfactory substitute, which is what Mr. Willis evidently did.

Mrs. Eddy’s most stirring rebukes were reserved for students who forgot that, apart from God, they were nothing and could do nothing. Pride, fear and neglect are responsible for this fatal mistake, fatal because it throws man back to the dead level of mortal belief, and thus robs him of God. Mr. Willis omitted God in doing God’s work! No wonder God rebuked him through our Leader! Furthermore it should be remembered that Mrs. Eddy regarded every task as God’s work, from the least to the greatest, and, if done rightly, as an opportunity to draw nearer to God.

500 Watching Points by Gilbert Carpenter

WATCHING versus WATCHING OUT, from Miscellany by Mary Baker Eddy

The Language Of Spirit by Mary Baker Eddy

from Essays and Other Footprints, (the “Red Book”), by Mary Baker Eddy

The short sentence of the beloved disciple, St. John, is familiar to us all, namely, ‘God is love’. No higher term nor human conception can be entertained of Deity than that he gave. It is equally plain that, if God is Love, He is also Spirit, even as the Scriptures declare, ‘God is a Spirit’. Here thought is arrested with this great questioning:

‘How shall we commune with Spirit?’ The answer is, spiritually; we cannot commune with Spirit materially. And what is the language of Spirit, and spiritual communion? Certainly it is spiritual.

The German talks in the German language, the Frenchman etc

[The] native tongue is more natural in which to talk and write. Now what is the language of Christian Scientists? It is the new tongue Christendom has taught and written in both languages – the spiritual and material – but talks of the one Principle and its various denominations with one tongue, namely, the spiritual, the language of Spirit.

When Christian Scientists meet, it shall be natural for them to speak the mother tongue, to think and talk or to read the Scriptures in its native tongue, and thus declare ourselves and our generation, our thinking and our life, as spiritual, and but one mother tongue. To this end we shall read the Scriptures spiritually, until they become to our thought the veritable translation of the Scriptures, and thus taught are understood. Otherwise, they are a forgery that can be mistaken, misinterpreted, mistaught and misunderstood, even as they are.

I love to read my Bible in the mother tongue, in its spiritual sense. I read it so at home in my secret sense of God, and have come to you today to read it thus, and with a prayer that your eyes shall not be heavy that you cannot see, nor your ears dull, but the spiritual sense shall be active and take in my simple version.

To enter into the heart of prayer, the door of the erring senses must be closed. Lips must be mute and materialism silent, that man may have audience with Spirit, the divine Principle, Love, which destroys all error.

from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 51

Prepared thought is the doorway through which revelation comes.

from Addresses, by Martha Wilcox

Interpreters by Irving C. Tomlinson, M.A.

from the June 13, 1914 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel

One who has traveled in foreign lands where he is unable to speak the prevailing language, keenly appreciates the value of an interpreter. If in distress, it is only through an interpreter that he can find relief. When he is hungry, through this helper he is provided with food. When he has lost his way, the interpreter points out the true path home.

Thus, too, mortal man, far from the Father’s house, is in need of a guide and interpreter, “one who explains and makes clear,” and Christian Science teaches that Christ Jesus is this “best interpreter of man’s needs” (Science and Health, p. 170). Mankind had forgotten the language of Spirit, and he came so to explain God that they might hear His voice and trustingly know Him as “our Father which art in heaven.” Mortal man was far from home, and the Master became to him the way of life. He was starving for the “bread from heaven,” and Jesus so presented spiritual truth to him that he was able to feed upon this heavenly manna. Mentally equipped with an understanding of the absolute all-power and all-presence of God, good, he overcame, and taught others to overcome, every phase of evil.

In our own day, mortals had again forgotten the true meaning of Life as taught by the “man of Galilee,” and Mrs. Eddy became the interpreter of his teaching to this age. Her explanations of the Bible are so plain to those who read them aright, that the Scriptures have become a handbook on right living. She has so interpreted God to men that through a correct understanding of Him, He becomes available for every human need. She is the spiritual expounder of the life and teachings of the Master, so that to a great multitude he has become “the way, the truth, and the life,” as he positively declared himself to be. The text-book of Christian Science, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” contains a clear explanation of God and the spiritual universe, by means of which all who rightly apprehend it are enabled to become interpreters of a loving God and the healing Christ to their fellow men. Thus the earnest student may individually apply the teachings of Christ Jesus to human problems, and realizing the allness of God, come logically to discern the perfection of man as God’s likeness.

All about us are many who have lost their way in the wilderness of error. It is our privilege so to interpret God’s voice to them that they may be led out of darkness into light. Near at hand are many in distress, in suffering, and in sorrow. It is our prerogative so to explain the truth of being to them, that it becomes effectual and they are set free, healed. The world today is hungry for “the bread of life,” and it is an abiding joy to become such an interpreter of the Bible that those who will, are fed with that bread of which it is written that, having once partaken, they “shall never hunger.”

Practitioners, teachers, and readers are not the only exponents of Christian Science. One who is quietly, consistently living this vital religion, is a beacon-light to those that are in darkness; the truth he knows is a compass which guides the lost mariner over stormy seas to a haven of safety. He who has this scientific knowledge of God and is putting it into daily practice, is a faithful interpreter of God and His creation to all with whom he comes in contact. He is giving them of that which permanently feeds and sustains, administering healing balm to the wounded ones and the “water of life” to the thirsty. He is helping to make known to those lost in the wilderness of materialism, the ways of God which lead to life eternal. One great glory of this work is that it is inexhaustible, and that the more one gives the more he has to give. George Eliot writes that “the reward of one duty is the power to fulfil another,” and so, relying on God’s plans, and bravely walking in the path along which Truth leads us, we can give grateful thanks for every opportunity to serve “in our great Master’s name.”

That material man should not readily grasp the full import of the teachings included in the text-book of Christian Science and the other writings of its author, witnesses not against them, but in their favor. The gospel of Mark, in its concluding chapter, quotes Jesus as saying of his followers, that they were to “speak with new tongues.” Material sense does not and cannot understand the new tongue of Spirit, for as the Bible says, spiritual things “are spiritually discerned.” When one advances out of material sense into spiritual sense, he finds that Science and Health is indeed a “Key to the Scriptures,” for it becomes such an interpreter of the Book of books that things which were once seen as “through a glass, darkly,” are now beheld clearly under the full light of spiritual revelation. This book declares for the spiritual sense which understands God: “Its ideas are expressed only in ‘new tongues;’ and these are interpreted by the translation of the spiritual original into the language which human thought can comprehend” (p. 210).

We should be unceasingly grateful to divine Love for His chosen avenue of revelation to this age; that Mrs. Eddy has not only interpreted God aright, but has surrounded us with ample and adequate helps, so that we too may become interpreters. What a privilege to possess her writings, together with our periodicals, and to be able to attend the services of our church! All these are God’s gifts to aid us in being true ministers of His healing word to our fellow men. As we make use of these divinely appointed agencies of good and are loyal to the Master’s spiritual teachings, we may have the supreme joy of being true interpreters of the word to wanderers who are eagerly waiting to be guided to the “house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”

Responsive Reading: Colossians 1 : 3, 9-13
3. We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you.
9. For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
10. That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;
11. Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness;
12. Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:
13. Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son.

Psalm 27:4
One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple.

The basic reality of your being, the very substance of your existence, is not dust particles nor bits of flesh. The basic reality of your being is music, beautiful, symphonic music, more glorious than the world has ever heard. If you’ve been thinking about yourself, or your body, as material, you’re all wrong. The ultimate of you is concord, harmony, music. It was brought out in Dr. Andrews’ paper that it’s not a physical music, but truly spiritual music. It’s the song of angels — that’s what you’re really made up of.

Of course, these ideas aren’t altogether new. David once wrote speaking of the infinitesimals, “Behold thou desirest truth in the inward parts; and in the hidden parts thou shalt make me to know wisdom.” (Ps. 51:6) And Jeremiah said, (31:33) “But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.” …

Many people know the truth about the over-all picture, the without; but they neglect the little thoughts within. In the Song of Solomon, we read about the little foxes that spoil the vines. Mrs. Eddy elaborates on this point saying, “Seeing that we have to attain to the ministry of righteousness in all things, we must not overlook small things in goodness or in badness, for ‘trifles make perfection,’ and ‘the little foxes . . . spoil the vines.’” (My. 123) Most sickness comes from not realizing the truth about our within, failing to recognize that the basic reality of our being is music, sweet harmonies, concord. What’s going on in you? Is there ravening and wickedness? Or is there sweet concord, the music of the spheres? May I remind you that even the physical scientists are saying, “The basic reality of you is harmony, not conflict; peace, not war; music, not discord.”

The Infinitesimals by Herbert Reike

Germs by Herbert W. Eustace

He emphasizes how important it is to pass on the very best of social genes for the good of humanity. …

This is a spiritual heritage he has given you and me. You too are spiritual and perfect all the way through. You are not a spiritual idea who possesses a material body. The only body you have is the embodiment of right ideas — from the infinitesimal to the infinite. Your identity is spiritual and perfect. That’s why there’s nothing in you to be sick or imperfect. There is no force within you to cause you or any part of you to misbehave. There is not a cell of your being that can be delinquent, that can rebel, be naughty, discordant, or destructive.

The Infinitesimals by Herbert Reike

Job 3:25
For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.

Mrs. Eddy also writes, “Christian Science, full of grace and truth, is accomplishing great good, both seen and unseen; but have mortals, with the penetration of Soul, searched the secret chambers of sense?” (Misc. p. 292:2-28) Mrs. Eddy expected us to take a good look within, to search the secret chambers of sense, and recognize, realize, and demonstrate that there is no evil, no matter, no “black” genes, no discord, no inharmony, within. She expected us to face the facts of being, that man is not a mortal, a materially-sensed creature — but that he is the very radiation of Soul, the expression of harmony. He is beautiful music. Take a good look within, and recognize that your heritage is wonderful, for you are the child of the perfect Father-Mother God. Take a good look also without and recognize that you live in the environment of heaven — all is perfect. Mrs. Eddy tells us that it is, “. . . Principle that holds the earth in its orbit. . .that commands the waves and the winds, that marks the sparrow’s fall, and that governs all of the infinitesimals to the infinite, namely God.” (My. p. 226)

The Infinitesimals by Herbert Reike

Isaiah 44:3
For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring:

Jeremiah 31:29
In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.

A New Heart by William P. McKenzie

from the January 5, 1918 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel

It is probable that throughout Christendom and in all Jewry the deliverance of Jerusalem has caused men to study with care Ezekiel’s thirty-sixth chapter. The promise expressed indirectly in connection with the prophet’s earlier vision is here made direct and universal with the authorization, “Thus saith the Lord God.” This is the promise: “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.”

It became part of the tradition of Israel how Pharaoh and the Egyptians had hardened their hearts, and so had gone on to destruction; yet, despite this warning, we find generation after generation of the Israelites falling into idolatry, and as distinctly becoming unresponsive to the word of God as the Egyptians had been. Concerning this condition the proverb was, “Happy is the man that feareth alway: but he that hardeneth his heart shall fall into mischief.”

We find our Master very compassionate and patient with the unfaith and cold-heartedness of his followers. Mark records their surprise over the demonstration when he walked the waves and made the storm a calm. He explained their unawakened condition on the ground that “they considered not the miracle of the loaves: for their heart was hardened.” Again, when Jesus warned his disciples against the leaven of false doctrine they as literalists reasoned, saying: “It is because we have no bread;” to which he replied: “Why reason ye, because ye have no bread? perceive ye not yet, neither understand? have ye your heart yet hardened?” He was kindly asking them why they were so little impressed by the spiritual and unable to respond to Principle, which to him was all-important.

Paul, quoting from a psalm of his people, credits its inspiration to divine Mind, saying: “As the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts … But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” The heart hardened is unsusceptible to spiritual influences because deceived by sin. But the new heart will surely mean a consciousness expressing the influences of Spirit that heal and bless, a consciousness of good which no mesmerism of evil can invade. It must be a new understanding of life itself, fulfilling the promise of Science and Health on page 264, “When we realize that Life is Spirit, never in nor of matter, this understanding will expand into self-completeness, finding all in God, good, and needing no other consciousness.”

Can we find a better term for this new heart given by God than by naming it the Christ-spirit? Made alive by this, we recognize old things to have passed away, and find a renewing as of dawn brightening a valley, or spring reviving a whole countryside, or a prophet’s vision enlightening a world, whereby joy and vivifying life and brotherly love enrich us. Lacking these, how dark and cold and hateful can be the experiences of men. Mrs. Eddy speaks of herself as knowing both the old and the new, but she has become the revelator by whom all in the world may know and rejoice in the new,—may rejoice in dawn, and spring, and enlightenment. In “Miscellaneous Writings” (p. 178) our Leader says: “In the flesh, we are as a partition wall between the old and the new, between the old religion in which we have been educated, and the new, living, impersonal Christ-thought that has been given to the world to-day.”

At this time, when much is said of new year, new hope, new resolutions, is it not well to desire a new heart, a new warmth of love? Where power, control, and rule center in personal will, or human mind, there is found a heart of stone, as history shows. Others besides Machiavelli have taught that the prince must absolve himself from all compassion; and a long line of princes in church and state have illustrated this. Hence the time is nigh for men to look away from the dynastic helper, “the son of man, in whom there is no help,” and to turn to Principle itself, divine Love, which invites mankind, saying, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.”

Paul and Barnabas quoted the prophecy concerning the Messiah, “I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.” Christian Science is showing the fulfillment in continuity of this prophecy, because it shows how men everywhere may be enlightened and saved, and teaches them how to have “a new heart,” or the Christ-spirit, to-day. The author of Science and Health, on page 141 of this textbook, thus unfolds the possibilities before us all: “In healing the sick and sinning, Jesus elaborated the fact that the healing effect followed the understanding of the divine Principle and of the Christ-spirit which governed the corporeal Jesus. For this Principle there is no dynasty, no ecclesiastical monopoly. Its only crowned head is immortal sovereignty. Its only priest is the spiritualized man. The Bible declares that all believers are made ‘kings and priests unto God.'”