Seward daily gateway., 1924-08-08
may seem to be, may begin right where we are to think alright. There is no other place to start from.
 THE POWER OF PRAYER

where we are to think alright. There lis no other place to start from.
 THE POWER OF PRAYER
 But how, says one, do you master the persistent suggestions of sin or sickness which sometimes press them selves on your thought? By the prayer Of right thinking. Prayer is "a me1tal activity which the world has engaged ir for many centuries
 but in too many instances it has been used as a cloak to cover 2 wicked heart or as a blind petition to a little understood God. Christian Science shows that true prayer Is the process of scientific thinking, the thinking that unites men with and is the living expression or the Mind that is God. T0 a Christian Scientist prayer is a most vital and active influence ever operative in thought, the chain of true spiritu- ality which links him to his Maker.
 Through prayer man gains his God given dominion over evil. Let Us first see what it is that evil falsely claims and then see how the Chris tisn Scientist mentally combats and overthrows it. Te claim might be
 
 the evil mind working with and through matter, am he cause and origin of man. Through my material processes and laws I conceive him and give him life. Upon me he is dependent for all that he has or is. II order his destiny, cause him to succeed and then to fail, to be healthy and then diseased, to be happy and then sorrowful, to be rich and then poor, to be tempted, to sin, and to die. To me and the fear of me, he is ever tributary. rule him by suggestions and lying ar guments which I have made him to blind to uncover and resist. He is my puppet and manikin, moved at my will. I puff him up with pride and turn him from God with selfish ness and self will. Though my pow CT is nil I pretend to have all power and he believes my pretension. My self and my works are the blending of falsity and negation, but so long as man believes in me I work, when he awakes to my nature 1 am done. Christian Science replies to this ly- | ing mind in the words of Truth and with the authority of God, You are pretender, a liar and cheat. | Without authority from God you claim to have creative power, power 1 to give and to take life, to make and to destroy. But the one sure thing about you is that you lie al ways There is no truth in you and you have no ability to substitute our lying claims for the truth. You are without God and so without life or reality Mans true selfhood is the expression of God and you are powerless to dispossess God of his representative. By your unreal na- 1 ture you place yourself outside Cod infinitude, and consign you and yours | to oblivion. Your sickness, sins, mal- | fee, and strifes must flee as false dream pictures before the light and
 might of Gods love expressed in the thought of men. You are impotent to
 reach anything that God has made.
 You simulate life and action, but you do not possess or have power over either for life and action be- long to God and are spiritual You hate or lust upon your own, you prey upon your own misconceptions, but 1 you have no eye to see the creation or the creatures of God.
 OVERCOMING EVIL
 If Christian Scientist is con | fronted with what may be called an Inherited disease how shall he think? In some such way as this, Man as God has made him is altogether good and has no fear of sickness or evil in any form. He derives his
 entire life from God and is there | fore naturally Godlke. The claim of evil, that it is mind and life, the
 cause and condition of man, if false.
 Matter has never made man and
 can never unmake him, for he is
 co-existent with God. Evils asser-
 tion that it can impose sickness on
 man through the belief of human
 hereditty is without divine sanction, 1 justice or right and cannot stand. Since God, Mind, not matter, makes and constitutes man, man inherits only from God, good. Said John, Now are we the sons of God" q John p. And Paul wrote to the Romans. we are the children of God; and if children, then heirs;
 Christ" (Romans 8, 16-1D. This in uolItdDC0 UIluSS lO Audn pCl health, happiness and well-being. Through the realization of these facts of spiritual being the claims of evil are compelled to yield and give way, and the bodily condition becomes healthy and painless.
 You will see, I think, that the practice of Christian Science is but the displacing. in thought of the evil and erroneous sense of life with the true and harmonious facts of the God-appointed sense of life. It is simple in method, but it requires courage, honesty and perseverance. The reward is great for the world knows no joy comparable with the unselfish joy of sin conquesed, sick ness healed, burdens lifted, through the understanding of God. Hundreds of thousands are winning their men tai victories over every form of sick ness, discord, and sin. You can do the same.
 THE MISSION OF CHRIST JESUS Perhaps the work of freeing our selves from material laws may seem large undertaking We may not be able to fold our tents and leave the deserts of wrong thinking in night, but we can at least be on the move. Let us remember often that howsoever steep the way may seem it has been explored before us by the Wayshower, Christ Jesus, who nullified every material law and proved that individual man by his fright mental effort may and must