The Ypsilanti daily press. (Ypsilanti, Mich.) 1928-1962, 1941-11-24
Challenge to
Defeat Seen

Peter V. Ross, c. s. B. OF San
francisco. member OF the Board
of Lectureship OF The Mother
Church. The First Church OF Christ.
Scientist, in Boston, Mass, deliver
ed a lecture entitled. Christian
Science: Its Challenge to Defeat
ism" when he appeared before a
large crowd In Ypsilanti High
school auditorium Sunday.
He said:
In presenting me to an audience
me other evening the chairman was
optimistic enough to say: This
lecture will lead your thought God
ward Human thought Is rather
inclined toward WEAKNESS and IN
trinity and injustice and lack OF
appreciation. This is why dis
ress and encouragement seem 10
become formidable. We help to
make them so appear by placing I'M
due emphasis on them. We should
turn thought to their opposites,
that Is. We should throw all our
emphasis on Life and Its promise
its richness. its satisfaction. More
and more then will heaviness and
suffering fade out of experience.
For one to be mindful OF integrity
Is for one to forget all about dis
honesty. Likewise, for one to i'm
merse ones self in the glories of
intending Life is to make pain
and mortality obsolete.
Durability of Disease
Turning thought toward Life
amounts to turning thought toward
God, because God and Life are one
and the same. The New Testament
abounds with assertions to the ef-
feet that God is Life. Reason and
observation confirm this pronounce
ment. For Is not Life universal and
tndisputable? 1t is the one abso-
>fute fact. You may doubt many
things. You may doubt everything
almost. But you never doubt
that you live.
Along with the certainty of Life
runs its continuity. People speak
OF life, thoughtlessly. as coming and
going. But a moments reflection
will convince any one that Life
does not come, 1t does not go. In
other words Life is. 1t was, II win
be. 1t is without beginning OF
days or end Of years. You are liv-
ing this Life today, in reality: there
10 no other.
Beginning and ending are alike
tmposters. They do not mark the
confines Of mans existence. No in
dividual has any knowledge or rec
objection OF his own beginning. He
cannot have because an endless
Life has no end in either direc-
ton. Eternity'is as long one way
~ the other. Is this not why no
one has any information either
about starting or finishing his
course?
Life Is self-existent. 1t is not
caused; 1t Is not created. God does
not make life; God Is Life. Hence
It Ia that Life must be diseaseless,
ageless, imperishable. Disease and
dissolution cannot be ascribed to
God or to eternal Life. Spiritual
man, and truly there is no Other,
as presently will be brought out,
Is the expression Of this Life.
He 10 the highest witness to It's
presence. Really therefore sick
ness and inf1rmity cannot modest
him-cannot modest you. Disease
10 seeming or mesmeric rather than
actual. Hence its durability IN
Christian Science, discovered and
founded by Mary Baker Eddy.
~ Man does not have to leave the
present world and take up his
abode In more favored realm in
order to come into the enjoyment
OF eternal Life. He is endued with
that Life here and now. So far Is
the individual realizes his identity
with endless Life, and he can be-
gin to realize it today, he will rise
above fears, restrictions, miseries.
He will emerge into the domain of
confidence. strength, freedom ever
lastingness.
1.-THE author OF the Epistle to the
Hebrews, in exalting Christ Jesus
above all other teachers, describes
him as made after the power of an
bsendless life. The chief handicap
with men and women, generally,
lies In their willingness to believe
that they are OF mortal origin and
therefore subject to the limitations
that 60 with materially. This belief
can be broken by any individual
who chooses to recognize his divine
origin and to maintain that as the
image and likeness of God he has
the qualities and the powers OF
endless Life.
Individual Dominion
How understandable, yet pro-
found, is the speech, or rather the
conversation, which grows out OF
the visit Of Nicodemus to Jesus |
on the slope Of Olivet in the silent
khours Of night. Nicodemus has heard |
OF the sayings and doings of the |
Revered Teacher in and about |
Jerusalem. Now he has come to |
ask, How can these things be?'
Except a man be born again.
urges Jesus, born of water and of |
the Spirit, he cannot enter into the |
kingdom of Cod Then pointing to |
ythe swaying olive branch overhead |
he symbolizes: The wind bloweth |
where II listeth, and thou nearest |
the sound thereof. but canst not tell |
whence It cometh and whittier Il
soeth; so Is every one that Is
born of the Spirit"
AN individual content with the
belief that man is born Of the flesh
sean entertain no more than a limit
Cd, inaccurate concept Of himself
and OF his environment. He Is
bound to assume that existence e
material and INSTRUCTED. Whereas
the individual W % has reused him
self to the recognition that he is
born Of the Spirit beholds the un-