Steves – The Higher Meaning of the Textbook – Association Address by Clarence Steves

Introduction

From the author:
Mary Baker Eddy, in speaking of the textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, said, “It is the voice of Truth to this age, and contains the full statement of Christian Science, or the Science of healing through Mind.” In Miscellany, she writes, “The opinions of men cannot be substituted for God’s revelation.” In times past, arrogance, ignorance and pride have dimmed the power and glory of the Scriptures, to which this Christian Science textbook is the Key.

In Miscellany, Mrs. Eddy writes, “It was not myself, but the divine power of Truth and Love, infinitely above me, which dictated ‘Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.’ I have been learning the higher meaning of this book since writing it. … I should blush to write of’ Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures’ as I have, were it of human origin, and were I, apart from God, its author. But, as I was only a scribe echoing the harmonies of heaven in divine metaphysics, I cannot be supermodest in my estimate of the Christian Science textbook.”

The purpose of this Association today is to give us the higher meaning of the textbook. It is to permit the Mind that is God to reveal itself. In Revelation, we read, “Go and take the little book … Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey.” Mis. Eddy says, “Mortals, obey the heavenly evangel. Take Divine Science. Read this book from beginning to end. Study it, ponder it. It will be indeed sweet at its first taste, when it heals you; but murmur not over Truth, if you find its digestion bitter. When you approach nearer and nearer to this divine Principle … – thus partaking of. .. the primal elements, of Truth and Love – do not be surprised nor discontented because you must share the hemlock cup and eat the bitter herbs; for the Israelites of old … thus prefigured this perilous passage out of bondage into the EI Dorado of faith and hope.”

This means that we eat the book by acknowledging to one’s self that this divine man is one’s own identity, here and now; and approaching nearer and nearer the divine Principle, means that as we see man to be the functioning presence of the Mind that is God; then we cease existing as persons, as mortals trying so hard to understand, trying to find out what the book is saying, trying to demonstrate what we read; but when we read it, we eat it, and make it our own identification
– no longer humans trying to be divine; but our divinity embraces our humanity, and from now on the digestion is sweet!

There is no personal mind to digest the revelation. There is only the revelation to be lived and loved as oneself. When the human mind is believed to be digesting divine ideas, we have a dangerous situation. This intellectuality seems to get itself accepted as the Christ. But beware of intellectuality! It is the antichrist. There is no life in it! High sounding words of man’s wisdom are not divine Science. Willingness to let the old personal sense of self go, is the greatest sense of humility, because it is permitting the personal sense of ego to disappear in the Christly realization that the only ego is Mind, or God.