Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1898).djvu/341

Rh the cross, and go forth with honest hearts, to work and watch for Wisdom, Truth, and Love. We must “pray without ceasing.” Such prayer is answered, inasmuch as we put our desires into practice. The Master's injunction is, that we pray in secret, and let our lives attest our sincerity.

Christians rejoice in secret beauty and bounty, hidden from the world, but known to God. Self-forgetfulness,

purity, and affection are constant prayers. Practice, not profession, — understanding, not belief, — gain the ear and right hand of Omnipotence, and they assuredly call down infinite blessings. Trustworthiness is the foundation of enlightened faith. Without a fitness for holiness we cannot receive it.

A great sacrifice of material things must precede this advanced spiritual understanding. The highest prayer

is not one of faith merely; it is demonstration. Such prayer heals sickness, and must destroy sin and death. It distinguishes between the falsity of sinful sense, and Truth that is sinless.

Our Master taught his disciples one brief prayer, which we name, after him, the Lord's Prayer. Our Master

said, “After this manner therefore pray ye,” and then he gave that prayer which covers all human needs. There is indeed some doubt, among Bible scholars, whether the last line is not an addition to the prayer, by a later copyist; but this does not affect the meaning of the prayer itself.

In the phrase, “Deliver us from evil,” the original properly reads, “Deliver us from the Evil One.” This reading strengthens our Scientific apprehension of the petition; for Christian Science teaches us that the Evil