Sunday, June 1st, 2025 Roundtable
Don’t Let Fear Torment You
This week’s Lesson Sermon Subject: Ancient and Modern Necromancy, Alias Mesmerism And Hypnotism, Denounced
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Morning Prayer
May the gentle presence of divine Love so reward your lives that you shall so rise in faith and understanding as never to doubt or dread in a single conflict with evil. God, the divine Love that is your Life will govern it. Take courage and trust in this Love with all your heart, and because of this childlike faith good will deliver you from the sense of evil and the evil of material sense, and establish your way in Truth and rightness.
from Mary Baker Eddy’s Lessons of the Seventh Day, (the “Brown Book”), by Mary Baker Eddy, page 149
Daily Watch
430 — WATCH lest you yield to the temptation to look at yourself humanly as such a hopeless specimen of a sinner, that you seem no good to yourself or anyone else. Once Mrs. Eddy wrote, “Do not look to matter to tell you your success, but look up, for your harvest is right at hand. You know the Father’s love; trust it. Then when you hear a whisper, ‘Now you are a sinner and so and so is your punishment, this suffering is the consequence,’ put it out; put it out. Animal magnetism says you are a sinner when you know you are not. Then empty your thought of fear and say, ‘I look to God, my Father, to see what I am. He alone can tell me of myself.'”
The man who has done wrong must acknowledge that wrong in order to be healed. He must say, “The animal magnetism which I have allowed to use me is the sinner, and I have a duty to perform in destroying the hold I have permitted it to have on me. I have permitted a lie to represent me and I must pay the price; but the lie is the sinner and not me. I will watch more carefully in the future, to be sure that I do not let animal magnetism represent me — the image and likeness of God.”
In Science we should let animal magnetism take the punishment for sin, and we should escape that punishment by escaping from animal magnetism; but man as the perfect child of God should never admit that he is a sinner.
Discussion points
Miscellaneous Writings, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 242
Mary Baker Eddy’s Lessons of the Seventh Day, (the “Brown Book”), by Mary Baker Eddy, page 145
Chapter Twenty-one, from Mary Baker Eddy, Her Spiritual Footsteps by Gilbert Carpenter
Things to handle daily, from Watches, Prayers, and Arguments given by Mary Baker Eddy
Christian Science Protective Work by Bicknell Young
The Gabriel of His presence has no contests.
from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 567
Elisha’s Servant By Blanche Hersey Hogue
6. 102
Mankind must learn that evil is not power. Its so-called despotism is but a phase of nothingness. Christian Science despoils the kingdom of evil, and pre-eminently promotes affection and virtue in families and therefore in the community. The Apostle Paul refers to the personification of evil as “the god of this world,” and further defines it as dishonesty and craftiness. Sin was the Assyrian moon-god.
Never was there a more solemn and imperious call than God makes to us all, right here, for fervent devotion and an absolute consecration to the greatest and holiest of all causes. The hour is come. The great battle of Armageddon is upon us. The powers of evil are leagued together in secret conspiracy against the Lord and against His Christ, as expressed and operative in Christian Science. Large numbers, in desperate malice, are engaged day and night in organizing action against us. Their feeling and purpose are deadly, and they have sworn enmity against the lives of our standardbearers.
from Miscellaneous Writings, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 177
Responsive Reading: Ephesians 6 : 10-17
10. Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.
11. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
12. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
13. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
14. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;
15. And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;
16. Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
17. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
From Elliott’s Commentary
“Put on the whole armour”.—The special emphasis in this verse is on “the whole armour,” …not mainly on its strength or its brightness, as “armour of light” (Romans 13:12) but on its completeness, providing against all “the wiles” and “all the fiery darts” of the Evil One, leaving no one point unguarded by a carelessness…”
“To put on the “armour of God”—given us, that is, by God—is declared to be to“put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” Hence its completeness corresponds to the divine perfection of His true humanity. We are “to grow up unto Him in all things” (Ephesians 4:15), to put on His image in all the harmony of “truth” and “righteousness,” of “peace” and “faith,” to receive and use His “salvation” and wield the spiritual energy of His “Word.”
From Matthew Poole Commentary
“That ye may be able to stand”; either to fight, or rather to overcome. He that loses the victory is said to fall; he that gains it, to stand:”
“Against the wiles of the devil:” The devil useth arts and stratagems, as well as force and violence, and therefore, if any part of your spiritual armour be wanting, he will assault you where he finds you weakest.”
From Matthew Henry
“Our Redeemer is almighty, and in the power of his might we may overcome.”
Standing for God by Ella W. Hoag
I Samuel 7:12
… Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.
10. 261 : 4-7
Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts.
Patient Waiting by Helen Hixon
Trials are proofs of God’s care.from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 66
6. 102
Animal magnetism has no scientific foundation, for God governs all that is real, harmonious, and eternal, and His power is neither animal nor human. Its basis being a belief and this belief animal, in Science animal magnetism, mesmerism, or hypnotism is a mere negation, possessing neither intelligence, power, nor reality, and in sense it is an unreal concept of the so-called mortal mind.
8. 452 : 4-6
Incorrect reasoning leads to practical error. The wrong thought should be arrested before it has a chance to manifest itself.
Let error kill itself. It comes to you for life and you give it the only life it has — in belief.
from Divinity Course and General Collectanea, (the “Blue Book”), by Mary Baker Eddy, page 215
The Ninety-First Psalm by Bliss Knapp
Noisesome — noxious, harmful
Pestilent
1. Producing the plague, or other malignant, contagious disease; noxious to health and life; as a pestilent air or climate.
2. Mischievous; noxious to morals or society; destructive; in a general sense; as pestilent books.
3. Troublesome; mischievous; making disturbance; corrupt; as a pestilent fellow. Acts 24:5.
1828 Webster’s Dictionary
Profligate
Abandoned to vice; lost to principle, virtue or decency; extremely vicious; shameless in wickedness; as a profligate man or wretch.
1828 Webster’s Dictionary
2. Psalm 91 : 1-16
1 He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
2 I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.
3 Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.
4 He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.
5 Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day;
6 Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.
7 A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.
8 Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.
9 Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation;
10 There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.
11 For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.
12 They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.
13 Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.
14 Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.
15 He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.
16 With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.
Final Readings
Evil, loomed before me dark as night;
Impenetrable it seemed before my sight.
And as I stood aghast and fearful
With horror-stricken eyes and tearful
I could not see. a single ray of light.
And then I said, “Well, I may not see through
This cloud of sense. What better can I do
Than to go forward through it singing
Of all the good God’s love is bringing,
And thus lift thought into the good and true?”
So I went forth with song and much of cheer,
Unworried that the foe appeared so near,
Till through the dark clouds I saw streaming
God’s rays of light, all bright and beaming.
The cloud had vanished when I lost my fear.
O why is it we make so much of wrong
Until through fear of it we lose our song?
We magnify it and explore it
Only to bow ourselves before it,
Yet it and fear to nothingness belong.
Evil is but a cloud, a mental haze
That breaks before our songs of prayer and praise,
And then, no more its poor illusion
Can bring into our thought confusion,
For we shall walk with God in all our ways.
Poem number 343 from Daily Angels by Max Dunaway, page 172