In this book, Mr. Greenwood traces the spiritual unfoldment of civilization from the Garden of Eden to the present time when Christian Science was discovered. He places Mrs. Eddy and her discovery in proper relationship to the progressive development of world history.

He writes in his introduction: “The following pages are the outgrowth of Bible study, undertaken during the late years for the special purpose of tracing the rise, development, and course of that great spiritual movement spoken of in the Scriptures under the name of Israel, and at the same time of arriving at a better understanding of the relation which undoubtedly exists between prophecy and history, particularly with reference to the present period and events. . . . The footsteps of Israel, therefore, are the footsteps of humanity spiritually awakening to the facts of divinity.”

In Cause and Effect (address of 1929) he writes about God as the only Cause. Understanding spiritual cause and effect is at the heart of our work in Christian Science. Material cause seems to operate as law in a material universe, but if God is all, there can be only one cause and that is the divine Principle, Love. Mr. Greenwood explores this idea from many angles, explaining the impossibility of a negative cause and an evil power. He tells how evil is an illusion that cannot invade consciousness if we are holding to the fact that God is All. He urges and pleads with us to “take the stand that God is all there is or can be.” Regardless of the imperfection and discord the senses may be telling us, God alone is real. He writes, “Every problem which faces us calls for healing — that is, for an improved sense of God. It is the absolute or perfect truth about God and man, not a partial or fragmentary statement, which heals. Your thinking must take in the perfect Principle of things, the Truth of perfect being, perfect cause and perfect effect, perfect Principle and perfect idea. The cause alone governs the effect. We must begin all our work from that starting point and hold to it all the way.” This address is a strong treatment on the allness of God and the absolute unreality of evil.

1931 association address

In his address on Supply, Mr. Greenwood states, “Wealth that is capable of being lost is not truly possessed, for man’s real possessions cannot be separated from himself. The means by which one may gain these permanent riches are not those of the market or the factory or the stock exchange, for they are the natural heritage of every son of God — that is, of every man. They are incapable of loss, for they are the man himself. God’s creatures are not at the mercy of chance events or changing circumstances, for they have access to those infinite resources in which there is neither lack nor loss.”

1932 association address

1933 association address

In his outstanding address, The End of the World, he tells how the present chemicalization signifies the end of the material world, with the breaking up of the materialistic forms of government, economics, business, and religion, in order to make way for the “new heavens and new earth” being brought to light by Christian Science. He writes, “It has long been a settled conclusion that the world we now live in will sometime be done away with, but the destruction of a material planet is plainly not what Jesus meant by the ‘end of the world,’ but rather the end of the material ages, or the old making way for the new. The prophets looked forward to, and in their spiritual vision saw, the coming of a better view of God’s creation — or the new heaven and earth and man.

“When Jesus said, ‘In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world’; and when Mrs. Eddy writes in the textbook, ‘The powers of this world will fight,’ they were not referring to a material planet, or to anything which God created, but to ‘the world of error’; or to that general system of things which rests upon so-called physical laws and phenomena. In other words, it is what we could define in Christian Science as the world of material thinking.

“The dominant factor in this world of materiality is physical sensation, as comprised in the five bodily senses, through which or by which mortals receive their impressions, and upon whose evidence is based the teachings of the schools. This world of sensation has ever been the battleground whereon evil seeks to overcome mankind, and to hold them captive in a bondage which is immeasurably greater than that of the Israelites in Egypt. It is this world which is in such general commotion and distress, chafing to be freed from its bonds, not knowing where to look for deliverance, and which the Bible says is to come to an end. Speaking of the conditions through which the nations have been passing, and of the signs which are to precede the end of the world as we now know it, Jesus said: ‘So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.’

1934 association address

In The Open Door Out of Materiality, Mr. Greenwood emphasizes the need to live and demonstrate Christian Science in daily life — not merely theorize about it. He writes: “We have become so accustomed to observing physical phenomena, that we are apt to unconsciously admit the belief that there is something we call matter, that there is something there to feel and taste and smell. Christian Science teaches that there is no matter at all, absolutely none; and we should not lose sight of this fundamental fact of right metaphysics. The belief which outlines itself as material objects, laws, and sensation, is nothing more than mesmerism, and it should be recognized as such if we are not to be victimized by its delusions.”

1935 association address

In Heavenly Citizenship, he tells us: “We are all more or less particular about the clothes we wear. We would not be happy to go around in rags, or in unsightly garments; but what would we think if we saw ourselves going about, dressed up in the errors we have consented to have attached to us? Would we feel smug and comfortable with nothing to hide our moral blemishes? Would we not get something more becoming to wear as soon as possible?

“The pity of it is, that we could get rid of this inner unsightliness, if we gave the same attention to making the inside, the physically unseen, as presentable and attractive as we do the outside. You all know that this is true. You know that if you were called upon to appear here just as you are, with your moral defects and spiritual deficiencies exposed to each other, you would all go into hiding. Then is it not time we made ourselves more presentable, so that we may stand unabashed under the searchlight of Truth!

“I am not saying these things by way of criticism or condemnation, for to some extent we are all involved in them; therefore to some extent, we all need to cultivate a heavenly discontent with the things of the flesh — with the merely sensuously beautiful as well as with the sensuously ugly.

“I do not mean that one should neglect his outward appearance, for no right-thinking person would be satisfied with a shabby exterior. What I mean is, that we should be even more dissatisfied with a shabby mentality. Our pride of character should be as exacting as our pride of person. To that end, honesty demands that we consult the mirror that will show up our temperamental and moral defects, and make the needful correction with as particular thought and care as our physical personality receives.”

1936 association address

1937 association address

1938 association address

The clouds of war were gathering over Europe when he wrote his address, The Weapons of Our Warfare in1938. In it Mr. Greenwood warns of the great need to live Christian Science to its fullest if we want to escape the suffering that will eventually force us to demonstrate over mortality. He writes: “Instead of furnishing the ground for a harmonious and peaceful life, which it would do if it were of God, materiality supplies the inducement and the opportunity for breaking every commandment of the Mosaic Decalogue, as well as providing the punishment thereof. Is it not strange, when each generation of mankind, down through the ages, has run the gamut of sin and suffering, and experienced the same failure of materiality to help them to something nobler, that we are found consenting to wait for the chastisements of suffering and disappointment before being willing to turn from the emptiness of life in matter to seek the fullness of spiritual life?” He then goes on to show how we can and must rise above not only the pain, but the pleasures, of the senses into the state of mind that can no longer suffer.