Trustees under the Will of Mary
Baker G. Eddy
Boston, U.S.A.
| 1 |
BELOVED brethren, to-day I extend my
heart-and-
hand-fellowship to the faithful, to those whose hearts |
| 3 |
have been beating through the mental
avenues of man-
kind for God and humanity; and rest assured you can
never lack God's outstretched arm so long as you are in |
| 6 |
His service. Our first communion in the new
century
finds Christian Science more extended, more rapidly ad-
vancing, better appreciated, than ever before, and nearer |
| 9 |
the whole world's acceptance.
To-day you meet to
commemorate in unity the life of
our Lord, and to rise higher and still
higher in the indi- |
| 12 |
vidual consciousness most essential to your
growth and
usefulness; to add to your treasures of thought the great
realities of being, which constitute mental and physical |
| 15 |
perfection. The baptism of the Spirit, and
the refresh-
ment and invigoration of the human in communion with
the
Divine, have brought you hither.
|
| 18 |
All that is true is a sort of necessity, a
portion of the
primal reality of things. Truth comes from a deep sin-
cerity that must always characterize heroic hearts; it is |
| 21 |
the better side of man's nature developing
itself.
As Christian
Scientists you seek to define God to your
own consciousness by feeling and
applying the nature and |
| 24 |
practical possibilities of divine Love: to
gain the absolute
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and supreme certainty that Christianity is
now what Christ
Jesus taught and demonstrated - health, holiness, im- |
| 3 |
mortality. The highest spiritual
Christianity in individual
lives is indispensable to the acquiring of
greater power in
the perfected Science of healing all manner of
diseases.
|
| 6 |
We know the healing standard of Christian
Science was
and is traduced by trying to put into the old garment
the
new-old cloth of Christian healing. To attempt to twist |
| 9 |
the fatal magnetic element of human will
into harmony
with divine power, or to substitute good words for good
deeds, a fair seeming for right being, may suit the weak or |
| 12 |
the worldly who find the standard of
Christ's healing too
high for them. Absolute certainty in the practice of
divine
metaphysics constitutes its utility, since it has a divine and |
| 15 |
demonstrable Principle and rule - if some
fall short of
Truth, others will attain it, and these are they who will
adhere to it. The feverish pride of sects and systems is |
| 18 |
the death's-head at the feast of Love, but
Christianity is
ever storming sin in its citadels, blessing the poor in
spirit
and keeping peace with God.
|
| 21 |
What Jesus' disciples of old experienced,
his followers
of to-day will prove, namely, that a departure from the
direct line in Christ costs a return under difficulties; dark- |
| 24 |
ness, doubt, and unrequited toil will beset
all their return-
ing footsteps. Only a firm foundation in Truth can
give
a fearless wing and a sure reward.
|
| 27 |
The history of Christian Science explains
its rapid
growth. In my church of over twenty-one thousand six
hundred
and thirty-one communicants (two thousand four |
| 30 |
hundred and ninety-six of whom have been
added since
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|
| 1 |
last November) there spring spontaneously
the higher hope,
and increasing virtue, fervor, and fidelity. The
special |
| 3 |
benediction of our Father-Mother God rests
upon this
hour: "Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and per-
secute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you |
| 6 |
falsely, for my sake."
GOD IS THE INFINITE PERSON
We hear it said the
Christian Scientists have no God |
| 9 |
because their God is not a person. Let us
examine this.
The loyal Christian Scientists absolutely adopt Webster's
definition of God, "A Supreme Being," and the Standard |
| 12 |
dictionary's definition of God, "The one
Supreme Being,
self-existent and eternal." Also, we accept God, emphati-
cally, in the higher definition derived from the Bible, and |
| 15 |
this accords with the literal sense of the
lexicons: "God is
Spirit," "God is Love." Then, to define Love in
divine
Science we use this phrase for God - divine Principle. |
| 18 |
By this we mean Mind, a permanent,
fundamental, intel-
ligent, divine Being, called in Scripture, Spirit,
Love.
It is sometimes
said: "God is Love, but this is no argu- |
| 21 |
ment that Love is God; for God is light,
but light is not
God." The first proposition is correct, and is not
lost
by the conclusion, for Love expresses the nature of God; |
| 24 |
but the last proposition does not
illustrate the first, as
light, being matter, loses the nature of God,
Spirit, deserts
its premise, and expresses God only in metaphor,
there- |
| 27 |
fore it is illogical and the conclusion is
not properly drawn.
It is logical that because God is Love, Love is divine
Prin-
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|
| 1 |
ciple; then Love as either divine Principle
or Person
stands for God - for both have the nature of God. |
| 3 |
In logic the major premise must be
convertible to the
minor.
In mathematics four
times three is twelve, and three |
| 6 |
times four is twelve. To depart from the
rule of mathe-
matics destroys the proof of mathematics; just as a de-
parture from the Principle and rule of divine Science |
| 9 |
destroys the ability to demonstrate Love
according to
Christ, healing the sick; and you lose its susceptibility
of
scientific proof.
|
| 12 |
God is the author of Science - neither man
nor matter
can be. The Science of God must be, is, divine, predi-
cated of Principle and demonstrated as divine Love; and |
| 15 |
Christianity is divine Science, else there
is no Science and
no Christianity.
We understand that
God is personal in a scientific |
| 18 |
sense, but is not corporeal nor
anthropomorphic. We un-
derstand that God is not finite; He is the infinite
Person,
but not three persons in one person. Christian Scientists |
| 21 |
are theists and monotheists. Those who
misjudge us be-
cause we understand that God is the infinite One
instead
of three, should be able to explain God's personality ra- |
| 24 |
tionally. Christian Scientists consistently
conceive of God
as One because He is infinite; and as triune, because
He
is Life, Truth, Love, and these three are one in essence |
| 27 |
and in office.
If in calling God
"divine Principle," meaning divine
Love, more frequently than Person, we
merit the epithet |
| 30 |
"godless," we naturally conclude that he
breaks faith with
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his creed, or has no possible conception of
ours, who be-
lieves that three persons are defined strictly by the
word |
| 3 |
Person, or as One; for if Person is God,
and he believes
three persons constitute the Godhead, does not Person
here lose the nature of one God, lose monotheism, and |
| 6 |
become less coherent than the Christian
Scientist's sense
of Person as one divine infinite triune Principle, named
in
the Bible Life, Truth, Love? - for each of these possesses |
| 9 |
the nature of all, and God omnipotent,
omnipresent,
omniscient.
Man is person;
therefore divine metaphysics discrimi- |
| 12 |
nates between God and man, the creator and
the created,
by calling one the divine Principle of all. This suggests
another query: Do Christian Scientists believe in person- |
| 15 |
ality? They do, but their personality is
defined spiritually,
not materially - by Mind, not by matter. We do not
blot
out the material race of Adam, but leave all sin to God's |
| 18 |
fiat - self-extinction, and to the final
manifestation of the
real spiritual man and universe. We believe,
according
to the Scriptures, that God is infinite Spirit or Person,
and |
| 21 |
man is His image and likeness: therefore
man reflects
Spirit, not matter.
We are not
transcendentalists to the extent of extin- |
| 24 |
guishing anything that is real, good, or
true; for God and
man in divine Science, or the logic of Truth, are
coexistent
and eternal, and the nature of God must be seen in man, |
| 27 |
who is His eternal image and likeness.
The theological God
as a Person necessitates a creed
to explain both His person and nature,
whereas God ex- |
| 30 |
plains Himself in Christian Science. Is
the human person,
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as defined by Christian Science, more
transcendental than
theology's three divine persons, that live in the
Father and |
| 3 |
have no separate identity? Who says the God
of theology
is a Person, and the God of Christian Science is not a
person, hence no God? Here is the departure. Person is |
| 6 |
defined differently by theology, which
reckons three as
one and the infinite in a finite form, and Christian
Science,
which reckons one as one and this one infinite.
|
| 9 |
Can the infinite Mind inhabit a finite
form? Is the God
of theology a finite or an infinite Person? Is He one
Person, or three persons? Who can conceive either of |
| 12 |
three persons as one person, or of three
infinites? We
hear that God is not God except He be a Person, and this
Person contains three persons: yet God must be One |
| 15 |
although He is three. Is this pure,
specific Christianity?
and is God in Christian Science no God because He is
not
after this model of personality?
|
| 18 |
The logic of divine Science being
faultless, its consequent
Christianity is consistent with Christ's hillside
sermon,
which is set aside to some degree, regarded as impracticable |
| 21 |
for human use, its theory even seldom
named.
God is Person in the
infinite scientific sense of Him, but
He can neither be one nor infinite in
the corporeal or an- |
| 24 |
thropomorphic sense.
Our departure from
theological personality is, that God's
personality must be as infinite as
Mind is. We believe in |
| 27 |
God as the infinite Person; but lose all
conceivable idea
of Him as a finite Person with an infinite Mind. That
God is either inconceivable, or is manlike, is not my sense |
| 30 |
of Him. In divine Science He is
"altogether lovely," and
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| 1 |
consistently conceivable as the personality
of infinite Love,
infinite Spirit, than whom there is none other.
|
| 3 |
Scholastic theology makes God manlike;
Christian
Science makes man Godlike. The trinity of the Godhead
in
Christian Science being Life, Truth, Love, constitutes |
| 6 |
the individuality of the infinite Person
or divine intelligence
called God.
Again, God being
infinite Mind, He is the all-wise, all- |
| 9 |
knowing, all-loving Father-Mother, for God
made man in
His own image and likeness, and made them male and
female
as the Scriptures declare; then does not our |
| 12 |
heavenly Parent - the divine Mind - include
within this
Mind the thoughts that express the different mentalities
of man and woman, whereby we may consistently say, |
| 15 |
"Our Father-Mother God" ? And does not this
heavenly
Parent know and supply the differing needs of the indi-
vidual mind even as the Scriptures declare He will?
|
| 18 |
Because Christian Scientists call their God
"divine
Principle," as well as infinite Person, they have not taken
away their Lord, and know not where they have laid Him. |
| 21 |
They do not believe there must be something
tangible to
the personal material senses in order that belief may
attend
their petitions to divine Love. The God whom all Chris- |
| 24 |
tians now claim to believe in and worship
cannot be con-
ceived of on that basis; He cannot be apprehended
through
the material senses, nor can they gain any evidence of His |
| 27 |
presence thereby. Jesus said, "Thomas,
because thou
hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that
have not seen, and yet have believed."
Page 8
CHRIST IS ONE AND DIVINE
Again I reiterate
this cardinal point: There is but one |
| 3 |
Christ, and Christ is divine - the Holy
Ghost, or spiritual
idea of the divine Principle, Love. Is this scientific
state-
ment more transcendental than the belief of our brethren, |
| 6 |
who regard Jesus as God and the Holy Ghost
as the third
person in the Godhead? When Jesus said, "I and my
Father are one," and "my Father is greater than I," this |
| 9 |
was said in the sense that one ray of light
is light, and it
is one with light, but it is not the full-orbed sun.
There-
fore we have the authority of Jesus for saying Christ is not |
| 12 |
God, but an impartation of Him.
Again: Is man,
according to Christian Science, more
transcendental than God made him? Can
he be too spir- |
| 15 |
itual, since Jesus said, "Be ye therefore
perfect, even as
your Father which is in heaven is perfect"? Is God
Spirit? He is. Then is man His image and likeness, |
| 18 |
according to Holy Writ? He is. Then can man
be mate-
rial, or less than spiritual? As God made man, is he not
wholly spiritual? The reflex image of Spirit is not unlike |
| 21 |
Spirit. The logic of divine metaphysics
makes man none
too transcendental, if we follow the teachings of the
Bible.
|
| 24 |
The Christ was Jesus' spiritual selfhood;
therefore
Christ existed prior to Jesus, who said, "Before Abraham
was, I am." Jesus, the only immaculate, was born of a |
| 27 |
virgin mother, and Christian Science
explains that mystic
saying of the Master as to his dual personality, or
the spir-
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itual and material Christ Jesus, called in
Scripture the
Son of God and the Son of man - explains it as referring |
| 3 |
to his eternal spiritual selfhood and his
temporal man-
hood. Christian Science shows clearly that God is the
only generating or regenerating power.
|
| 6 |
The ancient worthies caught glorious
glimpses of the
Messiah or Christ, and their truer sense of Christ
baptized
them in Spirit - submerged them in a sense so pure it |
| 9 |
made seers of men, and Christian healers.
This is the
"Spirit of life in Christ Jesus," spoken of by St. Paul.
It is also the mysticism complained of by the rabbis, who |
| 12 |
crucified Jesus and called him a
"deceiver." Yea, it is
the healing power of Truth that is persecuted
to-day, the
spirit of divine Love, and Christ Jesus possessed it,
prac- |
| 15 |
tised it, and taught his followers to do
likewise. This
spirit of God is made manifest in the flesh, healing and
sav-
ing men, - it is the Christ, Comforter, "which taketh away |
| 18 |
the sin of the world;" and yet Christ is
rejected of men!
The evil in human
nature foams at the touch of good;
it crieth out, "Let us alone; what have
we to do with |
| 21 |
thee, . . . ? art thou come to destroy us?
I know thee who
thou art; the Holy One of God." The Holy Spirit takes
of the things of God and showeth them unto the creature; |
| 24 |
and these things being spiritual, they
disturb the carnal
and destroy it; they are revolutionary, reformatory, and
-
now, as aforetime - they cast out evils and heal the sick. |
| 27 |
He of God's household who loveth and liveth
most the
things of Spirit, receiveth them most; he speaketh wisely,
for
the spirit of his Father speaketh through him; he |
| 30 |
worketh well and healeth quickly, for the
spirit giveth him
Page
10
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liberty: "Ye shall know the truth, and the
truth shall
make you free."
|
| 3 |
Jesus said, "For all these things they will
deliver you
up to the councils" and "If they have called the master
of
the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call |
| 6 |
them of his household? Fear them not
therefore: for
there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed."
Christ being the Son
of God, a spiritual, divine emana- |
| 9 |
tion, Christ must be spiritual, not
material. Jesus was
the son of Mary, therefore the son of man only in
the
sense that man is the generic term for both male and |
| 12 |
female. The Christ was not human. Jesus was
human,
but the Christ Jesus represented both the divine and the
human,
God and man. The Science of divine metaphysics |
| 15 |
removes the mysticism that used to enthrall
my sense of
the Godhead, and of Jesus as the Son of God and the son
of
man. Christian Science explains the nature of God as |
| 18 |
both Father and Mother.
Theoretically and
practically man's salvation comes
through "the riches of His grace" in
Christ Jesus. Divine |
| 21 |
Love spans the dark passage of sin,
disease, and death with
Christ's righteousness, - the atonement of Christ,
whereby
good destroys evil, - and the victory over self, sin, disease, |
| 24 |
and death, is won after the pattern of the
mount. This is
working out our own salvation, for God worketh with us,
until there shall be nothing left to perish or to be pun- |
| 27 |
ished, and we emerge gently into Life
everlasting. This
is what the Scriptures demand - faith according to
works.
|
| 30 |
After Jesus had fulfilled his mission in
the flesh as the
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11
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Son of man, he rose to the fulness of his
stature in Christ,
the eternal Son of God, that never suffered and
never |
| 3 |
died. And because of Jesus' great work on
earth, his dem-
onstration over sin, disease, and death, the divine
nature
of Christ Jesus has risen to human apprehension, and we |
| 6 |
see the Son of man in divine Science; and
he is no longer
a material man, and mind is no longer in matter.
Through
this redemptive Christ, Truth, we are healed and saved, |
| 9 |
and that not of our selves, it is the gift
of God; we are
saved from the sins and sufferings of the flesh, and are
the redeemed of the Lord.
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS' PASTOR
True, I have made
the Bible, and "Science and Health
with Key to the Scriptures," the pastor
for all the churches |
| 15 |
of the Christian Science denomination, but
that does not
make it impossible for this pastor of ours to preach !
To
my sense the Sermon on the Mount, read each Sunday |
| 18 |
without comment and obeyed throughout the
week, would
be enough for Christian practice. The Word of God is a
powerful preacher, and it is not too spiritual to be prac- |
| 21 |
ical, nor too transcendental to be heard
and understood.
Whosoever saith there is no sermon without personal
preaching, forgets what Christian Scientists do not, namely, |
| 24 |
that God is a Person, and that he should
be willing to hear
a sermon from his personal God!
But, my brethren,
the Scripture saith, "Answer not a |
| 27 |
fool according to his folly, lest thou
also be like unto him."
St. Paul complains of him whose god is his belly:
to
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12
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such a one our mode of worship may be
intangible, for it
is not felt with the fingers; but the spiritual sense
drinks |
| 3 |
it in, and it corrects the material sense
and heals the sin-
ning and the sick. If St. John should tell that man
that
Jesus came neither eating nor drinking, and that he bap- |
| 6 |
tized with the Holy Ghost and with fire, he
would natu-
rally reply, "That is too transcendental for me to believe
or for my worship. That is Johnism, and only Johnites |
| 9 |
would be seen in such company." But this is
human: even
the word Christian was anciently an opprobrium; -
hence the
Scripture, "When the Son of man cometh, shall |
| 12 |
he find faith on the earth?"
Though a man were
begirt with the Urim and Thum-
mim of priestly office, yet should not have
charity, or should |
| 15 |
deny the validity and permanence of
Christ's command to
heal in all ages, he would dishonor that office and
misin-
terpret evangelical religion. Divine Science is not an in- |
| 18 |
terpolation of the Scriptures, it is
redolent with health,
holiness, and love. It only needs the prism of
divine
Science, which scholastic theology has obscured, to divide |
| 21 |
the rays of Truth, and bring out the entire
hues of God.
The lens of Science magnifies the divine power to human
sight; and we then see the allness of Spirit, therefore the |
| 24 |
nothingness of matter.
NO
REALITY IN EVIL OR SIN
Incorporeal evil
embodies itself in the so-called corpo- |
| 27 |
real, and thus is manifest in the flesh.
Evil is neither
quality nor quantity: it is not intelligence, a person or
a
Page
13
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| 1 |
principle, a man or a woman, a place or a
thing, and God
never made it. The outcome of evil, called sin, is
another |
| 3 |
nonentity that belittles itself until it
annihilates its own
embodiment: this is the only annihilation. The
visible
sin should be invisible: it ought not to be seen, felt, or |
| 6 |
acted: and because it ought not, we must
know it is not,
and that sin is a lie from the beginning, - an
illusion,
nothing, and only an assumption that nothing is something. |
| 9 |
It is not well to maintain the position
that sin is sin and
can take possession of us and destroy us, but well that
we
take possession of sin with such a sense of its nullity as |
| 12 |
destroys it. Sin can have neither entity,
verity, nor power
thus regarded, and we verify Jesus' words, that evil,
alias
devil, sin, is a lie - therefore is nothing and the father
of |
| 15 |
nothingness. Christian Science lays the axe
at the root of
sin, and destroys it on the very basis of nothingness.
When
man makes something of sin it is either because he fears it |
| 18 |
or loves it. Now, destroy the conception of
sin as some-
thing, a reality, and you destroy the fear and the love of
it; and sin disappears. A man's fear, unconquered, con- |
| 21 |
quers him, in whatever direction.
In Christian
Science it is plain that God removes the
punishment for sin only as the sin
is removed - never
|
| 24 |
punishes it only as it is destroyed, and
never afterwards;
hence the hope of universal salvation. It is a sense of
sin,
and not a sinful soul, that is lost. Soul is immortal, but |
| 27 |
sin is mortal. To lose the sense of sin we
must first detect
the claim of sin; hold it invalid, give it the lie, and
then
we get the victory, sin disappears, and its unreality is |
| 30 |
proven. So long as we indulge the presence
or believe in
Page
14
|
| 1 |
the power of sin, it sticks to us and has
power over us.
Again: To assume there is no reality in sin, and yet
com- |
| 3 |
mit sin, is sin itself, that clings fast to
iniquity. The
Publican's wail won his humble desire, while the Phari-
see's self-righteousness crucified Jesus.
|
| 6 |
Do Christian Scientists believe that evil
exists? We
answer, Yes and No! Yes, inasmuch as we do know
that evil,
as a false claim, false entity, and utter falsity, |
| 9 |
does exist in thought; and No, as something
that enjoys,
suffers, or is real. Our only departure from ecclesias-
ticism on this subject is, that our faith takes hold of the |
| 12 |
fact that evil cannot be made so real as to
frighten us
and so master us, or to make us love it and so hinder our
way to holiness. We regard evil as a lie, an illusion, |
| 15 |
therefore as unreal as a mirage that
misleads the traveller
on his way home.
It is self-evident
that error is not Truth; then it follows |
| 18 |
that it is untrue; and if untrue, unreal;
and if unreal, to
conceive of error as either right or real is sin in
itself. To
be delivered from believing in what is unreal, from fear- |
| 21 |
ing it, following it, or loving it, one
must watch and pray
that he enter not into temptation - even as one
guards
his door against the approach of thieves. Wrong is |
| 24 |
thought before it is acted; you must
control it in the first
instance, or it will control you in the second. To
over-
come all wrong, it must become unreal to us: and it is |
| 27 |
good to know that wrong has no divine
authority; there-
fore man is its master. I rejoice in the scientific
appre-
hension of this grand verity.
|
| 30 |
The evil-doer receives no encouragement
from my
Page
15
|
| 1 |
declaration that evil is unreal, when I
declare that he
must awake from his belief in this awful unreality,
repent |
| 3 |
and forsake it, in order to understand and
demonstrate
its unreality. Error uncondemned is not nullified. We
must
condemn the claim of error in every phase in order |
| 6 |
to prove it false, therefore unreal.
The Christian
Scientist has enlisted to lessen sin, dis-
ease, and death, and he
overcomes them through Christ,
|
| 9 |
Truth, teaching him that they cannot
overcome us. The
resistance to Christian Science weakens in proportion
as
one understands it and demonstrates the Science of |
| 12 |
Christianity.
A sinner ought not
to be at ease, or he would never quit
sinning. The most deplorable sight is
to contemplate the |
| 15 |
infinite blessings that divine Love bestows
on mortals, and
their ingratitude and hate, filling up the measure of
wickedness against all light. I can conceive of little short |
| 18 |
of the old orthodox hell to waken such a
one from
his deluded sense; for all sin is a deluded sense, and
dis-ease in sin is better than ease. Some mortals may |
| 21 |
even need to hear the following
thunderbolt of Jonathan
Edwards: -
"It is nothing but
God's mere pleasure that keeps you |
| 24 |
from being this moment swallowed up in
everlasting de-
struction. He is of purer eyes than to bear to have you
in
His sight. There is no other reason to be given why you |
| 27 |
have not gone to hell since you have sat
here in the house
of God, provoking His pure eyes by your sinful,
wicked
manner of attending His solemn worship. Yea, there is |
| 30 |
nothing else that is to be given as a
reason why you do
Page
16
|
| 1 |
not at this moment drop down into hell,
but that God's
hand has held you up."
FUTURE PUNISHMENT OF SIN
My views of a future
and eternal punishment take in a
poignant present sense of sin and its
suffering, punishing |
| 6 |
itself here and hereafter till the sin is
destroyed. St.
John's types of sin scarcely equal the modern nonde-
scripts, whereby the demon of this world, its lusts, falsi- |
| 9 |
ties, envy, and hate, supply sacrilegious
gossip with the
verbiage of hades. But hatred gone mad becomes im-
becile - outdoes itself and commits suicide. Then let the |
| 12 |
dead bury its dead, and surviving defamers
share our pity.
In the Greek
devil is named serpent - liar - the
god of this
world; and St. Paul defines this world's god as |
| 15 |
dishonesty, craftiness, handling the word
of God deceit-
fully. The original text defines devil as
accuser,
calumniator; therefore, according to Holy Writ
these |
| 18 |
qualities are objectionable, and ought not
to proceed from
the individual, the pulpit, or the press. The
Scriptures
once refer to an evil spirit as dumb, but in its origin
evil |
| 21 |
was loquacious, and was supposed to outtalk
Truth and
to carry a most vital point. Alas! if now it is permitted
license, under sanction of the gown, to handle with gar- |
| 24 |
rulity age and Christianity! Shall it be
said of this cen-
tury that its greatest discoverer is a woman to whom
men
go to mock, and go away to pray? Shall the hope for our |
| 27 |
race commence with one truth told and one
hundred false-
hoods told about it?
Page
17
|
| 1 |
The present self-inflicted sufferings of
mortals from sin,
disease, and death should suffice so to awaken the
suf- |
| 3 |
ferer from the mortal sense of sin and mind
in matter as
to cause him to return to the Father's house penitent and
saved; yea, quickly to return to divine Love, the author |
| 6 |
and finisher of our faith, who so loves
even the repentant
prodigal - departed from his better self and
struggling
to return - as to meet the sad sinner on his way and to |
| 9 |
welcome him home.
MEDICINE
Had not my first
demonstrations of Christian Science |
| 12 |
or metaphysical healing exceeded that of
other methods,
they would not have
arrested public attention and started
the great Cause that to-day commands
the respect of our |
| 15 |
best thinkers. It was that I healed the
deaf, the blind, the
dumb, the lame, the last stages of consumption,
pneumonia,
etc., and restored the patients in from one to three inter- |
| 18 |
views, that started the inquiry, What is
it? And when the
public sentiment would allow it, and I had overcome a
difficult stage of the work, I would put patients into the |
| 21 |
hands of my students and retire from the
comparative
ease of healing to the next more difficult stage of action
for our Cause.
|
| 24 |
From my medical practice I had learned that
the dynam-
ics of medicine is Mind. In the highest attenuations of
homoeopathy the drug is utterly expelled, hence it must |
| 27 |
be mind that controls the effect; and this
attenuation in
some cases healed where the allopathic doses would not.
Page
18
|
| 1 |
When the "mother tincture" of one grain of
the drug was
attenuated one thousand degrees less than in the
beginning, |
| 3 |
that was my favorite dose.
The weak criticisms
and woeful warnings concerning
Christian Science healing are less now than
were the |
| 6 |
sneers forty years ago at the medicine of
homoeopathy;
and the medicine of Mind is more honored and respected
to-day than the old-time medicine of matter. Those who |
| 9 |
laugh at or pray against transcendentalism
and the Chris-
tian Scientist's religion or his medicine, should know
the
danger of questioning Christ Jesus' healing, who admin- |
| 12 |
istered no remedy apart from Mind, and
taught his dis-
ciples none other. Christian Science seems
transcendental
because the substance of Truth transcends the evidence |
| 15 |
of the five personal senses, and is
discerned only through
divine Science.
If God created drugs
for medical use, Jesus and his |
| 18 |
disciples would have used them and named
them for that
purpose, for he came to do "the will of the Father. " The
doctor who teaches that a human hypothesis is above a |
| 21 |
demonstration of healing, yea, above the
grandeur of our
great master Metaphysician's precept and example, and
that of his followers in the early centuries, should read |
| 24 |
this Scripture: "The fool hath said in his
heart, There is
no God."
The divine Life,
Truth, Love - whom men call God - |
| 27 |
is the Christian Scientists' healer; and if
God destroys the
popular triad - sin, sickness, and death - remember it
is He who does it and so proves their nullity.
|
| 30 |
Christians and clergymen pray for sinners;
they believe
Page
19
|
| 1 |
that God answers their prayers, and that
prayer is a divinely
appointed means of grace and salvation. They
believe |
| 3 |
that divine power, besought, is given to
them in times of
trouble, and that He worketh with them to save
sinners.
I love this doctrine, for I know that prayer brings the |
| 6 |
seeker into closer proximity with divine
Love, and thus
he finds what he seeks, the power of God to heal and to
save. Jesus said, "Ask, and ye shall receive;" and if not |
| 9 |
immediately, continue to ask, and because
of your often
coming it shall be given unto you; and he illustrated his
saying by a parable.
|
| 12 |
The notion that mixing material and
spiritual means,
either in medicine or in religion, is wise or efficient,
is
proven false. That animal natures give force to character |
| 15 |
is egregious nonsense - a flat departure
from Jesus'
practice and proof. Let us remember that the great Meta-
physician healed the sick, raised the dead, and com- |
| 18 |
manded even the winds and waves, which
obeyed him
through spiritual ascendency alone.
MENTAL MALPRACTICE
|
| 21 |
From ordinary mental practice to Christian
Science is a
long ascent, but to go from the use of inanimate drugs to
any susceptible misuse of the human mind, such as mes- |
| 24 |
merism, hypnotism, and the like, is to
subject mankind
unwarned and undefended to the unbridled individual
human will. The currents of God flow through no such |
| 27 |
channels.
The whole world
needs to know that the milder forms
Page
20
|
| 1 |
of animal magnetism and hypnotism are
yielding to its
aggressive features. We have no moral right and no |
| 3 |
authority in Christian Science for
influencing the thoughts
of others, except it be to serve God and benefit
mankind.
Man is properly self-governed, and he should be guided |
| 6 |
by no other mind than Truth, the divine
Mind. Christian
Science gives neither moral right nor might to harm
either
man or beast. The Christian Scientist is alone with his |
| 9 |
own being and with the reality of things.
The mental
malpractitioner is not, cannot be, a Christian Scientist; he
is disloyal to God and man; he has every opportunity to |
| 12 |
mislead the human mind, and he uses it.
People may
listen complacently to the suggestion of the inaudible
falsehood, not knowing what is hurting them or that they |
| 15 |
are hurt. This mental bane could not
bewilder, darken, or
misguide consciousness, physically, morally, or
spiritually,
if the individual knew what was at work and his power |
| 18 |
over it.
This unseen evil is
the sin of sins; it is never forgiven.
Even the agony and death that it
must sooner or later |
| 21 |
cause the perpetrator, cannot blot out its
effects on him-
self till he suffers up to its extinction and stops
practising
it. The crimes committed under this new-old
régime of |
| 24 |
necromancy or diabolism are not easily
reckoned. At
present its mystery protects it, but its hidden modus and
flagrance will finally be known, and the laws of our land |
| 27 |
will handle its thefts, adulteries, and
murders, and will
pass sentence on the darkest and deepest of human
crimes.
|
| 30 |
Christian Scientists are not hypnotists,
they are not
Page
21
|
| 1 |
mortal mind-curists, nor faith-curists;
they have faith,
but they have Science, understanding, and works as
well. |
| 3 |
They are not the addenda, the et
ceteras, or new editions
of old errors; but they are what they are,
namely, stu-
dents of a demonstrable Science leading the ages.
QUESTIONABLE METAPHYSICS
In an article
published in the New York Journal,
Rev.- writes: "To the famous
Bishop Berkeley of the |
| 9 |
Church of England may be traced many of the
ideas about
the spiritual world which are now taught in Christian
Science."
|
| 12 |
This clergyman gives it as his opinion that
Christian
Science will be improved in its teaching and authorship
after Mrs. Eddy has gone. I am sorry for my critic, who |
| 15 |
reckons hopefully on the death of an
individual who loves
God and man; such foreseeing is not foreknowing,
and
exhibits a startling ignorance of Christian Science, and a |
| 18 |
manifest unfitness to criticise it or to
compare its literature.
He begins his calculation erroneously; for Life is
the
Principle of Christian Science and of its results. Death |
| 21 |
is neither the predicate nor postulate of
Truth, and Christ
came not to bring death but life into the world. Does
this
critic know of a better way than Christ's whereby to benefit |
| 24 |
the race? My faith assures me that God
knows more
than any man on this subject, for did He not know all
things
and results I should not have known Christian |
| 27 |
Science, or felt the incipient touch of
divine Love which
inspired it.
Page
22
|
| 1 |
That God is good, that Truth is true, and
Science is
Science, who can doubt; and whosoever demonstrates the |
| 3 |
truth of these propositions is to some
extent a Christian
Scientist. Is Science material? No! It is the Mind
of
God - and God is Spirit. Is Truth material? No! |
| 6 |
Therefore I do not try to mix matter and
Spirit, since
Science does not and they will not mix. I am a spiritual
homoeopathist in that I do not believe in such a compound. |
| 9 |
Truth and Truth is not a compound; Spirit
and Spirit is
not: but Truth and error, Spirit and matter, are com-
pounds and opposites; so if one is true, the other is false. |
| 12 |
If Truth is true, its opposite, error, is
not; and if Spirit is
true and infinite, it hath no opposite; therefore
matter
cannot be a reality.
|
| 15 |
I begin at the feet of Christ and with the
numeration
table of Christian Science. But I do not say that one added
to one is three, or one and a half, nor say this to accom- |
| 18 |
modate popular opinion as to the Science of
Christianity.
I adhere to my text, that one and one are two all the way
up to the infinite calculus of the infinite God. The numer- |
| 21 |
ation table of Christian Science, its
divine Principle and
rules, are before the people, and the different
religious
sects and the differing schools of medicine are discussing |
| 24 |
them as if they understood its Principle
and rules before
they have learned its numeration table, and insist that
the
public receive their sense of the Science, or that it receive |
| 27 |
no sense whatever of it.
Again: Even the
numeration table of Christian Science
is not taught correctly by those who
have departed from |
| 30 |
its absolute simple statement as to Spirit
and matter, and
Page
23
|
| 1 |
that one and two are neither more nor less
than three;
and losing the numeration table and the logic of Christian |
| 3 |
Science, they have little left that the
sects and faculties
can grapple. If Christian Scientists only would
admit
that God is Spirit and infinite, yet that God has an oppo- |
| 6 |
site and that the infinite is not all; that
God is good and
infinite, yet that evil exists and is real, - thence it
would
follow that evil must either exist in good, or exist outside |
| 9 |
of the infinite, - they would be in
peace with the
schools.
This departure,
however, from the scientific statement, |
| 12 |
the divine Principle, rule, or
demonstration of Christian
Science, results as would a change of the
denominations
of mathematics; and you cannot demonstrate Christian |
| 15 |
Science except on its fixed Principle and
given rule, ac-
cording to the Master's teaching and proof. He was
ultra;
he was a reformer; he laid the axe at the root of all error, |
| 18 |
amalgamation, and compounds. He used no
material
medicine, nor recommended it, and taught his disciples
and
followers to do likewise; therefore he demonstrated |
| 21 |
his power over matter, sin, disease, and
death, as no other
person has ever demonstrated it.
Bishop Berkeley
published a book in 1710 entitled |
| 24 |
"Treatise Concerning the Principle of Human
Knowl-
edge." Its object was to deny, on received principles of
philosophy, the reality of an external material world. In |
| 27 |
later publications he declared physical
substance to be
"only the constant relation between phenomena
connected
by association and conjoined by the operations of the |
| 30 |
universal mind, nature being nothing more
than conscious
Page
24
|
| 1 |
experience. Matter apart from conscious
mind is an impos-
sible and unreal concept." He denies the existence
of |
| 3 |
matter, and argues that matter is not
without the mind,
but within it, and that that which is generally
called
matter is only an impression produced by divine power on |
| 6 |
the mind by means of invariable rules
styled the laws of
nature. Here he makes God the cause of all the ills
of
mortals and the casualties of earth.
|
| 9 |
Again, while descanting on the virtues of
tar-water, he
writes: "I esteem my having taken this medicine the
greatest of all temporal blessings, and am convinced that |
| 12 |
under Providence I owe my life to it."
Making matter
more potent than Mind, when the storms of disease beat
against Bishop Berkeley's metaphysics and personality he |
| 15 |
fell, and great was the fall - from divine
metaphysics to
tar-water !
Christian Science is
more than two hundred years old. |
| 18 |
It dates beyond Socrates, Leibnitz,
Berkeley, Darwin, or
Huxley. It is as old as God, although its earthly
advent
is called the Christian era.
|
| 21 |
I had not read one line of Berkeley's
writings when I
published my work Science and Health, the Christian
Science textbook.
|
| 24 |
In contradistinction to his views I found
it necessary to
follow Jesus' teachings, and none other, in order to
demonstrate the divine Science of Christianity - the meta- |
| 27 |
physics of Christ - healing all manner of
diseases. Phil-
osophy, materia medica, and scholastic theology
were
inadequate to prove the doctrine of Jesus, and I relin- |
| 30 |
quished the form to attain the spirit or
mystery of
Page
25
|
| 1 |
godliness. Hence the mysticism, so called,
of my writings
becomes clear to the godly.
|
| 3 |
Building on the rock of Christ's teachings,
we have a
superstructure eternal in the heavens, omnipotent on earth,
encompassing time and eternity. The stone which the |
| 6 |
builders reject is apt to be the cross,
which they reject and
whereby is won the crown and the head of the
corner.
A knowledge of
philosophy and of medicine, the scho- |
| 9 |
lasticism of a bishop, and the metaphysics
(so called)
which mix matter and mind, - certain individuals call
aids
to divine metaphysics, and regret their lack in my |
| 12 |
books, which because of their more
spiritual import heal
the sick ! No Christly axioms, practices, or
parables are
alluded to or required in such metaphysics, and the dem- |
| 15 |
onstration of matter minus, and God all,
ends in some
specious folly.
The great
Metaphysician, Christ Jesus, denounced all |
| 18 |
such gilded sepulchres of his time and of
all time. He
never recommended drugs, he never used them. What,
then,
is our authority in Christianity for metaphysics based |
| 21 |
on materialism? He demonstrated what he
taught. Had
he taught the power of Spirit, and along with this the
power of matter, he would have been as contradictory |
| 24 |
as the blending of good and evil, and the
latter superior,
which Satan demanded in the beginning, and which has
since been avowed to be as real, and matter as useful, as |
| 27 |
the infinite God, - good, - which, if
indeed Spirit and
infinite, excludes evil and matter. Jesus likened
such
self-contradictions to a kingdom divided against itself, |
| 30 |
that cannot stand.
Page
26
|
| 1 |
The unity and consistency of Jesus' theory
and practice
give my tired sense of false philosophy and material the- |
| 3 |
ology rest. The great teacher, preacher,
and demonstrator
of Christianity is the Master, who founded his system
of
metaphysics only on Christ, Truth, and supported it by |
| 6 |
his words and deeds.
The five personal
senses can have only a finite sense
of the infinite: therefore the
metaphysician is sensual |
| 9 |
that combines matter with Spirit. In one
sentence he
declaims against matter, in the next he endows it with a
life-giving quality not to be found in God! and turns |
| 12 |
away from Christ's purely spiritual means
to the schools
and matter for help in times of need.
I have passed
through deep waters to preserve Christ's |
| 15 |
vesture unrent; then, when land is reached
and the world
aroused, shall the word popularity be pinned to the seam-
less robe, and they cast lots for it? God forbid! Let |
| 18 |
it be left to such as see God - to the pure
in spirit,
and the meek that inherit the earth; left to them of a
sound
faith and charity, the greatest of which is charity |
| 21 |
- spiritual love. St. Paul said: "Though I
speak
with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not
charity, I am
become as sounding brass, or a tinkling |
| 24 |
cymbal."
Before leaving this
subject of the old metaphysicians,
allow me to add I have read little of
their writings. I was |
| 27 |
not drawn to them by a native or an
acquired taste for
what was problematic and self-contradictory. What I
have given to the world on the subject of metaphysical |
| 30 |
healing or Christian Science is the result
of my own ob-
Page
27
|
| 1 |
servation, experience, and final discovery,
quite independ-
ent of all other authors except the Bible.
|
| 3 |
My critic also writes: "The best
contributions that
have been made to the literature of Christian Science
have
been by Mrs. Eddy's followers. I look to see some St. |
| 6 |
Paul arise among the Christian Scientists
who will inter-
pret their ideas and principles more clearly, and apply
them more rationally to human needs."
|
| 9 |
My works are the first ever published on
Christian
Science, and nothing has since appeared that is correct
on
this subject the basis whereof cannot be traced to some |
| 12 |
of those works. The application of
Christian Science is
healing and reforming mankind. If any one as yet
has
healed hopeless cases, such as I have in one to three inter- |
| 15 |
views with the patients, I shall rejoice in
being informed
thereof. Or if a modern St. Paul could start thirty
years
ago without a Christian Scientist on earth, and in this |
| 18 |
interval number one million, and an equal
number of sick
healed, also sinners reformed and the habits and appe-
tites of mankind corrected, why was it not done? God is |
| 21 |
no respecter of persons.
I have put less of
my own personality into Christian
Science than others do in proportion, as
I have taken out |
| 24 |
of its metaphysics all matter and left
Christian Science
as it is, purely spiritual, Christlike - the Mind of
God
and not of man - born of the Spirit and not matter. |
| 27 |
Professor Agassiz said: "Every great
scientific truth goes
through three stages. First, people say it conflicts
with
the Bible. Next, they say it has been discovered before. |
| 30 |
Lastly, they say they had always believed
it." Having
Page
28
|
| 1 |
passed through the first two stages,
Christian Science must
be approaching the last stage of the great
naturalist's |
| 3 |
prophecy.
It is only by
praying, watching, and working for the
kingdom of heaven within us and upon
earth, that we |
| 6 |
enter the strait and narrow way, whereof
our Master said,
"and few there be that find it."
Of the ancient
writers since the first century of the |
| 9 |
Christian era perhaps none lived a more
devout Christian
life up to his highest understanding than St.
Augustine.
Some of his writings have been translated into almost |
| 12 |
every Christian tongue, and are classed
with the choicest
memorials of devotion both in Catholic and Protestant
oratories.
|
| 15 |
Sacred history shows that those who have
followed ex-
clusively Christ's teaching, have been scourged in the
synagogues and persecuted from city to city. But this |
| 18 |
is no cause for not following it; and my
only apology for
trying to follow it is that I love Christ more than all
the
world, and my demonstration of Christian Science in |
| 21 |
healing has proven to me beyond a doubt
that Christ,
Truth, is indeed the way of salvation from all that work-
eth or maketh a lie. As Jesus said: "It is enough for |
| 24 |
the disciple that he be as his master." It
is well to know
that even Christ Jesus, who was not popular among the
worldlings in his age, is not popular with them in this |
| 27 |
age; hence the inference that he who would
be popular
if he could, is not a student of Christ Jesus.
After a hard and
successful career reformers usually |
| 30 |
are handsomely provided for. Has the
thought come to
Page
29
|
| 1 |
Christian Scientists, Have we housed, fed,
clothed, or
visited a reformer for that purpose? Have we looked after |
| 3 |
or even known of his sore necessities ?
Gifts he needs not.
God has provided the means for him while he was
provid-
ing ways and means for others. But mortals in the ad- |
| 6 |
vancing stages of their careers need the
watchful and
tender care of those who want to help them. The aged
reformer should not be left to the mercy of those who are |
| 9 |
not glad to sacrifice for him even as he
has sacrificed for
others all the best of his earthly years.
I say this not
because reformers are not loved, but be- |
| 12 |
cause well-meaning people sometimes are
inapt or selfish
in showing their love. They are like children that go
out
from the parents who nurtured them, toiled for them, and |
| 15 |
enabled them to be grand coworkers for
mankind, children
who forget their parents' increasing years and needs,
and
whenever they return to the old home go not to help |
| 18 |
mother but to recruit themselves. Or, if
they attempt
to help their parents, and adverse winds are blowing,
this
is no excuse for waiting till the wind shifts. They should |
| 21 |
remember that mother worked and won for
them by
facing the winds. All honor and success to those who
honor
their father and mother. The individual who loves |
| 24 |
most, does most, and sacrifices most for
the reformer, is
the individual who soonest will walk in his
footsteps.
To aid my students
in starting under a tithe of my own |
| 27 |
difficulties, I allowed them for several
years fifty cents on
every book of mine that they sold. "With this
percent-
age," students wrote me, "quite quickly we have regained |
| 30 |
our tuition for the college course."
Page
30
|
| 1 |
Christian Scientists are persecuted even as
all other
religious denominations have been, since ever the primi- |
| 3 |
tive Christians, "of whom the world was not
worthy."
We err in thinking the object of vital Christianity is only
the bequeathing of itself to the coming centuries. The |
| 6 |
successive utterances of reformers are
essential to its
propagation. The magnitude of its meaning forbids
head-
long haste, and the consciousness which is most imbued |
| 9 |
struggles to articulate itself.
Christian Scientists
are practically non-resistants; they
are too occupied with doing good,
observing the Golden |
| 12 |
Rule, to retaliate or to seek redress; they
are not quacks,
giving birth to nothing and death to all, - but they
are
leaders of a reform in religion and in medicine, and they |
| 15 |
have no craft that is in danger.
Even religion and
therapeutics need regenerating.
Philanthropists, and the higher class of
critics in theology |
| 18 |
and materia medica, recognize that
Christian Science
kindles the inner genial life of a man, destroying all
lower
considerations. No man or woman is roused to the estab- |
| 21 |
lishment of a new-old religion by the hope
of ease, pleasure,
or recompense, or by the stress of the appetites and
pas-
sions. And no emperor is obeyed like the man "clouting |
| 24 |
his own cloak" - working alone with God,
yea, like the
clear, far-seeing vision, the calm courage, and the great
heart of the unselfed Christian hero.
|
| 27 |
I counsel Christian Scientists under all
circumstances
to obey the Golden Rule, and to adopt Pope's axiom:
"An
honest, sensible, and well-bred man will not insult |
| 30 |
me, and no other can." The sensualist and
world-wor-
Page
31
|
| 1 |
shipper are always stung by a clear
elucidation of truth,
of right, and of wrong.
|
| 3 |
The only opposing element that sects or
professions
can encounter in Christian Science is Truth opposed to
all
error, specific or universal. This opposition springs |
| 6 |
from the very nature of Truth, being
neither personal nor
human, but divine. Every true Christian in the
near
future will learn and love the truths of Christian Science |
| 9 |
that now seem troublesome. Jesus said, "I
came not to
send peace but a sword."
Has God entrusted me
with a message to mankind? - |
| 12 |
then I cannot choose but obey. After a long
acquaintance
with the communicants of my large church, they regard
me
with no vague, fruitless, inquiring wonder. I can use |
| 15 |
the power that God gives me in no way
except in the
interest of the individual and the community. To this
verity every member of my church would bear loving |
| 18 |
testimony.
MY
CHILDHOOD'S CHURCH HOME
Among the list of
blessings infinite I count these dear: |
| 21 |
Devout orthodox parents; my early culture
in the Congre-
gational Church; the daily Bible reading and family
prayer; my cradle hymn and the Lord's Prayer, repeated |
| 24 |
at night; my early association with
distinguished Chris-
tian clergymen, who held fast to whatever is good,
used
faithfully God's Word, and yielded up graciously what |
| 27 |
He took away. It was my fair fortune to be
often taught
by some grand old divines, among whom were the Rev.
Page
32
|
| 1 |
Abraham Burnham of Pembroke, N. H., Rev.
Nathaniel
Bouton, D. D., of Concord, N. H., Congregationalists; |
| 3 |
Rev. Mr. Boswell, of Bow, N. H., Baptist;
Rev. Enoch
Corser, and Rev. Corban Curtice, Congregationalists; and
Father Hinds, Methodist Elder. I became early a child |
| 6 |
of the Church, an eager lover and student
of vital Chris-
tianity. Why I loved Christians of the old sort was I
could not help loving them. Full of charity and good |
| 9 |
works, busy about their Master's business,
they had no
time or desire to defame their fellow-men. God seemed
to
shield the whole world in their hearts, and they were |
| 12 |
willing to renounce all for Him. When
infidels assailed
them, however, the courage of their convictions was
seen.
They were heroes in the strife; they armed quickly, aimed |
| 15 |
deadly, and spared no denunciation. Their
convictions
were honest, and they lived them; and the sermons their
lives preached caused me to love their doctrines.
|
| 18 |
The lives of those old-fashioned leaders of
religion ex-
plain in a few words a good man. They fill the ecclesi-
astic measure, that to love God and keep His command- |
| 21 |
ments is the whole duty of man. Such
churchmen and
the Bible, especially the First Commandment of the Dec-
alogue, and Ninety-first Psalm, the Sermon on the Mount, |
| 24 |
and St. John's Revelation, educated my
thought many
years, yea, all the way up to its preparation for and
recep-
tion of the Science of Christianity. I believe, if those |
| 27 |
venerable Christians were here to-day,
their sanctified
souls would take in the spirit and understanding of
Chris-
tian Science through the flood-gates of Love; with them |
| 30 |
Love was the governing impulse of every
action; their
Page
33
|
| 1 |
piety was the all-important consideration
of their being,
the original beauty of holiness that to-day seems to
be |
| 3 |
fading so sensibly from our sight.
To plant for
eternity, the "accuser" or "calumniator"
must not be admitted to the
vineyard of our Lord, and |
| 6 |
the hand of love must sow the seed. Carlyle
writes:
"Quackery and dupery do abound in religion; above all,
in the
more advanced decaying stages of religion, they |
| 9 |
have fearfully abounded; but quackery was
never the
originating influence in such things; it was not the health
and life of religion, but their disease, the sure precursor |
| 12 |
that they were about to die."
Christian
Scientists first and last ask not to be judged
on a doctrinal platform, a
creed, or a diploma for scientific
|
| 15 |
guessing. But they do ask to be allowed the
rights of con-
science and the protection of the constitutional laws
of
their land; they ask to be known by their works, to be |
| 18 |
judged (if at all) by their works. We admit
that they do
not kill people with poisonous drugs, with the lance, or
with liquor, in order to heal them. Is it for not killing |
| 21 |
them thus, or is it for healing them
through the might and
majesty of divine power after the manner taught by
Jesus,
and which he enjoined his students to teach and practise, |
| 24 |
that they are maligned? The richest and
most positive
proof that a religion in this century is just what it was
in
the first centuries is that the same reviling it received |
| 27 |
then it receives now, and from the same
motives which
actuate one sect to persecute another in advance of it.
Christian Scientists
are harmless citizens that do not |
| 30 |
kill people either by their practice or by
preventing the
Page
34
|
| 1 |
early employment of an M.D. Why? Because
the effect
of prayer, whereby Christendom saves sinners, is quite |
| 3 |
as salutary in the healing of all manner of
diseases. The
Bible is our authority for asserting this, in both cases.
The interval that detains the patient from the attendance |
| 6 |
of an M.D., occupied in prayer and in
spiritual obedience
to Christ's mode and means of healing, cannot be
fatal
to the patient, and is proven to be more pathological than |
| 9 |
the M.D.'s material prescription. If this
be not so, where
shall we look for the standard of Christianity? Have
we
misread the evangelical precepts and the canonical writ- |
| 12 |
ings of the Fathers, or must we have a new
Bible and a
new system of Christianity, originating not in God, but
a
creation of the schools - a material religion, proscrip- |
| 15 |
tive, intolerant, wantonly bereft of the
Word of God.
Give us, dear God,
again on earth the lost chord of
Christ; solace us with the song of angels
rejoicing with |
| 18 |
them that rejoice; that sweet charity
which seeketh not
her own but another's good, yea, which knoweth no
evil.
Finally, brethren,
wait patiently on God; return bless- |
| 21 |
ing for cursing; be not overcome of evil,
but overcome
evil with good; be steadfast, abide and abound in faith,
understanding, and good works; study the Bible and the |
| 24 |
textbook of our denomination; obey strictly
the laws that
be, and follow your Leader only so far as she follows
Christ. Godliness or Christianity is a human necessity: |
| 27 |
man cannot live without it; he has no
intelligence, health,
hope, nor happiness without godliness. In the words
of
the Hebrew writers: "Trust in the Lord with all thine |
| 30 |
heart; and lean not unto thine own
understanding. In
Page
35
|
| 1 |
all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall
direct thy
paths;" "and He shall bring forth thy righteousness as |
| 3 |
the light, and thy judgment as the
noonday."
The question oft
presents itself, Are we willing to sac-
rifice self for the Cause of
Christ, willing to bare our bosom |
| 6 |
to the blade and lay ourselves upon the
altar? Christian
Science appeals loudly to those asleep upon the
hill-tops
of Zion. It is a clarion call to the reign of righteousness, |
| 9 |
to the kingdom of heaven within us and on
earth, and
Love is the way alway.
O the Love divine that plucks us |
| 12 |
From the human agony!
O the Master's
glory won thus,
Doth it dawn on you and me?
|
| 15 |
And the bliss of blotted-out sin
And
the working hitherto -
Shall we share it - do we walk in |
| 18 |
Patient faith the way thereto? |
