0.0 – Christian Science Publication Contents

The Message for 1901 is a substantial little book, and not only for the reason that its thirty-five pages make it by far the longest of these Messages to The Mother Church. In contrast to the previous books it seems to stand back from the details of individual life, to survey the theory and practice of Christian Science, and to teach the underlying scientific essence of all that has gone before. In the order of divine wisdom, experience comes before teaching, for one must first have had some life-experience before it can be spiritually interpreted (see S&H 322:26-32). People customarily think of life as a series of personal and material experiences, whereas Science explains that life actually is the experience of God. Thus while the first twelve books represent the experience of working out the "Life-problem," this thirteenth marks a momentous change as consciousness now moves beyond the boundary of individual achievement and the Scientist finds
himself to be the unlimited workings of Principle's own idea. This point of transcending human personality and finding that God is the only Person or doer is the theme both of Message 1901 and of the thirteenth chapter of Science and Health, TEACHING CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. What is happening in Mrs Eddy's founding work to explain this change of key? Message 1901 is the first book to be published in the twentieth century, and she welcomes the new century with the poem of that name, bringing its message of heaven here and thus a new earth. ...Then throughout 1901 she is working on the last structural revision of Science and Health. The rearranged chapters will be in 'matrix' form, so that as the student lives his way through the book he will be born anew as a real Scientist, and the concept of being a mortal person will be
replaced. (No wonder the textbook's thirteenth chapter contains the passage on obstetrics!) Accordingly in September 1901 the course on physical obstetrics at the College is discontinued. Again 1901 is when Mrs Eddy announces to the world that her successor is to be not a person but generic man. All these features help to explain why in her own copy of the book she identified Message 1901 as "infinite personality" (Coil. 260).

See  Mary Baker Eddy's Other Writings by John L. Morgan  (1984)



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                      Message for 1901 

 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
 
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker E...ddy        2


 1	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
  
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy        3


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-
 
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy        4


 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
 
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy        5


 1	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,
 
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy        6


 1	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
  
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy        7


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." 


 
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy        8


 1	                     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-
 
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy        9


 1	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
 
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy      10


 1	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
 
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy      11


 1	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. 


12	           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	tical, 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
 
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy      12


 1	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
 
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy      13


 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
 
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy      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
 
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy      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
 
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy      16


 1	not at this moment drop down into hell, but that God's
  	hand has held you up." 


 3	                     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? 
 
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy      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. 
 
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy      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
 
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy      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
 
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy      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 regime 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
 
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy      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. 


 6	                  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. 
 
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy      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
 
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy      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
 
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy      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
 
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy      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. 
 
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy      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-
 
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy      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
 
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy      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
 
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy      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." 
 
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy      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-
 
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy      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. 
 
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy      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
 
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy      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
 
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy      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
 
   
Message to The Mother Church - 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy      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?
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