0.0 – Christian Science Publication Contents

21	EASTER SERVICES 

  	    The editor of The Christian Science Journal said that
  	at three o'clock, the hour for the church service proper,
24	the pastor, Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy, accompanied
  	by Rev. D. A. Easton, who was announced to preach
  	the sermon, came on the platform. The pastor intro-
27	duced Mr. Easton as follows: —  
  	    Friends: — The homesick traveller in foreign lands
  	greets with joy a familiar face. I am constantly home-
30	sick for heaven. In my long journeyings I have met
 
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 1	one who comes from the place of my own sojourning
  	for many years, — the Congregational Church. He is
 3	a graduate of Bowdoin College and of Andover The-
  	ological School. He has left his old church, as I did,
  	from a yearning of the heart; because he was not sat-
 6	isfied with a manlike God, but wanted to become a God-
  	like man. He found that the new wine could not be
  	put into old bottles without bursting them, and he came
 9	to us. 
  	    Mr. Easton then delivered an interesting discourse
  	from the text, "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek
12	those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the
  	right hand of God" (Col. iii. 1), which he prefaced by
  	saying: —  
15	    "I think it was about a year ago that I strayed into
  	this hall, a stranger, and wonde...red what sort of people
  	you were, and of what you were worshippers.  If any
18	one had said to me that to-day I should stand before
  	you to preach a sermon on Christian Science, I should
  	have replied, 'Much learning' — or something else — 
21	'hath made thee mad.' If I had not found Christian
  	Science a new gospel, I should not be standing before you:
  	if I had not found it truth, I could not have stood up
24	again to preach, here or elsewhere." 
  	    At the conclusion of the sermon, the pastor again came
  	forward, and added the following: —  
27	    My friends, I wished to be excused from speaking
  	to-day, but will yield to circumstances. In the flesh, we
  	are as a partition wall between the old and the new;
30	between the old religion in which we have been educated,
  	and the new, living, impersonal Christ-thought that has
  	been given to the world to-day. 
 
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 1	    The old churches are saying, "He is not here;" and,
  	"Who shall roll away the stone?" 
 3	    The stone has been rolled away by human suffer-
  	ing. The first rightful desire in the hour of loss, when
  	believing we have lost sight of Truth, is to know where
 6	He is laid. This appeal resolves itself into these
  	questions: —  
  	    Is our consciousness in matter or in God? Have we
 9	any other consciousness than that of good? If we have,
  	He is saying to us to-day, "Adam, where art thou?" We
  	are wrong if our consciousness is in sin, sickness, and
12	death. This is the old consciousness. 
  	    In the new religion the teaching is, "He is not here;
  	Truth is not in matter; he is risen; Truth has become
15	more to us, — more true, more spiritual." 
  	    Can we say this to-day? Have we left the conscious-
  	ness of sickness and sin for that of health and
18	holiness? 
  	    What is it that seems a stone between us and the
  	resurrection morning? 
21	    It is the belief of mind in matter. We can only come
  	into the spiritual resurrection by quitting the old con-
  	sciousness of Soul in sense. 
24	    These flowers are floral apostles. God does all this
  	through His followers; and He made every flower in
  	Mind before it sprang from the earth:  yet we look into
27	matter and the earth to give us these smiles of God! 
  	    We must lay aside material consciousness, and then
  	we can perceive Truth, and say with Mary, "Rabboni!" 
30	 — Master! 
  	    In 1866, when God revealed to me this risen Christ,
  	this Life that knows no death, that saith, "Because he
 
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1	lives, I live," I awoke from the dream of Spirit in the
  	flesh so far as to take the side of Spirit, and strive to cease
 3	my warfare. 
  	    When, through this consciousness, I was delivered from
  	the dark shadow and portal of death, my friends were
 6	frightened at beholding me restored to health. 
  	    A dear old lady asked me, "How is it that you are
  	restored to us?  Has Christ come again on earth?" 
 9	    "Christ never left," I replied; "Christ is Truth, and
  	Truth is always here, — the impersonal Saviour." 
  	    Then another person, more material, met me, and I
12	said, in the words of my Master, "Touch me not." I
  	shuddered at her material approach; then my heart went
  	out to God, and I found the open door from this sepulchre
15	of matter. 
  	    I love the Easter service:  it speaks to me of Life, and
  	not of death. 
18	    Let us do our work; then we shall have part in his
  	resurrection. 
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