0.0 – Christian Science Publication Contents

                  Chapter XVI 

  	                              TRIBUTES 

1	                          [New York Mail and Express] 
      
            MONUMENT TO BARON AND BARONESS DE HIRSCH

	
3	    The movement to erect a monument to the late
  	Baron and Baroness de Hirsch enlists my hearty
  	sympathy. They were unquestionably used in a re-
 6	markable degree as instruments of divine Love. 
  	    Divine Love reforms, regenerates, giving to human
  	weakness strength, serving as admonition, instruction, and
 9	governing all that really is. Divine Love is the noumenon
  	and phenomenon, the Principle and practice of divine
  	metaphysics. Love talked and not lived is a poor shift
12	for the weak and worldly. Love lived in a court or cot
  	is God exemplified, governing governments, industries,
  	human rights, liberty, life. 
15	    In love for man we gain the only and true sense of love
  	for God, practical good, and so rise and still rise to His
  	image and likeness, and are made partakers of that Mind
18	whence springs the universe. 
  	    Philanthropy is loving, ameliorative, revolutionary; it
  	wakens lofty desires, new possibilities, achievements, and
21	energies; it lays the axe at the root of the tree that
  	bringeth not forth good fruit; it touches thought to
  	spiritual issues, systematizes action, and insures success;
 
                                                                 Miscellany                               288


1	it starts the wheels o...f right reason, revelation, justice, and
  	mercy; it unselfs men and pushes on the ages. Love
 3	unfolds marvellous good and uncovers hidden evil. The
  	philanthropist or reformer gives little thought to self-
  	defence; his life's incentive and sacrifice need no apology. 
 6	The good done and the good to do are his ever-present
  	reward. 
  	    Love for mankind is the elevator of the human race;
 9	it demonstrates Truth and reflects divine Love. Good is
  	divinely natural. Evil is unnatural; it has no origin in
  	the nature of God, and He is the Father of all. 
12	    The great Galilean Prophet was, is, the reformer of re-
  	formers. His piety partook not of the travesties of human
  	opinions, pagan mysticisms, tribal religion, Greek phi-
15	losophy, creed, dogma, or materia medica. The divine
  	Mind was his only instrumentality in religion or medi-
  	cine. The so-called laws of matter he eschewed; with
18	him matter was not the auxiliary of Spirit. He never
  	appealed to matter to perform the functions of Spirit,
  	divine Love. 
21	    Jesus cast out evil, disease, death, showing that all
  	suffering is commensurate with sin; therefore, he cast
  	out devils and healed the sick. He showed that every
24	effect or amplification of wrong will revert to the wrong-
  	doer; that sin punishes itself; hence his saying, "Sin
  	no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee." Love
27	atones for sin through love that destroys sin. His rod
  	is love. 
  	    We cannot remake ourselves, but we can make the
30	best of what God has made. We can know that all is
  	good because God made all, and that evil is not a
  	fatherly grace. 
 
                                              Tributes to Queen Victoria            289


1	    All education is work. The thing most important is
  	what we do, not what we say. God's open secret is seen
 3	through grace, truth, and love. 
  	    I enclose a check for five hundred dollars for the
  	De Hirsch monument fund. 


 6	                   TRIBUTES  TO  QUEEN  VICTORIA 

  	MR. WILLIAM B. JOHNSON, C.S.B., Clerk 

  	    Beloved Student: — I deem it proper that The Mother
 9	Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, the
  	first church of Christian Science known on earth, should
  	upon this solemn occasion congregate; that a special meet-
12	ing of its First Members convene for the sacred purpose of
  	expressing our deep sympathy with the bereaved nation,
  	its loss and the world's loss, in the sudden departure of
15	the late lamented Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and
  	Empress of India, — long honored, revered, beloved. 
  	"God save the Queen" is heard no more in England, but
18	this shout of love lives on in the heart of millions. 
  	                                             
                                                With love,

  	                                                  MARY BAKER EDDY 

21	PLEASANT VIEW, CONCORD, N. H.,
  	                 January 27, 1901 


  	    It being inconvenient for me to attend the memorial
24	meeting in the South Congregational church on Sunday
  	evening, February 3, I herewith send a few words of con-
  	dolence, which may be read on that tender occasion. 
27	    I am interested in a meeting to be held in the capi-
  	tal of my native State in memoriam of the late lamented
  	Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Empress of India. 
 
                                                                 Miscellany                               290


 1	It betokens a love and a loss felt by the strong hearts
  	of New England and the United States. When contem-
 3	plating this sudden international bereavement, the near
  	seems afar, the distant nigh, and the tried and true seem
  	few. The departed Queen's royal and imperial honors
 6	lose their lustre in the tomb, but her personal virtues can
  	never be lost. Those live on in the affection of nations. 
  	    Few sovereigns have been as venerable, revered, and
 9	beloved as this noble woman, born in 1819, married in
  	1840, and deceased the first month of the new century. 


  	                        LETTER  TO  MRS.  McKINLEY 

12	    My Dear Mrs. McKinley: — My soul reaches out to God
  	for your support, consolation, and victory. Trust in Him
  	whose love enfolds thee. "Thou wilt keep him in perfect
15	peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee:  because he trusteth
  	in Thee." "Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee." 
  	Divine Love is never so near as when all earthly joys seem
18	most afar. 
  	    Thy tender husband, our nation's chief magistrate, has
  	passed earth's shadow into Life's substance. Through
21	a momentary mist he beheld the dawn. He awaits to
  	welcome you where no arrow wounds the eagle soaring,
  	where no partings are for love, where the high and holy
24	call you again to meet. 
  	    "I knew that Thou hearest me always," are the words of
  	him who suffered and subdued sorrow. Hold this attitude
27	of mind, and it will remove the sackcloth from thy home. 
  	                                               
                                                With love,

  	                                                  MARY BAKER EDDY 

30	PLEASANT VIEW, CONCORD, N. H.,
  	              September 14, 1901 

 
                                Tribute to President McKinley                   291


 1	            TRIBUTE  TO  PRESIDENT  McKINLEY 

  	    Imperative, accumulative, holy demands rested on the
 3	life and labors of our late beloved President, William
  	McKinley. Presiding over the destinies of a nation
  	meant more to him than a mere rehearsal of aphorisms,
 6	a uniting of breaches soon to widen, a quiet assent or dis-
  	sent. His work began with heavy strokes, measured
  	movements, reaching from the infinitesimal to the
 9	infinite. It began by warming the marble of politics
  	into zeal according to wisdom, quenching the vol-
  	canoes of partizanship, and uniting the interests of all
12	peoples; and it ended with a universal good overcoming
  	evil. 
  	    His home relations enfolded a wealth of affection, — a
15	tenderness not talked but felt and lived. His humanity,
  	weighed in the scales of divinity, was not found wanting. 
  	His public intent was uniform, consistent, sympathetic,
18	and so far as it fathomed the abyss of difficulties was
  	wise, brave, unselfed. May his history waken a tone
  	of truth that shall reverberate, renew euphony, empha-
21	size humane power, and bear its banner into the vast
  	forever. 
  	    While our nation's ensign of peace and prosperity
24	waves over land and sea, while her reapers are strong,
  	her sheaves garnered, her treasury filled, she is suddenly
  	stricken, — called to mourn the loss of her renowned
27	leader! Tears blend with her triumphs. She stops to
  	think, to mourn, yea, to pray, that the God of harvests
  	send her more laborers, who, while they work for their
30	own country, shall sacredly regard the liberty of other
  	peoples and the rights of man. 
  
                                                                 Miscellany                               292


1	    What cannot love and righteousness achieve for the
  	race? All that can be accomplished, and more than his-
 3	tory has yet recorded. All good that ever was written,
  	taught, or wrought comes from God and human faith in
  	the right. Through divine Love the right government is
 6	assimilated, the way pointed out, the process shortened,
  	and the joy of acquiescence consummated. May God
  	sanctify our nation's sorrow in this wise, and His rod
 9	and His staff comfort the living as it did the departing. 
  	O may His love shield, support, and comfort the chief
  	mourner at the desolate home! 


12	                                 POWER  OF  PRAYER 

  	    My answer to the inquiry, "Why did Christians of every
  	sect in the United States fail in their prayers to save
15	the life of President McKinley," is briefly this:  Insuffi-
  	cient faith or spiritual understanding, and a compound of
  	prayers in which one earnest, tender desire works uncon-
18	sciously against the modus operandi of another, would
  	prevent the result desired. In the June, 1901, Message
  	to my church in Boston, I refer to the effect of one
21	human desire or belief unwittingly neutralizing another,
  	though both are equally sincere. 
  	    In the practice of materia medica, croton oil is not mixed
24	with morphine to remedy dysentery, for those drugs are
  	supposed to possess opposite qualities and so to produce
  	opposite effects. The spirit of the prayer of the righteous
27	heals the sick, but this spirit is of God, and the divine
  	Mind is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever; where-
  	as the human mind is a compound of faith and doubt,
30	of fear and hope, of faith in truth and faith in error. 
 
                                                       Power of Prayer                            293


 1	The knowledge that all things are possible to God ex-
  	cludes doubt, but differing human concepts as to the
 3	divine power and purpose of infinite Mind, and the so-
  	called power of matter, act as the different properties of
  	drugs are supposed to act — one against the other — and
 6	this compound of mind and matter neutralizes itself. 
  	    Our lamented President, in his loving acquiescence,
  	believed that his martyrdom was God's way. Hun-
 9	dreds, thousands of others believed the same, and hun-
  	dreds of thousands who prayed for him feared that the
  	bullet would prove fatal. Even the physicians may have
12	feared this. 
  	    These conflicting states of the human mind, of trembling
  	faith, hope, and of fear, evinced a lack of the absolute
15	understanding of God's omnipotence, and thus they pre-
  	vented the power of absolute Truth from reassuring the
  	mind and through the mind resuscitating the body of
18	the patient. 
  	    The divine power and poor human sense — yea, the spirit
  	and the flesh — struggled, and to mortal sense the flesh pre-
21	vailed. Had prayer so fervently offered possessed no
  	opposing element, and President McKinley's recovery
  	been regarded as wholly contingent on the power of God,
24	 — on the power of divine Love to overrule the pur-
  	poses of hate and the law of Spirit to control matter, — 
  	the result would have been scientific, and the patient
27	would have recovered. 
  	    St. Paul writes: "For the law of the Spirit of life in
  	Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and
30	death." And the Saviour of man saith: "What things
  	soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive
  	them, and ye shall have them." Human governments
 
                                                                 Miscellany                               294


 1	maintain the right of the majority to rule. Christian
  	Scientists are yet in a large minority on the subject of
 3	divine metaphysics; but they improve the morals and the
  	lives of men, and they heal the sick on the basis that God
  	has all power, is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent,
 6	supreme over all. 
  	    In a certain city the Master "did not many mighty
  	works there because of their unbelief," — because of the
 9	mental counteracting elements, the startled or the un-
  	righteous contradicting minds of mortals. And if he were
  	personally with us to-day, he would rebuke whatever
12	accords not with a full faith and spiritual knowledge of
  	God. He would mightily rebuke a single doubt of the
  	ever-present power of divine Spirit to control all the con-
15	ditions of man and the universe. 
  	    If the skilful surgeon or the faithful M.D. is not dis-
  	mayed by a fruitless use of the knife or the drug, has not
18	the Christian Scientist with his conscious understanding
  	of omnipotence, in spite of the constant stress of the
  	hindrances previously mentioned, reason for his faith in
21	what is shown him by God's works? 


  	   ON  THE  DEATH  OF  POPE  LEO  XIII, J ULY 20, 1903 

  	    The sad, sudden announcement of the decease of Pope
24	Leo XIII, touches the heart and will move the pen of
  	millions. The intellectual, moral, and religious energy
  	of this illustrious pontiff have animated the Church of
27	Rome for one quarter of a century. The august ruler
  	of two hundred and fifty million human beings has now
  	passed through the shadow of death into the great forever. 
30	The court of the Vatican mourns him; his relatives
  	shed "the unavailing tear." He is the loved and lost
 
                                                      A Benediction                                295


 1	of many millions. I sympathize with those who mourn,
  	but rejoice in knowing our dear God comforts such with
 3	the blessed assurance that life is not lost; its influence
  	remains in the minds of men, and divine Love holds
  	its substance safe in the certainty of immortality. 
 6	"In Him was life; and the life was the light of men."
  	(John 1 : 4.) 


  	                  A  TRIBUTE  TO  THE  BIBLE 

 9	LETTER OF THANKS FOR THE GIFT OF A COPY OF MARTIN LUTHER'S
  	     TRANSLATION INTO GERMAN OF THE BIBLE, PRINTED IN NUREM-
  	      BERG IN 1733 

12	    Dear Student: — I am in grateful receipt of your time-
  	worn Bible in German. This Book of books is also the
  	gift of gifts; and kindness in its largest, profoundest
15	sense is goodness. It was kind of you to give it to me. 
  	I thank you for it. 
  	    Christian Scientists are fishers of men. The Bible is
18	our sea-beaten rock. It guides the fishermen. It stands
  	the storm. It engages the attention and enriches the
  	being of all men. 


21	                                     A BENEDICTION 
  	                                    [Copy of Cablegram] 

  	COUNTESS OF DUNMORE AND FAMILY,
24	          55 Lancaster Gate, West, London, England 

  	    Divine Love is your ever-present help. You, I, and
  	mankind have cause to lament the demise of Lord Dun-
27	more; but as the Christian Scientist, the servant of God
  	and man, he still lives, loves, labors. 

  	                                                   MARY BAKER EDDY 

30	PLEASANT VIEW, CONCORD, N. H.,
  	                 August 31, 1907 

 
                                                                 Miscellany                               296


1	       HON. CLARENCE A. BUSKIRK'S LECTURE 

  	    The able discourse of our "learned judge," his flash of
 3	flight and insight, lays the axe "unto the root of the
  	trees," and shatters whatever hinders the Science of
  	being. 
 6	                                        MARY BAKER EDDY 
  	Pleasant View, Concord, N. H.,
  	October 14, 1907 


 9	"HEAR, O ISRAEL" 

  	    The late lamented Christian Scientist brother and the
  	publisher of my books, Joseph Armstrong, C.S.D., is not
12	dead, neither does he sleep nor rest from his labors in
  	divine Science; and his works do follow him. Evil has no
  	power to harm, to hinder, or to destroy the real spiritual
15	man. He is wiser to-day, healthier and happier, than
  	yesterday. The mortal dream of life, substance, or mind
  	in matter, has been lessened, and the reward of good
18	and punishment of evil and the waking out of his Adam-
  	dream of evil will end in harmony, — evil powerless, and
  	God, good, omnipotent and infinite. 
21	
  	                                                   MARY BAKER EDDY 

30	PLEASANT VIEW, CONCORD, N. H.,
  	December 10, 1907 


24	MISS CLARA BARTON 

  	    In the New York American, January 6, 1908, Miss
  	Clara Barton dipped her pen in my heart, and traced its
27	emotions, motives, and object. Then, lifting the curtains
  	of mortal mind, she depicted its rooms, guests, standing
  	and seating capacity, and thereafter gave her discovery
 
                                                Mrs. Eddy’s History                             297


 1	to the press. Now if Miss Barton were not a venerable
  	soldier, patriot, philanthropist, moralist, and states-
 3	woman, I should shrink from such salient praise. But
  	in consideration of all that Miss Barton really is,
  	and knowing that she can bear the blows which may
 6	follow said description of her soul-visit, I will say, Amen,
  	so be it. 
  	
  	                                                   MARY BAKER EDDY 

30	PLEASANT VIEW, CONCORD, N. H.,
  	January 10, 1908 


  	THERE IS NO DEATH 

12	    A suppositional gust of evil in this evil world is the
  	dark hour that precedes the dawn. This gust blows
  	away the baubles of belief, for there is in reality no evil,
15	no disease, no death; and the Christian Scientist who
  	believes that he dies, gains a rich blessing of disbelief in
  	death, and a higher realization of heaven. 
18	    My beloved Edward A. Kimball, whose clear, correct
  	teaching of Christian Science has been and is an inspira-
  	tion to the whole field, is here now as veritably as when
21	he visited me a year ago. If we would awaken to this
  	recognition, we should see him here and realize that he
  	never died; thus demonstrating the fundamental truth
24	of Christian Science. 
  	                                                  MARY BAKER EDDY 


  	                           MRS.  EDDY'S  HISTORY 

27	    I have not had sufficient interest in the matter to read
  	or to note from others' reading what the enemies of
  	Christian Science are said to be circulating regarding my
30	history, but my friends have read Sibyl Wilbur's book,
 
                                                                 Miscellany                               298


 1	"The Life of Mary Baker Eddy," and request the privi-
  	lege of buying, circulating, and recommending it to the
 3	public. I briefly declare that nothing has occurred in my
  	life's experience which, if correctly narrated and under-
  	stood, could injure me; and not a little is already re-
 6	ported of the good accomplished therein, the self-sacrifice,
  	etc., that has distinguished all my working years. 
  	    I thank Miss Wilbur and the Concord Publishing Com-
 9	pany for their unselfed labors in placing this book before
  	the public, and hereby say that they have my permission
  	to publish and circulate this work. 

12	                                                            MARY BAKER EDDY
Read more