Chapter 54

 

by Judge Septimus J. Hanna, C.S.D.

 

(Judge Hanna was one of Mrs. Eddy's most trusted students. He held more positions of authority and trust than any other single individual in the establishment of Mrs. Eddy's church.) 

 

"In a letter dated May, 1898, Mrs. Eddy speaks of a vision she had as follows:

 

. . . Twenty-one years ago, when the first revolt took place in our church, I had a vision, and uttered it. We then had no funds, I no salary, and God few followers. In this vision I prophesied great prosperity, plenty of money, blessings numberless, and the utterance was to the Daughter of Zion: 'She shall sit under her own vine and fig tree, and all peoples shall hear her gladly.' That was when I had but one or two loyal students. All had deserted in the darkest hour; the people scorned it, even those I raised instantly from the dream of death would shun me in the street. In 1898 that dear verse in my hall here was suggested to my thought, that for fifty years bad been forgotten. Oh, the goodness and loving kindness of our God! Who can tell it? Oh, the long and still continued nail and spear and 'My God, hast Thou forsaken me?' Oh, the Love that never faileth!

 

Ever lovingly, Mother,

(signed) Mary Baker Eddy

 

Yes, I would publish in Jour. the prophecy you sent.

 

Verse referred to above:

 

Daughter of Zion, awake from thy sadness;

 

Awake! for thy foes shall oppress thee no more;

 

Bright o'er the hills dawns the daystar of gladness;

 

Arise! for the night of thy sorrow is o'er. 

 

The following is written by Judge Septimus J. Hanna, C.S.D. The letters are between Judge Hanna and Mrs. Eddy and deal with an article he wrote for the periodicals.

 

"In 1898 when work had accumulated to such an extent that I wrote Mrs. Eddy for permission to resign some of my places she asked me to adopt a method of relief by taking certain hours each day for self-wotk, during which I was not to be interrupted by anyone for any purpose. She said that had she not adopted such a course she never could have accomplished her work. I did this, and betook myself to the tower of her Commonwealth Avenue residence in Boston, No. 385, which we occupied while I was First Reader of The Mother Church. I called this tower room the 'upper chamber.' While working here I read as a part of my Bible study the 53d and 54th chapters of Isaiah. As I read the latter it came to me almost as a voice speaking that this chapter was as distinctly and literally a prophecy of Mrs. Eddy as was the 53d chapter a prophecy of Jesus. I continued from day to day to study this chapter in this new light. The more I studied the more firm became the conviction that I was not mistaken in my view of it. I was not, as I then felt and as I now see, emotional or ecstatic on this question, but was governed by a deep spiritual sense of the meaning of the prophecy.

 

"Shortly before I began this study a student had sent in to us a little book entitled 'Fragments from the study of a Pastor,' written by the Rev. Gardiner Spring, pastor of the Brick Presbyterian Church of New York City, to which reference is made in an article copied further along. This prophecy of Mr. Spring impressed me as being so in line with the prophecy of Isaiah that I read and studied them together. [see CSJ ]

 

"As a result, I became so imbued with the sense that they both prophesied so distinctly of the Christian Science movement and of Mrs. Eddy that I concluded to prepare an article for publication in our Journal setting forth my convictions, and publishing the 'Church in the Wilderness' in connection with the prophecies of Isaiah. I did so and bad it set in galley proof, but, of course, would not have published my views without submitting them to Mrs. Eddy and having her approval. In the letter above quoted she wrote immediately before the quoted part, these words: 'Yes, the prophecy was wonderful;' then she proceeded to relate her own vision as stated in the letter which I have above quoted. I will now quote from the letters from her in which she referred to my article and the vision of Mr. Spring: (The prophecy of Mr. Spring is printed in full in Vol. XVI of the Christian Science journal, page 230.)

 

"In a letter dated June 10, 1898, Mrs. Eddy said; 'I have not the time to read your article before Laura returns but have seen it enough to say you may have the Vision and the accompanying circumstances at your control. I would make it a leader not editorial.' "To this she added: 'I have read your article 'tis wonderful, sound, lawyer-like in argument. Please if you cast this bread on the water add the bit enclosed after fixing it to your liking. God be with us both and He will, is.'

 

"The following is what Mrs. Eddy added to my article as mentioned in her letter:

 

We know there is but one God, one Christ Jesus, and one mother of Jesus. But we deem it no infringement to regard the fulfillment of scripture as indicated at the present period, and named therein, a self-evident proof thereof-not confined to personality but the works which declare the Word.

 

"The next letter I received relating to the article was dated June 18, 1898, which was as follows:

 

My beloved Student:

 

The time has not yet come in which to say the wonderful things you have written in proof read by me today, unless you qualify it. Now you may hold your ground as therein, but do not say blandly that I represent the second appearing of Christ. That assertion will array mortal mind against us, and M.A.M. has been putting it into your mind to say it, and the infinite Love has inspired you to say it. Now be wiser than a serpent. Throw out your truths not as affirmations or protestations, but as suggestions. Then catch your fish, and make the wrath of man praise HIM.

 

With deep love, (signed) Mother

 

June 22nd she again wrote:

 

Your vision article is too grand, true, to be tampered with. I ventured to send for it to see if it cannot be held together and be the leader, I want it where all will catch sight of it. I write this before Laura will get here. I am so bothered then to get time. Will add all else I wish to tell you after she brings proofs.

 

"Although the last letter indicated permission to proceed with the publication of the entire article (that is the one I wrote and the vision of Mr. Spring) I concluded it best to publish only that of Mr. Spring and the more general part of what I said of the prophecy of Isaiah, deferring the other until a future time and make it a separate article. After this, events in connection with the work and the Woodbury suit, came so thick and fast that there seemed no opportune time to again bring the matter to Mrs. Eddy's attention (which I felt I must do before publishing it), and there it rested. My own conception of the whole matter, however, has not changed and I see it today just as I saw it then, but I see also that neither our own people, as a whole, nor the outside world were ready for the interpretation of Isaiah then made; and I do not know that they are yet ready.

 

"I here quote the article in full: 

 

EDITOR'S TABLE

 

("Editor's Table," as any Christian Scientist knows, was the title of the designated section in the Christian Science Journal that carried the article by the Editor of the Journal.)

 

It has ever been a peculiarity of human nature to relegate prophecy and prophets to the past. It is as much a truism that a prophet is not without honor save in his own age and generation, as that he is not without honor save in his own country. When the great Prophet of Nazareth appeared on the world's arena, teaching as no prophet had taught before him and proving the efficacy of his teaching by the performance of works that no prophet bad performed before him, his age and generation rejected him and his teachings, and refused to believe in the divinity of his works, although compelled to admit that they were wonderful and above all human understanding.

 

It was easy for that age and generation to believe that Moses, Elijah, and many others who had flourished in previous times, were prophets. Their teachings were unquestionably accepted by the Jews as of divine authority. But to believe that there was actually then amongst them a prophet greater than any who had preceded him was more than the blindness of that age and generation was ready for. Only a few would believe and accept; Yet Jesus' coming had long and repeatedly been foretold, and a Messianic appearing was generally expected among the Jews,-the people who, more than any other, refused to receive him.

 

A second-coming is as clearly prophesied as was the first coming. The Old Testament writers foretold it, Jesus plainly prophesied it, and the apostles reiterated these prophecies. The only question among believers in the Bible has been as to the time and manner of the coming. In respect to this there has been and yet is, much disputation, speculation, and controversy. A personal coming is generally believed in, and the only personality that will at present meet the general expectancy of Christendom is the identical personality of Jesus as he appeared nineteen hundred years ago.

 

Only, as yet, a comparatively small part of mankind are ready to accept the larger coming comprehended in a re-establishment of the religious regime which Jesus inaugurated. This small part of mankind are satisfied that the second-coming has commenced and is now manifesting itself in the works which Jesus taught and should be the evidence of the fact that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand. While this coming is, in a sense, general, presaging a universal Kingdom, it is in another sense, individual. There can be no general or universal Kingdom that does not include, first and foremost, the individual. As units make millions and trillions, so individuals make an aggregate. Individuality, therefore, leads to universality. Individuality, in its best sense, includes personality. Not the false personality of mortal sense, but the true personality, which, in its individuality, reflects the Divine character. From this point of view Christian Scientists believe in a personal second-coming.

 

God has ever manifested himself, in large measure, through persons or individuals. Through the Biblical writers, and through Moses, Elijah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and many others, He manifested Himself in a sense above and beyond that of the average of their contemporaries or the generality of those who preceded them. In Christ Jesus He manifested Himself in the largest sense of all and in ways apart from all. Yet, as we have said, notwithstanding the wonderful and striking character of such manifestations, the material perception of that age and generation could not accept them as of God. The "remnant" only could see and accept. It has been so in a relative sense ever since.

 

Christian Scientists see in the non-acceptance of the God-manifestations of today an almost literal repetition of early history. They see a blindness to the signs of the times which compares well with the ancient blindness. So long has the world been adrift from the moorings of a genuinely spiritual Christianity that it is not strange it should continue in its self-mesmerized condition until aroused therefrom by special circumstances or proofs of a higher Christianity brought home to individuals in signs and wonders of healing, and other impressive ways. Until so awakened, the great majority are indifferent to, and incredulous of, the tokens of the second-coming. That thousands are being awakened and are actually accepting the tokens is, nevertheless, indubitable proof that convincing circumstances are constantly taking place. Jesus' saying, "By their fruits ye shall know them," is becoming more and more a verity.

 

Must the "Spirit of Truth," or the "Comforter," that Jesus said should come be personalized or individualized? Undoubtedly. There could be no fulfillment of prophecy otherwise. (Emphasis added.)

 

What, then, in the Christian Science estimate, is the second-coming?

 

First appeared the person or individual. Then followed the works.

 

Who is the personality or individuality manifesting the second-coming?

 

The answer of every true Christian Scientist will be: The person or individual who has done, and is doing, the works, in a sense above and beyond that of the average of those, even, who are addressing themselves to the task of regenerating the race.

 

Is there one such?

 

Christian Scientists unbesitatingly answer, Yes: The Reverend Mary Baker Eddy.

 

Where is the proof?

 

We will produce it. First we go to the Bible. We find our proof in Genesis and Revelation and uniformly between those books.

 

In the declaration in Genesis that God created man in his own image, male and female, we recognize the divine Fatherhood and Motherhood. That Fatherhood and Motherhood must logically express itself in the male and female. Otherwise there were no true, full "image and likeness." That would not be a complete second-coming which did not express the "fulness of the Godhead bodily." In other words, there must be a personalized or individualized expression of the male and female of God's creation before there is a full revelation of God to mankind. How could such an expression reach human conception unless it were manifested in human form?

 

By common belief of all Christians, Christ Jesus represented the male-hood of God. Is it not reasonable to assume that a full or completed revelation includes God's female-hood? If God is male only, it seems that he would embrace within himself but a half of Being or individuality; and it would be impossible to reconcile such a conception with his own declaration in Genesis that out of His self-bood He created "male and female."

 

Christian Scientists believe in a full Godhead; and thus believing they believe also in a full manifestation of that Godhead to humanity. (Therefore they see in Genesis a prophecy of the second-coming in female form. In Revelation they see the finality of prophecy.) To their understanding the Woman in the Apocalypse stands in type for the female of God's creation spoken of in Genesis. They see in spiritual vision or perception the "Spiritual ideal as a woman clothed in (reflecting) light, a bride coming down from Heaven, wedded to the Lamb of Love." (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures). The Apocalypse is indeed a "revelation" to their thought, and in it they see a "new heaven and a new earth," as the new tongue referred to in the Gospel.

 

Must the woman of the apocalypse be personalized or individualized to mankind? By every principle of logical sequence in biblical prophecy, yes. (Emphasis added.)

 

Without undertaking to speak for any but ourself (the writer hereof)[However, do note that Mrs. Eddy gave her full endorsement to publishing this article in the Christian Science Journal as a "lead" article, not an editorial, as mentioned at the beginning of this article.], we read in the 54th chapter of Isaiah a distinct prophecy of the personalized or individualized woman spoken of in Genesis and revealed in the Apocalypse. All Bible commentators and students agree that the 53d chapter of Isaiah is directly prophetic of Jesus in his distinctively personal character. We see in the 54th chapter quite as distinct and direct a prophecy of a Woman. Is there not much significance in the fact that the female representing the second-coming should be thus placed in juxtaposition with the male who represented the first coming?

 

Let us look at this 54th chapter of Isaiab:-"Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break fortb into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saitb the Lord."

 

Mary Baker Eddy had only one son born to her of the flesh, and in his early infancy he was surreptitiously taken from her and for years concealed. He has always lived away from her, and yet so lives, although it was her intense desire that he should be with her and be her child in every sense of the word. What mortal sense would call a strange and unaccountable fate has decreed otherwise, and neither son nor mother seems able to control the conditions which have separated them. She is, therefore, to all intents and purposes without a chiId of the flesh. But what of her other children,-her spiritual children? They are now numbered by the thousands, and their numbers are being augmented with amazing rapidity; and how spontaneously and unanimously have they arisen and called her "Mother!" Long ere the writer had read the 54th chapter of Isaiah as he now reads it, scarcely knowing why, and like unto a little child, he lisped the word "Mother" when he spoke of her. Thousands of others have done so and thousands more are daily doing so. Among the most touching sights that have ever come within our observation has been the childlike simplicity with which full-grown men-great strong men, physically and mentally-have addressed this delicate, sensitive little woman as "Mother". Not in mockery or jest, but in the seriousness of profound conviction. Yea, her adherents call her their Mother and themselves her children as if by common impulsion, and that impulsion is known to them to be above the human.

 

"Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes; for thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited."

 

The text book of Christian Science, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," is but a systematized amplification of the Mosaic Decalogue and the Sermon on the Mount. The teachings of these constitute the groundwork of Christianity. Were they fully understood and practised the Kingdom of Christ would have fully come. To the extent that they are being understood and practised the Kingdom is coming into human consciousness, and the receiving of the Christ-Spirit into human consciousness is the true coming of His Kingdom. Let it always be borne in mind by believers in the Bible that Jesus declared the evidence of the presence of the Kingdom to be the healing of the sick, the casting out of devils, the cleansing of lepers, and the raising of the dead. Certainly these must be the evidences, for, carried to their ultimate effect, they comprehend the complete redemption of the human race.

 

In so far as these evidences are being now brought into view through Christian Science, may it not be consistently claimed that the second-coming is here; and in so far as a single Woman has been the instrument of bringing these evidences into view, may it not be consistently claimed that she is the personal representative of that second-coming? Is there anything far-fetched or unreasonable in this?

 

Spiritualization of thought and action is love of God, and love of God is love of the brother. The cords of this love are being rapidly lengthened through Christian Science; the stakes (solid foundation) of this love are being daily strengthened through practical works; literally are the demonstrators of this Science breaking forth on the right hand and on the left, and it requires not the eye of prophecy to see as the necessary result of this breaking forth that the seed "shall inherit the Gentiles (unbelievers), and make the desolate cities (barren aggregates of human thought) to be inhabited." If Christian Science is at all what it claims to be, this prophecy of Isaiah is even now in process of distinct fulfilment. For the verity of its claims its adherents point with confidence to its works.

 

"Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed: neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to sbame; for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more. For thy Maker is thine husband; the Lord of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called."

 

When we recall the reproaches cast upon Mrs. Eddy because of her widowhood, especially by certain of the clergy, and think upon the irrepressible energy with which the tongue of slander has wagged against her, without any known or apparent reason, it is not strange that we read in the tender words of this prophecy God's purpose to protect his child.

 

Those who are in position to know of the inner life of Mrs. Eddy can most deeply appreciate the last of the above verses. They know that she walks constantly with God, looking to Him for guidance in her every step, and relying upon Him alone for direction in the great religious movement of which she is the head. Deeply was the writer impressed while sitting with her at her dining table in Concord not long since, when in childlike simplicity, yet with deepest seriousness, she said: "I am learning more and more to take God with me into every detail of my life."

 

If it be possible for "a widow," still living on this plane of existence, to make her "Maker her husband," surely that widow is Mrs. Eddy.

 

"For the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God."

 

To those familiar with Mrs. Eddy's life and career this is indeed literal prophecy. None could be more so. Alone, and often, in most trying times, forsaken by all but God, she trod the wine-press of her mighty endeavor, undismayedly yet with "bleeding footsteps," fighting and wrestling and praying against the opposition of the world. A "woman forsaken and grieved in spirit" at times, but rallying quickly in the majesty and might of the Maker who is her husband. And well she might, for, whether she then knew it or not, God had said to her in explicit words,-

 

"For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee."

 

To those who know, has there not been a startling fulfilment of this prophecy? How often by some has that "small moment" been witnessed, and how quickly have they seen the gathering with great mercies.

 

Not less literally have they witnessed the verification of this prophecy:-

 

"In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer."

 

Again:-"For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saitb the Lord that hath mercy on thee."

 

If one who constantly walks with God, who lives the precepts of the Decalogue and the Sermon on the Mount, and who is giving her whole life to the work of enabling others so to live, does not come within these tender assurances, where shalt we find any who do?

 

"O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones. And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children. In righteousness shalt thou be established: thou shalt be far from oppression-for thou shalt not fear: and from terror; for it shall not come near thee . . . No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord."

 

Could there be a more explicit fulfilment of this prophecy than the following, written by Mrs. Eddy to the writer, but with no reference whatever to the use we are now making of it, and not intended for publication at all, until by special request consent was obtained?

 

"Twenty-one years ago, when the first revolt took place in our church, I had a vision and uttered it. We then had no funds, I no salary, and Christian Science few followers. In that vision I prophesied great prosperity, plenty of money, blessings unnumbered, and the utterance was to the 'Daughter of Zion; she shall sit under her own vine and fig tree, and all peoples shall hear her gladly.' That was when I had but one or two loyal students, all had deserted in the darkest hour, the people scorned my teaching, and even those I raised instantly from the door of death would shun me on the street. In 1898 that dear verse in my hall at Concord was suggested to my thought which, for fifty years, had been forgotten:-

 

Daughter of Zion, awake from thy sadness;

 

Awake! for thy foes shall oppress thee no more.

 

Bright o'er thy hills dawns the day-star of gladness-,

 

Arise! for the night of thy sorrow is o'er. 

 

She closes her letter with these words:-

 

Oh, the goodness and loving kindness of our God, who can tell it? Oh, the Love that never faileth!"

 

Millions are now hearing the "Daughter of Zion" gladly. She is sitting under her own vine and fig-tree; God has prospered her and her Cause most bounteously in the financial and every other rightful way; she who was "afflicted, tossed with tempest, and (for a small moment) not comforted," has literally witnessed the rich fulfilment of God's promise to her: "I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones." Literally enough has this promise been redeemed in the material sense, but with overflowing abundance in the spiritual-present and prospective.

 

But what of this material abundance? To no selfish end is it being appropriated. It is fast being converted into the Lord's treasury. Such use is being made of it as would be expected of one who in prophetic vision foresaw "prosperity, plenty of money, and blessings unnumbered," for a sacred Cause.

 

In the April, 1898, Journal, Mrs. Eddy, speaking of the financial problem as she experienced it, says:-

 

"After four years from my discovery of Christian Science, while taking no remuneration for my labors, and healing all manner of diseases, I was confronted with the fact of no monetary means left wherewith to hire a hall in which to speak, or to establish a Christian Science Home for indigent students (which I yearned to do), or even to meet my own current expenses, and halted from necessity.

 

I had cast my all into the treasury of Truth, but where were the means with which to carry on a Cause? To desert the Cause never occurred to me, but nobody then wanted Christian Science, nor gave it a half penny. Though sorely oppressed I was above begging, and knew well the priceless worth of what had been bestowed without money or price. Just then God stretched forth His hand. He it was that bade me do what I did, and it prospered at every step . . . It was thus that I earned the means wherewith to start a Christian Science Home for the poor worthy student, to establish a Metaphysical College, to plant our first magazine, to purchase the site for a church edifice, to give my church the Christian Science Journal, and to keep the 'wolves in sheep's clothing,' from preying upon my pearls, from clogging the wheels of Christian Science."

 

The donation of the valuable lot of ground to The Mother Church in Boston, liberal aid to the erection of the church building, countless contributions to indigent students and to charitable purposes outside our ranks, a score of contributions to branch churches and societies for building and other purposes, the transfer in toto of the Publishing Society with all its property, prerequisites, and prospects, as well as her valuable residence on Commonwealth Avenue, to The Mother Church in perpetuity, and her latest donation in trust of four thousand dollars to the children of Scientists or "Busy Bee's,"-these are some of the evidences of the sense in which this Daughter of Zion is sitting under her own vine and fig-tree and dispensing the wine of Life and the figs of Love to hungering and thirsting humanity.

 

This God-fearing, God-loving, and God-reflecting woman truly is witnessing the re-assuring and unmistakable evidences that her children are being "taught of the Lord." She can easily foresee that when they shall have imbibed and practised the fulness of such teaching "Great will be the peace" of her "children."

 

Has not this Daughter of Zion also witnessed the fulfilment of this promise of God: "No weapon that is formed against tbee shall prosper"?

 

Every form of opposition has been made against her and her teaching possible to humanity, saving only attempts to murder her in the ordinary or physical sense. The mental assassin has exhausted his ingenuity and resources in his vain efforts. But no weapon raised against her has prospered. Grandly and majestically has her work gone on, and mightily has it prospered. So much so that it is challenging the wonder and awe of the millions.

 

We shall not stop to enlarge upon the "mighty works." They are becoming well known and widely recognized. Read of some of them in this Journal, and in the newspapers and magazines of the country. Hear of them in the weekly testimonial meetings. Hear how thousands have been raised from beds of sorrow, sickness, and pain, to joy, and health, and hope; how despairing sinners have been aroused from the lethargy of hades to a sense of their manhood in Christ Jesus and their childhood in God; how agnostics have become unquestioning believers in the Divine power to heal and save; how atheists have come to know that God is, and that in Him they live, and move, and have their being; how infidels have been reclaimed from all unbelief; how sceptics have become convinced by proof they could no longer dispute; how drunkards have been redeemed from hells of woe and made to rejoice in freedom from their dread tormentor; how licentiates and libertines have been made to blush for their sins and turned toward abstinence and purity; how dishonesty is being made to quail and cringe before the majesty of Truth and Right; how hate and selfishness are being supplanted by self-sacrifice and love; how all the blighting and damning qualities of human thought are being uprooted and destroyed to the purification and spiritualization of such thought; and how those who have only recently been the unhappy victims of some or all of these death-dealing trammels are now proving their disenthralment by healing their neighbors of sickness and pointing the way to their salvation from sin, whilst healer and healed, saver and saved, are alike coming into the temple of the New Jerusalem, literally "leaping and sbouting, and praising God."

 

Observe too, how rapidly beautiful and stately church edifices, reared in the name of, and dedicated to, the God of the living, not of the dead, are springing into existence all over our land; how one common sermon, compiled from the Eternal Word, is preached in more than five hundred places in this country, England, and the Continental countries each recurring Sabbath, while the number is being almost weekly added to; how reading, and hearing these sermons read, are healing sickness and awakening sinners every Sabbath day; how the reading of the Bible and the books whose writing was divinely entrusted to the "Woman's" hand, is daily healing sickness and saving sinners; how the Spirit of God, through these manifold instrumentalities, is indeed moving upon the face of the troubled waters of mortal discord to the calming thereof, and how the Light whereof God said, Let it be, and it was, is shining athwart the world's horizon and glinting into the darkest recesses of mortal thougbt, observe and think upon all this, and say: Is not "this the heritage of the servants of the Lord," and is not "their righteousness" of him?

 

While, in the foregoing, we plainly see the Woman, as in other Scripture we see the Man, we look beyond all personality and as plainly see the Male and Female,-the universal Manhood and Womanhood comprehended in the Divine scheme,-and know that the ideal Manhood and Womanhood of God's Word personally typified as we have shown, is,-must in the Divine order be,-the heritage of every son and daughter of God's creating; and He created all.

 

Hence we recognize personality in type only that we may thereby understand the unified Individuality of Father and Son, and Mother and Daughter, in the fulness of that Godhead whose second-coming is upon us, wherein we see "a new Heaven and a new earth." We see the man who was "despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief . . . oppressed and afflicted;" and we see also the Man of whom God said: "Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death; and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sins of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." (Isaiah, 53).

 

We see also the woman of travail, spoken of in Isaiah, as before shown, and of whom God further spake in Jeremiah, 4: "For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, and the anguish as of her that bringeth forth her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, that bewaileth herself, that spreadeth her hands, saying, Woe is me now! for my soul is wearied because of murderers;" and we see also the Woman of whom God said: "Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children" (Isaiah, 66). "Behold, the Lord bath proclaimed unto the end of the world, Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, tby salvation cometh" (Isaiah, 62). And we read of the man and woman: "For your shame ye shall have double; and for confusion they shall rejoice in their portion: therefore in their hand shall they possess the double: everlasting joy shall be unto them . . . And I will direct their work in truth, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. And their seed shall be known among the Gentiles, and their offspring among the people: all that see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed" (Isaiah, 61).

 

By way of epilogue to this effort to "render tribute where tribute is due," and, in some small part, meet the imperative demands of the history of our times, we present herewith what seems to us a remarkable prophecy; a prophecy in direct line with the Scripture prophecies to which we have above referred. Nor let us sneer at the author's claim that this prophecy came to him as a vision and by apparently supernatural means. Until we know more of God and his methods let us withhold our feeble, finite judgement,-unless we are ready to acknowledge that God does, in these latter days, speak to His faithful ones through vision and voice as He did of old. We refer to an article entitled, "The Church in the Wilderness," contained in a little book written in 1838 by the Rev. Gardiner Spring, Pastor of the Brick Presbyterian Church of New York, the work itself being entitled, "Fragments from the Study of a Pastor."

 

We should like to make some comments on this, to us wonderful article, but space will not permit. Let it be observed, however, that some of the Scriptural quotations are from the 54th of Isaiah.

 

It may be interesting to know how this somewhat ancient little book came to light at this particular time, and we will mention how.

 

A faithful student of Mrs. Eddy's sent it [to] us, saying:-

 

"I would like to tell you how the book came into my bands. It is interesting to know how it came to light. Two years ago last winter I was living in furnished house which I rented of a dear friend. There was in the house a large number of books which once belonged to an old uncle. I used to sit by a window when reading; close to this window stood a small bookcase filled mostly with small old books. Two or three times, perhaps oftener, when sitting there the thought came, I wonder if there is not something among those books that would give light on the Bible, or explain its truth, and would say, Sometime I will look the books over. One morning I was sorely tempted; after the morning's work was finished I sat down with Science and Health to dispel the seeming error. I had read but a short time when the thought again came that there might be something in the bookcase of value. I looked at the books, took one out; the first or second-I cannot remember which was 'The Church in the Wilderness.' I commenced reading in the middle of the chapter, but the little I read healed me. The next day as soon as I returned from church I read the whole chapter. I then invited the students up to read it. When I read it a year from that time I saw far more than at first.

 

"I am filled with gratitude that I reflected God sufficiently to bring to light this marvelous history of the appearing of Truth. It helped me to realize what our Mother is, as never before, for I knew I was reading of her experiences. Also those of The Mother Church."

 

The "Mother Church" is the material expression of that church universal implied in the second-coming; but we ask, in all sincerity, could that Church have been thus expressed but for the labor, toil, and self-sacrificing devotion of the Daughter of Zion to whom its building was entrusted?

 

The prophet Isaiah clearly saw the personalized Woman. The Bible commentators, not discerning the fact of a female appearing as the type of the second-coming, naturally enough saw in Isaiah's prophecy only the Church of Christ, apart from any particular person.

 

Christian Scientists recognize in the material structure, called "The Mother Church" The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass., with its branches throughout the world, the type of the second-coming of the Christ, or the final and universal application of the Christ-Principle. They also recognize in the Founder of this Church the typical embodiment in human form of the female of God's creation prophesied in Scripture. 

 

End

 

If you do not agree with this article, the conclusions drawn, one must, if they are a Christian Scientist, study to understand, not from a sense of mortal personality but from the summit of spiritual sense and inspiration, why our Leader was so emphatic in her support of Judge Hanna's conclusions. The next thing one must ask is why this has been hidden from Christian Scientists for so long, along with other reminiscences and biographies that confirm this same understanding.