OTHER PUBLISHED WRITINGS OF MARY BAKER EDDY

Christian Science

versus

Pantheism

Mary Baker Eddy

Pastor Emeritus of The First Church of Christ, Scientist

Boston, and Author of Science and Health

with Key to the Scriptures

Published by the

Trustees under the Will of Mary Baker G. Eddy

Boston, U.S.A.

By Mary Baker G. Eddy

____________

Printed in the United States of America

Christian Science versus Pantheism

1 PASTOR'S MESSAGE TO THE MOTHER

CHURCH, ON THE OCCASION OF THE

JUNE COMMUNION, 1898

SUBJECT: Not Pantheism, but Christian Science

BELOVED brethren, since last you gathered at the

6 feast of our Passover, the winter winds have come

and gone; the rushing winds of March have shrieked and

hummed their hymns; the frown and smile of April, the

laugh of May, have fled; and the roseate blush of joyous

June is here and ours.

In unctuous unison with nature, mortals are hoping and

12 working, putting off outgrown, wornout, or soiled gar-

ments - the pleasures and pains of sensation and the

sackcloth of waiting - for the springtide of Soul. For

15 what a man seeth he hopeth not for, but hopeth for what

he hath not seen, and waiteth patiently the appearing

thereof. The night is far spent, and day is not distant in

the horizon of Truth - even the day when all people

shall know and acknowledge one God and one Christianity.

Page 2

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE NOT PANTHEISM

At this period of enlightenment, a declaration from the

3 pulpit that Christian Science is pantheism is anomalous to

those who know whereof they speak - who know that

Christian Science is Science, and therefore is neither

6 hypothetical nor dogmatical, but demonstrable, and

looms above the mists of pantheism higher than Mt.

Ararat above the deluge.

ANALYSIS OF "PANTHEISM"

According to Webster the word "pantheism" is de-

rived from two Greek words meaning "all" and "god."

12 Webster's derivation of the English word "pantheism" is

most suggestive. His uncapitalized word "god" gives

the meaning of pantheism as a human opinion of "gods

15 many," or mind in matter. "The doctrine that the uni-

verse, conceived of as a whole, is God; that there is no

God but the combined forces and laws which are mani-

fested in the existing universe."

The Standard Dictionary has it that pantheism is the

doctrine of the deification of natural causes, conceived as

one personified nature, to which the religious sentiment is

directed.

Pan is a Greek prefix, but it might stand, in the term

pantheism, for the mythological deity of that name; and

theism for a belief concerning Deity in theology. How-

ever, Pan in imagery is preferable to pantheism in theology.

Page 3

1 The mythical deity may please the fancy, while pantheism

suits not at all the Christian sense of religion. Pan, as a

3 deity, is supposed to preside over sylvan solitude, and is a

horned and hoofed animal, half goat and half man, that

poorly presents the poetical phase of the genii of forests.(1)

6 My sense of nature's rich glooms is, that loneness lacks

but one charm to make it half divine - a friend, with

whom to whisper, "Solitude is sweet." Certain moods

9 of mind find an indefinable pleasure in stillness, soft,

silent as the storm's sudden hush; for nature's stillness

is voiced with a hum of harmony, the gentle murmur of

early morn, the evening's closing vespers, and lyre of bird

and brooklet.

"O sacred solitude! divine retreat!

15 Choice of the prudent! envy of the great!

By thy pure stream, or in thy evening shade,

We court fair wisdom, that celestial maid."

18 Theism is the belief in the personality and infinite mind

of one supreme, holy, self-existent God, who reveals Him-

self supernaturally to His creation, and whose laws are

not reckoned as science. In religion, it is a belief in one

God, or in many gods. It is opposed to atheism and

(1) In Roman mythology (one of my girlhood studies), Pan stood

24 for "universal nature proceeding from the divine Mind and provi-

dence, of which heaven, earth, sea, the eternal fire, are so many mem-

bers." Pan was the god of shepherds and hunters, leader of the

27 nymphs, president of the mountains, patron of country life, and guar-

dian of flocks and herds. His pipe of seven reeds denotes the celestial

harmony of the seven planets; his shepherd's crook, that care and

providence by which he governs the universe; his spotted skin, the

stars; his goat's feet, the solidity of the earth; his man-face, the

celestial world.

Page 4

1 monotheism, but agrees with certain forms of pantheism

and polytheism. It is the doctrine that the universe owes

3 its origin and continuity to the reason, intellect, and will of

a self-existent divine Being, who possesses all wisdom,

goodness, and power, and is the creator and preserver of

man.

A theistic theological belief may agree with physics and

anatomy that reason and will are properly classified as

9 mind, located in the brain; also, that the functions of

these faculties depend on conditions of matter, or brain,

for their proper exercise. But reason and will are human;

12 God is divine. In academics and in religion it is patent

that will is capable of use and of abuse, of right and wrong

action, while God is incapable of evil; that brain is matter,

15 and that there are many so-called minds; that He is the

creator of man, but that man also is a creator, making

two creators; but God is Mind and one.

GOD - NOT HUMAN DEVICES - THE PRESERVER

OF MAN

God, Spirit, is indeed the preserver of man. Then, in

21 the words of the Hebrew singer, "Why art thou cast down,

O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope

thou in God: for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health

24 of my countenance, and my God. . . . Who forgiveth

all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases." This

being the case, what need have we of drugs, hygiene, and

medical therapeutics, if these are not man's preservers?

By admitting self-evident affirmations and then contra-

Page 5

1 dicting them, monotheism is lost and pantheism is found

in scholastic theology. Can a single quality of God,

Spirit, be discovered in matter? The Scriptures plainly

declare, "The Word was God;" and "all things were

made by Him," - the Word. What, then, can matter

create, or how can it exist?

JESUS' DEFINITION OF EVIL

Did God create evil? or is evil self-existent, and so

9 possessed of the nature of God, good? Since evil is not

self-made, who or what hath made evil? Our Master

gave the proper answer for all time to this hoary query.

12 He said of evil: "Ye are of your father, the devil, and the

lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from

the beginning, and abode not in the truth [God], because

15 here is no truth [reality] in him [evil] . When he speaketh

a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father

of it [a lie]."

18 Jesus' definition of devil (evil) explains evil. It shows

that evil is both liar and lie, a delusion and illusion. There-

fore we should neither believe the lie, nor believe that it

21 hath embodiment or power; in other words, we should

not believe that a lie, nothing, can be something, but deny

it and prove its falsity. After this manner our Master cast

24 out evil, healed the sick, and saved sinners. Knowing

that evil is a lie, and, as the Scripture declares, brought

sin, sickness, and death into the world, Jesus treated the

lie summarily. He denied it, cast it out of mortal mind,

and thus healed sickness and sin. His treatment of evil

Page 6

1 and disease, Science will restore and establish, - first,

because it was more effectual than all other means; and,

second, because evil and disease will never disappear in

any other way.

Finally, brethren, let us continue to denounce evil as the

6 illusive claim that God is not supreme, and continue to

fight it until it disappears, - but not as one that beateth

the mist, but lifteth his head above it and putteth his foot

upon a lie.

EVIL, AS PERSONIFIED BY THE SERPENT

Mosaic theism introduces evil, first, in the form of a

12 talking serpent, contradicting the word of God and thereby

obtaining social prestige, a large following, and changing

the order and harmony of God's creation. But the higher

15 criticism is not satisfied with this theism, and asks, If God

is infinite good, what and where is evil? And if Spirit

made all that was made, how can matter be an intelligent

18 creator or coworker with God? Again: Did one Mind,

or two minds, enter into the Scriptural allegory, in the

colloquy between good and evil, God and a serpent? - and

21 if two minds, what becomes of theism in Christianity? For

if God, good, is Mind, and evil also is mind, the Christian

religion has at least two Gods. If Spirit is sovereign, how

can matter be force or law; and if God, good, is omnipo-

tent, what power hath evil?

It is plain that elevating evil to the altitude of mind gives

it power, and that the belief in more than one spirit, if

Page 7

1 Spirit, God, is infinite, breaketh the First Commandment

in the Decalogue.

3 Science shows that a plurality of minds, or intelligent

matter, signifies more than one God, and thus prevents the

demonstration that the healing Christ, Truth, gave and

gives in proof of the omnipotence of one divine, infinite

Principle.

Does not the theism or belief, that after God, Spirit, had

9 created all things spiritually, a material creation took

place, and God, the preserver of man, declared that man

should die, lose the character and sovereignty of Jehovah,

and hint the gods of paganism?

THEISTIC RELIGIONS

We know of but three theistic religions, the Mosaic, the

15 Christian, and the Mohammedan. Does not each of these

religions mystify the absolute oneness and infinity of God,

Spirit?

18 A close study of the Old and New Testaments in con-

nection with the original text indicates, in the third chap-

ter of Genesis, a lapse in the Mosaic religion, wherein

21 theism seems meaningless, or a vague apology for con-

tradictions. It certainly gives to matter and evil reality

and power, intelligence and law, which implies Mind,

Spirit, God; and the logical sequence of this error is idol-

atry - other gods.

Again: The hypothesis of mind in matter, or more than

one Mind, lapses into evil dominating good, matter govern-

ing Mind, and makes sin, disease, and death inevitable,

Page 8

1 despite of Mind, or by the consent of Mind! Next, it

follows that the disarrangement of matter causes a man to

3 be mentally deranged; and the Babylonian sun god, moon

god, and sin god find expression in sun worship, lunacy,

sin, and mortality.

6 Does not the belief that Jesus, the man of Galilee, is

God, imply two Gods, one the divine, infinite Person, the

other a human finite personality? Does not the belief

9 that Mary was the mother of God deny the self-existence

of God? and does not the doctrine that Mohammed is

the only prophet of God infringe the sacredness of one

Christ Jesus?

SCIENTIFIC CHRISTIANITY MEANS ONE GOD

Christianity, as taught and demonstrated in the first

15 century by our great Master, virtually annulled the so-

called laws of matter, idolatry, pantheism, and polytheism.

Christianity then had one God and one law, namely,

18 divine Science. It said, "Call no man your father upon

the earth, for one is your Father, which is in heaven."

Speaking of himself, Jesus said, "My Father is greater

21 than I." Christianity, as he taught and demonstrated it,

must ever rest on the basis of the First Commandment and

love for man.

24 The doctrines that embrace pantheism, polytheism, and

paganism are admixtures of matter and Spirit, truth and

error, sickness and sin, life and death. They make man

the servant of matter, living by reason of it, suffering be-

cause of it, and dying in consequence of it. They con-

Page 9

1 stantly reiterate the belief of pantheism, that mind "sleeps

in the mineral, dreams in the animal, and wakes in man. "

3 "Infinite Spirit" means one God and His creation, and

no reality in aught else. The term "spirits" means more

than one Spirit; - in paganism they stand for gods; in

spiritualism they imply men and women; and in Christian-

ity they signify a good Spirit and an evil spirit.

Is there a religion under the sun that hath demonstrated

9 one God and the four first rules pertaining thereto, namely,

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me;" "Love thy

neighbor as thyself;" "Be ye therefore perfect, even as

your Father which is in heaven is perfect;" "Whosoever

liveth and believeth in me shall never die." (John xi. 26.)

What mortal to-day is wise enough to do himself no

15 harm, to hinder not the attainment of scientific Chris-

tianity? Whoever demonstrates the highest humanity, -

long-suffering, self-surrender, and spiritual endeavor to

18 bless others, - ought to be aided, not hindered, in his

holy mission. I would kiss the feet of such a messenger,

for to help such a one is to help one's self. The demon-

21 stration of Christianity blesses all mankind. It loves one's

neighbor as one's self; it loves its enemies - and this

love benefits its enemies (though they believe it not), and

rewards its possessor; for, "If ye love them which love you,

what reward have ye?"

MAN THE TRUE IMAGE OF GOD

From a material standpoint, the best of people some-

times object to the philosophy of Christian Science, on the

Page 10

1 ground that it takes away man's personality and makes

man less than man. But what saith the apostle? - even

3 this: "If a man think himself to be something, when he is

nothing, he deceiveth himself." The great Nazarene

Prophet said, "By their fruits ye shall know them :" then,

6 if the effects of Christian Science on the lives of men

be thus judged, we are sure the honest verdict of hu-

manity will attest its uplifting power, and prevail over the

opposite notion that Christian Science lessens man's in-

dividuality.

The students at the Massachusetts Metaphysical Col-

12 lege, generally, were the average man and woman. But

after graduation, the best students in the class averred

that they were stronger and better than before it. With

15 twelve lessons or less, the present and future of those stu-

dents had wonderfully broadened and brightened before

them, thus proving the utility of what they had been taught.

18 Christian Scientists heal functional, organic, chronic, and

acute diseases that M.D.'s have failed to heal; and,

better still, they reform desperate cases of intemperance,

21 tobacco using, and immorality, which, we regret to say,

other religious teachers are unable to effect. All this is

accomplished by the grace of God, - the effect of God

24 understood. A higher manhood is manifest, and never

lost, in that individual who finds the highest joy, - there-

fore no pleasure in loathsome habits or in sin, and no

27 necessity for disease and death. Whatever promotes

statuesque being, health, and holiness does not degrade

man's personality. Sin, sickness, appetites, and passions,

constitute no part of man, but obscure man. Therefore it

Page 11

1 required the divinity of our Master to perceive the real

man, and to cast out the unreal or counterfeit. It caused

3 St. Paul to write, - "Lie not one to another, seeing that

ye have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put

on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after

the image of Him that created him."

Was our Master mistaken in judging a cause by its

effects? Shall the opinions, systems, doctrines, and dog-

9 mas of men gauge the animus of man? or shall his stature

in Christ, Truth, declare him? Governed by the divine

Principle of his being, man is perfect. When will the

12 schools allow mortals to turn from clay to Soul for the

model? The Science of being, understood and obeyed,

will demonstrate man to be superior to the best church-

15 member or moralist on earth, who understands not this

Science. If man is spiritually fallen, it matters not what

he believes; he is not upright, and must regain his native

spiritual stature in order to be in proper shape, as certainly

as the man who falls physically needs to rise again.

Mortals, content with something less than perfection -

21 the original standard of man - may believe that evil de-

velops good, and that whatever strips off evil's disguise be-

littles man's personality. But God enables us to know that

24 evil is not the medium of good, and that good supreme de-

stroys all sense of evil, obliterates the lost image that

mortals are content to call man, and demands man's un-

fallen spiritual perfectibility.

The grand realism that man is the true image of God,

not fallen or inverted, is demonstrated by Christian Science.

And because Christ's dear demand, "Be ye therefore

Page 12

1 perfect," is valid, it will be found possible to fulfil it. Then

also will it be learned that good is not educed from evil,

3 but comes from the rejection of evil and its modus operandi.

Our scholarly expositor of the Scriptures, Lyman Abbott,

D.D., writes, "God, Spirit, is ever in universal nature."

6 Then, we naturally ask, how can Spirit be constantly pass-

ing out of mankind by death - for the universe includes

man?

THE GRANDEUR OF CHRISTIANITY

This closing century, and its successors, will make strong

claims on religion, and demand that the inspired Scriptural

12 commands be fulfilled. The altitude of Christianity open-

eth, high above the so-called laws of matter, a door that no

man can shut; it showeth to all peoples the way of escape

15 from sin, disease, and death; it lifteth the burden of sharp

experience from off the heart of humanity, and so lighteth

the path that he who entereth it may run and not weary,

18 and walk, not wait by the roadside, - yea, pass gently on

without the alterative agonies whereby the way-seeker

gains and points the path.

21 The Science of Christianity is strictly monotheism, -

it has ONE GOD. And this divine infinite Principle,

noumenon and phenomena, is demonstrably the self-

24 existent Life, Truth, Love, substance, Spirit, Mind, which

includes all that the term implies, and is all that is real and

eternal. Christian Science is irrevocable - unpierced

by bold conjecture's sharp point, by bald philosophy, or

by man's inventions. It is divinely true, and every hour

Page 13

1 in time and in eternity will witness more steadfastly to its

practical truth. And Science is not pantheism, but Chris-

tian Science.

Chief among the questions herein, and nearest my

heart, is this: When shall Christianity be demonstrated

6 according to Christ, in these words: "Neither shall they

say, Lo, here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of

God is within you"?

EXHORTATION

Beloved brethren, the love of our loving Lord was never

more manifest than in its stern condemnation of all error,

12 wherever found. I counsel thee, rebuke and exhort one

another. Love all Christian churches for the gospel's

sake; and be exceedingly glad that the churches are united

15 in purpose, if not in method, to close the war between

flesh and Spirit, and to fight the good fight till God's will

be witnessed and done on earth as in heaven.

18 Sooner or later all shall know Him, recognize the great

truth that Spirit is infinite, and find life in Him in whom

we do "live, and move, and have our being" - life in

21 Life, all in All. Then shall all nations, peoples, and

tongues, in the words of St Paul, have "one God and

Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in

you all." (Ephesians iv. 6.)

Have I wearied you with the mysticism of opposites?

Truly there is no rest in them, and I have only traversed

my subject that you may prove for yourselves the unsub-

Page 14

1 stantial nature of whatever is unlike good, weigh a sigh,

and rise into the rest of righteousness with its triumphant

train.

Once more I write, Set your affections on things above;

love one another; commune at the table of our Lord in one

6 spirit; worship in spirit and in truth; and if daily adoring,

imploring, and living the divine Life, Truth, Love, thou

shalt partake of the bread that cometh down from heaven,

drink of the cup of salvation, and be baptized in Spirit.

PRAYER FOR COUNTRY AND CHURCH

Pray for the prosperity of our country, and for her vic-

12 tory under arms; that justice, mercy, and peace continue

to characterize her government, and that they shall rule all

nations. Pray that the divine presence may still guide and

15 bless our chief magistrate, those associated with his execu-

tive trust, and our national judiciary; give to our congress

wisdom, and uphold our nation with the right arm of His

righteousness.

In your peaceful homes remember our brave soldiers,

whether in camp or in battle.(1) Oh, may their love of coun-

21 try, and their faithful service thereof, be unto them life-

preservers! May the divine Love succor and protect

them, as at Manila, where brave men, led by the dauntless

24 Dewey, and shielded by the power that saved them, sailed

victoriously through the jaws of death and blotted out the

Spanish squadron.

Great occasion have we to rejoice that our nation, which

(1) This refers to the war between United States and Spain for

the liberty of Cuba.

Page 15

1 fed her starving foe, - already murdering her peaceful

seamen and destroying millions of her money, - will be

as formidable in war as she has been compassionate in

peace.

May our Father-Mother God, who in times past hath

6 spread for us a table in the wilderness and "in the midst

of our enemies," establish us in the most holy faith, plant

our feet firmly on Truth, the rock of Christ, the "substance

of things hoped for" - and fill us with the life and under-

standing of God, and good will towards men.

MARY BAKER EDDY

Table of Contents

No and Yes

Mary Baker Eddy

Author of Science and Health with Key to

the Scriptures

Published by the

Trustees under the Will of Mary Baker G. Eddy

Boston, U.S.A.

By Mary Baker G. Eddy

____________

Printed in the United States of America

Preface

It was the purpose of each edition of this pamphlet to

benefit no favored class, but, according to the apostle's

admonition, to "reprove, rebuke, exhort," and with the

power and self-sacrificing spirit of Love to correct invol-

untary as well as voluntary error.

By a modification of the language, the import of this

edition is, we trust, transparent to the hearts of all con-

scientious laborers in the realm of Mind-healing. To

those who are athirst for the life-giving waters of a true

divinity, it saith tenderly, "Come and drink;" and if

you are babes in Christ, leave the meat and take the

unadulterated milk of the Word, until you grow to

apprehend the pure spirituality of Truth.

MARY BAKER EDDY

No and Yes

INTRODUCTION

1 To kindle in all minds a common sentiment of regard

for the spiritual idea emanating from the infinite, is

3 a most needful work; but this must be done gradually, for

Truth is as "the still, small voice," which comes to our

recognition only as our natures are changed by its silent

influence.

Small streams are noisy and rush precipitately; and

babbling brooks fill the rivers till they rise in floods, de-

9 molishing bridges and overwhelming cities. So men, when

thrilled by a new idea, are sometimes impatient; and,

when public sentiment is aroused, are liable to be borne

12 on by the current of feeling. They should then turn tem-

porarily from the tumult, for the silent cultivation of the

true idea and the quiet practice of its virtues. When

15 the noise and stir of contending sentiments cease, and

the flames die away on the mount of revelation, we can

read more clearly the tablets of Truth.

18 The theology and medicine of Jesus were one, - in the

divine oneness of the trinity, Life, Truth, and Love, which

healed the sick and cleansed the sinful. This trinity in

unity, correcting the individual thought, is the only Mind-

Page 2

1 healing I vindicate; and on its standard have emblazoned

that crystallized expression, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE.

3 A spurious and hydra-headed mind-healing is naturally

glared at by the pulpit, ostracized by the medical faculty,

and scorned by people of common sense. To aver that

6 disease is normal, a God-bestowed and stubborn reality,

but that you can heal it, leaves you to work against that

which is natural and a law of being. It is scientific to rob

9 disease of all reality; and to accomplish this, you cannot

begin by admitting its reality. Our Master taught his

students to deny self, sense, and take up the cross. Men-

12 tal healers who admit that disease is real should be made

to test the feasibility of what they say by healing one case

audibly, through such an admission, - if this is possible.

I have healed more disease by the spoken than the un-

spoken word.

The honest student of Christian Science is modest in his

18 claims and conscientious in duty, waiting and working to

mature what he has been taught. Institutes furnished

with such teachers are becoming beacon-lights along the

21 shores of erudition; and many who are not teachers have

large practices and some marked success in healing the

most defiant forms of disease.

24 Dishonesty destroys one's ability to heal mentally. Con-

ceit cannot avert the effects of deceit. Taking advantage

of the present ignorance in relation to Christian Science

Mind-healing, many are flooding our land with conflict-

ing theories and practice. We should not spread abroad

Page 3

1 patchwork ideas that in some vital points lack Science.

How sad it is that envy will bend its bow and shoot its

3 arrow at the idea which claims only its inheritance, is nat-

urally modest, generous, and sincere! while the trespass-

ing error murders either friend or foe who stands in its

way. Truly it is better to fall into the hands of God, than

of man.

When I revised "Science and Health with Key to the

9 Scriptures," in 1878, some irresponsible people insisted

that my manual of the practice of Christian Science Mind-

healing should not be made public; but I obeyed a diviner

12 rule. People dependent on the rules of this practice for

their healing, not having lost the Spirit which sustains the

genuine practice, will put that book in the hands of their

15 patients, whom it will heal, and recommend it to their

students, whom it would enlighten. Every teacher must

pore over it in secret, to keep himself well informed. The

Nemesis of the history of Mind-healing notes this hour.

Dishonesty necessarily stultifies the spiritual sense which

Mind-healers specially need; and which they must pos-

21 sess, in order to be safe members of the community. How

good and pleasant a thing it is to seek not so much thine

own as another's good, to sow by the wayside for the way-

weary, and trust Love's recompense of love.

Plagiarism from my writings is so common it is be-

coming odious to honest people; and such compilations,

instead of possessing the essentials of Christian Science,

are tempting and misleading.

Page 4

1 Reading Science and Health has restored the sick to

health; but the task of learning thoroughly the Science

of Mind-healing and demonstrating it understandingly

had better be undertaken in health than sickness.

DISEASE UNREAL

6 Disease is more than imagination; it is a human error,

a constituent part of what comprise the whole of mortal

existence, - namely, material sensation and mental delu-

9 sion. But an erring sense of existence, or the error of

belief, named disease, never made sickness a stubborn

reality. On the ground that harmony is the truth of be-

12 ing, the Science of Mind-healing destroys the feasibility

of disease; hence error of thought becomes fable instead

of fact. Science demonstrates the reality of Truth and

15 the unreality of the error. A self-evident proposition, in

the Science of Mind-healing, is that disease is unreal;

and the efficacy of my system, beyond other systems of

18 medicine, vouches for the validity of that statement. Sin

and disease are not scientific, because they embody not

the idea of divine Principle, and are not the phenomena

21 of the immutable laws of God; and they do not arise

from the divine consciousness and true constituency of

being.

The unreality of sin, disease, and death, rests on the

exclusive truth that being, to be eternal, must be harmo-

nious. All disease must be - and can only be - healed

Page 5

1 on this basis. All true Christian Scientists are vindicat-

ing, fearlessly and honestly, the Principle of this grand

verity of Mind-healing.

In erring mortal thought the reality of Truth has an

antipode, - the reality of error; and disease is one of the

6 severe realities of this error. God has no opposite in

Science. To Truth there is no error. As Truth alone is

real, then it follows that to declare error real would be to

9 make it Truth. Disease arises from a false and material

sense, from the belief that matter has sensation. There-

fore this material sense, which is untrue, is of necessity

12 unreal. Moreover, this unreal sense substitutes for Truth

an unreal belief,-namely, that life and health are inde-

pendent of God, and dependent on material conditions.

15 Material sense also avers that Spirit, or Truth, cannot

restore health and perpetuate life, but that material con-

ditions can and do destroy both human health and life.

18 If disease is as real as health, and is itself a state of

being, and yet is arrayed against being, then Mind, or

God, does not meddle with it. Disease becomes indeed a

21 stubborn reality, and man is mortal. A "kingdom divided

against itself is brought to desolation;" therefore the mind

that attacks a normal and real condition of man, is pro-

24 fanely tampering with the realities of God and His laws.

Metaphysical healing is a lost jewel in this misconception

of reality. Any contradictory fusion of Truth with error,

in both theory and practice, prevents one from healing

scientifically, and makes the last state of one's patients

Page 6

1 worse than the first. If disease is real it is not illusive,

and it certainly would contradict the Science of Mind-

healing to attempt to destroy the realities of Mind in order

to heal the sick.

On the theory that God's formations are spiritual, har-

6 monious, and eternal, and that God is the only creator,

Christian Science refutes the validity of the testimony of

the senses, which take cognizance of their own phenomena,

9 - sickness, disease, and death. This refutation is indis-

pensable to the destruction of false evidence, and the

consequent cure of the sick, - as all understand who

12 practise the true Science of Mind-healing. If, as the

error indicates, the evidence of disease is not false, then

disease cannot be healed by denying its validity; and this

is why the mistaken healer is not successful, trying to heal

on a material basis.

The evidence that the earth is motionless and the sun

18 revolves around our planet, is as sensible and real as the

evidence for disease; but Science determines the evidence

in both cases to be unreal. To material sense it is plain

21 also that the error of the revolution of the sun around the

earth is more apparent than the adverse but true Science

of the stellar universe. Copernicus has shown that what

24 appears real, to material sense and feeling, is absolutely

unreal. Astronomy, optics, acoustics, and hydraulics are

all at war with the testimony of the physical senses. This

fact intimates that the laws of Science are mental, not

material; and Christian Science demonstrates this.

Page 7

SCIENCE OF MIND-HEALING

The rule of divinity is golden; to be wise and true re-

3 joices every heart. But evil influences waver the scales

of justice and mercy. No personal considerations should

allow any root of bitterness to spring up between Chris-

6 tian Scientists, nor cause any misapprehension as to the

motives of others. We must love our enemies, and con-

tinue to do so unto the end. By the love of God we can

cancel error in our own hearts, and blot it out of others.

Sooner or later the eyes of sinful mortals must be opened

to see every error they possess, and the way out of it; and

12 they will "flee as a bird to your mountain," away from

the enemy of sinning sense, stubborn will, and every im-

perfection in the land of Sodom, and find rescue and refuge

in Truth and Love.

Every loving sacrifice for the good of others is known

to God, and the wrath of man cannot hide it from Him.

18 God has appointed for Christian Scientists high tasks,

and will not release them from the strict performance of

each one of them. The students must now fight their

21 own battles. I recommend that Scientists draw no lines

whatever between one person and another, but think,

speak, teach, and write the truth of Christian Science

without reference to right or wrong personality in this

field of labor. Leave the distinctions of individual char-

acter and the discriminations and guidance thereof to

Page 8

1 the Father, whose wisdom is unerring and whose love is

universal.

3 We should endeavor to be long-suffering, faithful, and

charitable with all. To this small effort let us add one

more privilege - namely, silence whenever it can substi-

6 tute censure. Avoid voicing error; but utter the truth of

God and the beauty of holiness, the joy of Love and "the

peace of God, that passeth all understanding," recom-

9 mending to all men fellowship in the bonds of Christ.

Advise students to rebuke each other always in love, as

I have rebuked them. Having discharged this duty, coun-

12 sel each other to work out his own salvation, without fear

or doubt, knowing that God will make the wrath of man

to praise Him, and that the remainder thereof He will

15 restrain. We can rejoice that every germ of goodness will

at last struggle into freedom and greatness, and every sin

will so punish itself that it will bow down to the command-

ments of Christ, - Truth and Love.

I enjoin it upon my students to hold no controversy or

enmity over doctrines and traditions, or over the miscon-

21 ceptions of Christian Science, but to work, watch, and

pray for the amelioration of sin, sickness, and death. If

one be found who is too blind for instruction, no longer cast

24 your pearls before this state of mortal mind, lest it turn

and rend you; but quietly, with benediction and hope,

let the unwise pass by, while you walk on in equanimity,

and with increased power, patience, and understanding,

gained from your forbearance. This counsel is not new,

Page 9

1 as my Christian students can testify; and if it had been

heeded in times past it would have prevented, to a great

3 extent, the factions which have sprung up among Scientists

to the hindrance of the Cause of Truth. It is true that the

mistakes, prejudices, and errors of one class of thinkers

6 must not be introduced or established among another class

who are clearer and more conscientious in their convic-

tions; but this one thing can be done, and should be: let

9 your opponents alone, and use no influence to prevent

their legitimate action from their own standpoint of ex-

perience, knowing, as you should, that God will well

regenerate and separate wisely and finally; whereas you

may err in effort, and lose your fruition.

Hoping to pacify repeated complaints and murmurings

15 against too great leniency, on my part, towards some of

my students who fall into error, I have opposed occa-

sionally and strongly - especially in the first edition of

18 this little work - existing wrongs of the nature referred

to. But I now point steadfastly to the power of grace to

overcome evil with good. God will "furnish a table in

the wilderness" and show the power of Love.

Science is not the shibboleth of a sect or the caba-

listic insignia of philosophy; it excludes all error and

24 includes all Truth. More mistakes are made in its name

than this period comprehends. Divinely defined, Science

is the atmosphere of God; humanly construed, and ac-

cording to Webster, it is "knowledge, duly arranged and

referred to general truths and principles on which it is

Page 10

1 founded, and from which it is derived." I employ this

awe-filled word in both a divine and human sense; but

3 I insist that Christian Science is demonstrably as true,

relative to the unseen verities of being, as any proof that

can be given of the completeness of Science.

6 The two largest words in the vocabulary of thought are

"Christian" and "Science." The former is the highest

style of man; the latter reveals and interprets God and

9 man; it aggregates, amplifies, unfolds, and expresses the

ALL-God. The life of Christ is the predicate and postu-

late of all that I teach, and there is but one standard

statement, one rule, and one Principle for all scientific

truth.

My hygienic system rests on Mind, the eternal Truth.

15 What is termed matter, or relates to its so-called attributes,

is a self-destroying error. When a so-called material sense

is lost, and Truth restores that lost sense, - on the basis

18 that all consciousness is Mind and eternal, - the former

position, that sense is organic and material, is proven

erroneous.

21 The feasibility and immobility of Christian Science

unveil the true idea, - namely, that earth's discords have

not the reality of Mind in the Science of being; and this

24 idea - dematerializing and spiritualizing mortals - turns

like the needle to the pole all hope and faith to God, based

as it is on His omnipotence and omnipresence.

Eternal harmony, perpetuity, and perfection, constitute

the phenomena of being, governed by the immutable and

Page 11

1 eternal laws of God; whereas matter and human will,

intellect, desire, and fear, are not the creators, controllers,

3 nor destroyers of life or its harmonies. Man has an im-

mortal Soul, a divine Principle, and an eternal being.

Man has perpetual individuality; and God's laws, and

their intelligent and harmonious action, constitute his in-

dividuality in the Science of Soul.

In its literary expression, my system of Christian meta-

9 physics is hampered by material terms, which must be

used to indicate thoughts that are to be understood meta-

physically. As a Science, this system is held back by the

12 common ignorance of what it is and what it does, and

(worse still) by those who come falsely in its name. To

be appreciated, Science must be understood and consci-

15 entiously introduced. If the Bible and Science and Health

had the place in schools of learning that physiology oc-

cupies, they would revolutionize and reform the world,

18 through the power of Christ. It is true that it requires

more study to understand and demonstrate what these

works teach, than to learn theology, physiology, or physics;

because they teach divine Science, with fixed Principle,

given rule, and unmistakable proof.

Ancient and modern human philosophy are inadequate

24 to grasp the Principle of Christian Science, or to demon-

strate it. Revelation shows this Principle, and will rescue

reason from the thrall of error. Revelation must subdue

the sophistry of intellect, and spiritualize consciousness

with the dictum and the demonstration of Truth and Love.

Page 12

1 Christian Science Mind-healing can only be gained by

working from a purely Christian standpoint. Then it

3 heals the sick and exalts the race. The essence of this

Science is right thinking and right acting - leading us to

see spirituality and to be spiritual, to understand and to

demonstrate God.

The Massachusetts Metaphysical College and Church

of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, were the outgrowth of the

9 author's religious experience. After a lifetime of ortho-

doxy on the platform of doctrines, rites, and ceremonies,

it became a sacred duty for her to impart to others this

new-old knowledge of God.

The same affection, desire, and motives which have stim-

ulated true Christianity in all ages, and given impulse to

15 goodness, in or out of the Church, have nerved her pur-

pose to build on the new-born conception of the Christ, as

Jesus declared himself, - namely, "the way, the truth,

18 and the life." Living a true life, casting out evil, healing

the sick, and preaching the gospel of Truth, - these are

the ends of Christianity. This divine way impels a spirit-

21 ualization of thought and method, beyond doctrine and

ritual; and in nothing else has she departed from the old

landmarks.

24 The unveiled spiritual signification of the Word so en-

larges our sense of God that it makes both sense and Soul,

man and Life, immaterial, though still individual. It re-

moves all limits from divine power. God must be found

all instead of a part of being, and man the reflection of

Page 13

1 His power and goodness. This Science rebukes sin with

its own nothingness, and thus destroys sin quickly and

utterly. It makes disease unreal, and this heals it.

The demonstration of moral and physical growth, and a

scientific deduction from the Principle of all harmony, de-

6 clare both the Principle and idea to be divine. If this be

true then death must be swallowed up in Life, and the

prophecy of Jesus fulfilled, "Whosoever liveth and be-

9 lieveth in me shall never die." Though centuries passed

after those words were originally uttered, before this re-

appearing of Truth, and though the hiatus be longer still

12 before that saying is demonstrated in Life that knows no

death, the declaration is nevertheless true, and remains

a clear and profound deduction from Christian Science.

15 IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE OF THE SAME LINEAGE AS

SPIRITUALISM OR THEOSOPHY?

Science is not susceptible of being held as a mere theory.

18 It is hoary with time. It takes hold of eternity, voices the

infinite, and governs the universe. No greater opposites

can be conceived of, physically, morally, and spiritually,

than Christian Science, spiritualism, and theosophy.

Science and Health has effected a revolution in the

minds of thinkers on the subject of mediumship, and given

impulse to reason and revelation, goodness and virtue. A

theory may be sound in spots, and sparkle like a diamond,

while other parts of it have no lustre. Christian Science

Page 14

1 is sound in every part. It is neither warped nor miscon-

ceived, when properly demonstrated. If a spiritualist

3 medium understood the Science of Mind-healing, he

would know that between those who have and those who

have not passed the transition called death, there can be

no interchange of consciousness, and that all sensible phe-

nomena are merely subjective states of mortal mind.

Theosophy is a corruption of Judaism. This corruption

9 had a renewal in the Neoplatonic philosophy; but it sprang

from the Oriental philosophy of Brahmanism, and blends

with its magic and enchantments. Theosophy is no more

2 allied to Christian Science than the odor of the upas-tree

is to the sweet breath of springtide, or the brilliant cor-

uscations of the northern sky are to solar heat and

light.

IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE FROM BENEATH, AND NOT FROM ABOVE?

18 Hear the words of our Master: "Go ye into all the

world"! "Heal the sick, cast out devils"! Christian

Scientists, perhaps more than any other religious sect, are

21 obeying these commands; and the injunctions are not

confined to Jesus' students in that age, but they extend

to this age, - to as many as shall believe on him. The

demand and example of Jesus were not from beneath.

Are frozen dogmas, persistent persecution, and the doc-

trine of eternal damnation, from above? Are the dews

Page 15

1 of divine Truth, falling on the sick and sinner, to heal

them, from beneath? "By their fruits ye shall know

them."

Reading my books, without prejudice, would convince

all that their purpose is right. The comprehension of my

6 teachings would enable any one to prove these books to

be filled with blessings for the whole human family. Fa-

tiguing Bible translations and voluminous commentaries

9 are employed to explain and prop old creeds, and they

have the civil and religious arms in their defense; then

why should not these be equally extended to support the

12 Christianity that heals the sick? The notions of person-

ality to be found in creeds are far more mystic than

Mind-healing. It is no easy matter to believe there are

15 three persons in one person, and that one person is cast

out of another person. These conceptions of Deity and

devil presuppose an impotent God and an incredible

Satan.

IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PANTHEISTIC?

Christian Science refutes pantheism, finds Spirit neither

21 in matter nor in the modes of mortal mind. It shows

that matter and mortal mind have neither origin nor ex-

istence in the eternal Mind. Thinking otherwise is what

estranges mortals from divine Life and Love. God is

All-in-all. He is Spirit; and in nothing is He unlike Him-

self. Nothing that "worketh or maketh a lie" is to be

Page 16

1 found in the divine consciousness. For God to know,

is to be; that is, what He knows must truly and eternally

3 exist. If He knows matter, and matter can exist in Mind,

then mortality and discord must be eternal. He is Mind;

and whatever He knows is made manifest, and must be

Truth.

If God knows evil even as a false claim, this knowledge

would manifest evil in Him and proceeding from Him.

9 Christian Science shows that matter, evil, sin, sickness, and

death are but negations of Spirit, Truth, and Life, which

are positives that cannot be gainsaid. The subjective

12 states of evil, called mortal mind or matter, are negatives

destitute of time and space; for there is none beside God

or Spirit and the idea of Spirit.

15 This infinite logic is the infinite light, - uncompre-

hended, yet forever giving forth more light, because it

has no darkness to emit. Mortals do not understand the

18 All; hence their inference of some other existence beside

God and His true likeness, - of something unlike Him.

He who is All, understands all. He can have no knowl-

edge or inference but His own consciousness, and can take

in no more than all.

The mists of matter - sin, sickness, and death - dis-

24 appear in proportion as mortals approach Spirit, which

is the reality of being. It is not enough to say that matter

is the substratum of evil, and that its highest attenuation is

mortal mind; for there is, strictly speaking, no mortal

mind. Mind is immortal. Death is the consequent of an

Page 17

1 antecedent false assumption of the realness of something

unreal, material, and mortal. If God knows the antece-

3 dent, He must produce its consequences. From this logic

there is no escape. Matter, or evil, is the absence of Spirit

or good. Their nothingness is thus proven; for God is

good, ever-present, and All.

"In Him we live, and move, and have our being;" con-

sequently it is impossible for the true man - who is a

9 spiritual and individual being, created in the eternal

Science of being - to be conscious of aught but good.

God's image and likeness can never be less than a good

12 man; and for man to be more than God's likeness is

impossible. Man is the climax of creation; and God is

not without an ever-present witness, testifying of Himself.

Matter, or any mode of mortal mind, is neither part nor

parcel of divine consciousness and God's verity.

In Science there is no fallen state of being; for therein

18 is no inverted image of God, no escape from the focal

radiation of the infinite. Hence the unreality of error,

and the truth of the Scripture, that there is "none beside

21 Him." If mortals could grasp these two words all and

nothing, this mystery of a God who has no knowledge of

sin would disappear, and the eternal, infinite harmony

24 would be fathomed. If God could know a false claim,

false knowledge would be a part of His consciousness.

Then evil would be as real as good, sickness as real as

health, death as real as Life; and sickness, sin, and death

would be as eternal as God.

Page 18

IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE BLASPHEMOUS?

Blasphemy has never diminished sin and sickness, nor

3 acknowledged God in all His ways. Blasphemy rebukes

not the godless lie that denies Him as All-in-all, nor does

it ascribe to Him all presence, power, and glory. Chris-

6 tian Science does this. If Science lacked the proof of its

origin in God, it would be self-destructive, for it rests alone

on the demonstration of God's supremacy and omnipo-

9 tence. Right thinking and right acting, physical and

moral harmony, come with Science, and the secret of

its presence lies in the universal need of better health and

morals.

Human theories, when weighed in the balance, are

found unequal to the demonstration of divine Life and

5 Love; and their highest endeavors are, to divine Science,

what a child's love of pictures is to art. A child, in his

ignorance, may imagine the face of Dante to be the rapt

8 face of Jesus. Thus falsely may the human conceive of

the Divine. If the schoolmaster is not Christ, the school

gets things wrong, and knows it not; but the teacher is

morally responsible.

Good health and a more spiritual religion are the com-

mon wants; and these wants have wrought this moral

result, - that the so-called mortal mind asks for what

Mind alone can supply. This demand militates against

the so-called demands of matter, and regulates the present

Page 19

1 high premium on Mind-healing. If the uniform moral

and spiritual, as well as physical, effects of Christian Sci-

3 ence were lacking, the premium would go down. That

it continues to rise, and the demand to increase, shows its

real value to the race. Even doctors will agree that in-

6 fidelity, ignorance, and quackery have never met the grow-

ing wants of humanity. Christian Science is no "Boston

craze;" it is the sober second thought of advancing

humanity.

IS THERE A PERSONAL DEITY?

God is infinite. He is neither a limited mind nor a

12 limited body. God is Love; and Love is Principle, not

person. What the person of the infinite is, we know not;

but we are gratefully and lovingly conscious of the father-

15 liness of this Supreme Being. God is individual, and man

is His individualized idea. While material man and the

physical senses receive no spiritual idea, and feel no sen-

18 sation of divine Love, spiritual man and his spiritual

senses are drinking in the nature and essence of the indi-

vidual infinite. A sinful sense is incompetent to understand

21 the realities of being, - that Life is God, and that man

is in His image and likeness. A sinner can take no cog-

nizance of the noumenon or the phenomena of Spirit;

but leaving sin, sense rises to the fulness of the stature of

man in Christ.

Person is formed after the manner of mortal man, so

Page 20

1 far as he can conceive of personality. Limitless person-

ality is inconceivable. His person and perfection are

3 neither self-created, nor discerned through imperfection;

and of God as a person, human reason, imagination, and

revelation give us no knowledge. Error would fashion

Deity in a manlike mould, while Truth is moulding a

Godlike man.

When the term divine Principle is used to signify Deity

9 it may seem distant or cold, until better apprehended.

This Principle is Mind, substance, Life, Truth, Love.

When understood, Principle is found to be the only term

12 that fully conveys the ideas of God, - one Mind, a perfect

man, and divine Science. As the divine Principle is com-

prehended, God's omnipotence and omnipresence will

15 dawn on mortals, and the notion of an everywhere-present

body - or of an infinite Mind starting from a finite body,

and returning to it - will disappear.

18 Ever-present Love must seem ever absent to ever-present

selfishness or material sense. Hence this asking amiss

and receiving not, and the common idolatry of man-

worship. In divine Science, God is recognized as the

only power, presence, and glory.

Adam's mistiness and Satan's reasoning, ever since the

24 flood, - when specimens of every kind emerged from the

ark, - have run through the veins of all human philoso-

phy. Human reason is a blind guide, a continued series

of mortal hypotheses, antagonistic to Revelation and Sci-

ence. It is continually straying into forbidden by-paths

Page 21

1 of sensualism, contrary to the life and teachings of Jesus

and Paul, and the vision of the Apocalypse. Human

3 philosophy has ninety-nine parts of error to the one-

hundredth part of Truth, - an unsafe decoction for the

race. The Science that Jesus demonstrated, whose views

6 of Truth Confucius and Plato but dimly discerned, Science

and Health interprets. It was not a search after wisdom;

it was wisdom, and it grasped in spiritual law the uni-

9 verse, - all time, space, immortality, thought, extension.

This Science demonstrated the Principle of all phenomena,

identity, individuality, law; and showed man as reflect-

12 ing God and the divine capacity. Human philosophy

would dethrone perfection, and substitute matter and evil

for divine means and ends.

15 Human philosophy has an undeveloped God, who un-

folds Himself through material modes, wherein the human

and divine mingle in the same realm and consciousness.

18 This is rank infidelity; because by it we lose God's ways

and perpetuate the supposed power and reality of evil ad

infinitum. Christian Science rends this veil in the pantheon

21 of many gods, and reproduces the teachings of Jesus, whose

philosophy is incontestable, bears the strain of time, and

brings in the glories of eternity; "for other foundation

can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ."

Divine philosophy is demonstrably the true idea of the

Christ, wherein Principle heals and saves. A philosophy

which cannot heal the sick has little resemblance to Sci-

ence, and is, to say the least, like a cloud without rain,

Page 22

1 "driven about by every wind of doctrine." Such phi-

losophy has certainly not touched the hem of the Christ

garment.

Leibnitz, Descartes, Fichte, Hegel, Spinoza, Bishop

Berkeley, were once clothed with a "brief authority;"

6 but Berkeley ended his metaphysical theory with a treatise

on the healing properties of tar-water, and Hegel was an

inveterate snuff-taker. The circumlocution and cold cate-

9 gories of Kant fail to improve the conditions of mortals,

morally, spiritually, or physically. Such miscalled meta-

physical systems are reeds shaken by the wind. Com-

pared with the inspired wisdom and infinite meaning of

the Word of Truth, they are as moonbeams to the sun, or

as Stygian night to the kindling dawn.

IS THERE A PERSONAL DEVIL?

No man hath seen the person of good or of evil. Each

is greater than the corporeality we behold.

8 "He cast out devils." This record shows that the term

devil is generic, being used in the plural number. From

this it follows that there is more than one devil. That

21 Jesus cast several persons out of another person, is not

stated, and is impossible. Hence the passage must refer

to the evils which were cast out.

Jesus defined devil as a mortal who is full of evil. "Have

I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?" His

definition of evil indicated his ability to cast it out. An

Page 23

1 incorrect concept of the nature of evil hinders the destruc-

tion of evil. To conceive of God as resembling - in per-

3 sonality, or form - the personality that Jesus condemned

as devilish, is fraught with spiritual danger. Evil can

neither grasp the prerogative of God nor make evil om-

nipotent and omnipresent.

Jesus said to Peter, "Get thee behind me, Satan;" but

he to whom our Lord gave the keys of the kingdom could

9 not have been wholly evil, and therefore was not a devil,

after the accepted definition. Out of the Magdalen, Jesus

cast seven devils; but not one person was named among

them. According to Crabtre, these devils were the dis-

eases Jesus cast out.

The most eminent divines, in Europe and America, con-

15 cede that the Scriptures have both a literal and a moral

meaning. Which of the two is the more important to gain,

- the literal or the moral sense of the word devil, - in

order to cast out this devil? Evil is a quality, not an

individual.

As mortals, we need to discern the claims of evil, and to

21 fight these claims, not as realities, but as illusions; but

Deity can have no such warfare against Himself. Knowl-

edge of a man's physical personality is not sufficient to

24 inform us as to the amount of good or evil he possesses.

Hence we cannot understand God or man, through the

person of either. God is All-in-all; but He is definite and

individual, the omnipresent and omniscient Mind; and

man's individuality is God's own image and likeness,-

Page 24

1 even the immeasurable idea of divine Mind. In the

Science of good, evil loses all place, person, and power.

3 According to Spinoza's philosophy God is amplification.

He is in all things, and therefore He is in evil in human

thought. He is extension, of whatever character. Also,

6 according to Spinoza, man is an animal vegetable, devel-

oped through the lower orders of matter and mortal mind.

All these vagaries are at variance with my system of meta-

9 physics, which rests on God as One and All, and denies

the actual existence of both matter and evil. According to

false philosophy and scholastic theology, God is three

12 persons in one person. By the same token, evil is not only

as real as good, but much more real, since evil subordi-

nates good in personality.

15 The claims of evil become both less and more in Chris-

tian Science, than in human philosophies or creeds: more,

because the evil that is hidden by dogma and human rea-

18 son is uncovered by Science; and less, because evil, being

thus uncovered, is found out, and exposure is nine points

of destruction. Then appears the grand verity of Chris-

21 tian Science: namely, that evil has no claims and was

never a claimant; for behold evil (or devil) is, as Jesus

said, "a murderer from the beginning, and the truth abode

not in him."

There was never a moment in which evil was real. This

great fact concerning all error brings with it another and

more glorious truth, that good is supreme. As there is

none beside Him, and He is all good, there can be no evil.

Page 25

1 Simply uttering this great thought is not enough! We

must live it, until God becomes the All and Only of our

3 being. Having won through great tribulation this cardinal

point of divine Science, St. Paul said, "But now we are

delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were

held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not

in the oldness of the letter."

IS MAN A PERSON?

9 Man is more than physical personality, or what we cog-

nize through the material senses. Mind is more than mat-

ter, even as the infinite idea of Truth is beyond a finite

12 belief. Man outlives finite mortal definitions of himself,

according to a law of "the survival of the fittest. " Man is

the eternal idea of his divine Principle, or Father. He is

15 neither matter nor a mode of mortal mind, for he is spir-

itual and eternal, an immortal mode of the divine Mind.

Man is the image and likeness of God, coexistent and

coeternal with Him.

Man is not absorbed in Deity; for he is forever individ-

ual; but what this everlasting individuality is, remains to

21 be learned. Mortals have not seen it. That which is born

of the flesh is not man's eternal identity. Spiritual and

immortal man alone is God's likeness, and that which is

mortal is not man in a spiritually scientific sense. A

material, sinful mortal is but the counterfeit of immortal

man.

Page 26

1 The mind-quacks believe that mortal man is identical

with immortal man, and that the immortal is inside the

3 mortal; that good and evil blend; that matter and Spirit

are one; and that Soul, or Spirit, is subdivided into spirits,

or souls, - alias gods. This infantile talk about Mind-

6 healing is no more identical with Christian Science than

the babe is identical with the adult, or the human belief

resembles the divine idea. Hence it is impossible for those

9 holding such material and mortal views to demonstrate

my metaphysics. Theirs is the sensuous thought, which

brings forth its own sensuous conception. Mine is the

spiritual idea which transfigures thought.

All real being represents God, and is in Him. In this

Science of being, man can no more relapse or collapse

15 from perfection, than his divine Principle, or Father, can

fall out of Himself into something below infinitude. Man's

real ego, or selfhood, is goodness. If man's individuality

were evil, he would be annihilated, for evil is self-destroying.

Man's individual being must reflect the supreme indi-

vidual Being, to be His image and likeness; and this

21 individuality never originated in molecule, corpuscle, ma-

teriality, or mortality. God holds man in the eternal

bonds of Science, - in the immutable harmony of divine

24 law. Man is a celestial; and in the spiritual universe

he is forever individual and forever harmonious. "If

God so clothe the grass of the field, . . . shall He not

much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?"

Sin must be obsolete,-dust returning to dust, noth-

Page 27

1 ingness to nothingness. Sin is not Mind; it is but the sup-

position that there is more than one Mind. It issues

3 a false claim; and the claim, being worthless, is in reality

no claim whatever. Matter is not Mind, to claim aught;

but Mind is God, and evil finds no place in good. When

6 we get near enough to God to see this, the springtide

of Truth in Christian Science will burst upon us in the

similitude of the Apocalyptic pictures. No night will be

9 there, and there will be no more sea. There will be no

need of the sun, for Spirit will be the light of the city, and

matter will be proved a myth. Until centuries pass, and

12 this vision of Truth is fully interpreted by divine Science,

this prophecy will be scoffed at; but it is just as veritable

now as it can be then. Science, divine Science, presents

the grand and eternal verities of God and man as the

divine Mind and that Mind's idea.

Mortal man is the antipode of immortal man, and the

18 two should not be confounded. Bishop Foster said, in a

lecture in Boston, "No man living hath yet seen man."

This material sinful personality, which we misname man,

is what St. Paul terms "the old man and his deeds," to

be "put off."

Who can say what the absolute personality of God or

24 man is? Who living hath seen God or a perfect man?

In presence of such thoughts take off thy shoes and

tread lightly, for this is holy ground. Surely the probation

of mortals must go on after the change called death, that

they may learn the definition of immortal being; or else

Page 28

1 their present mistakes would extinguish human existence.

How long this false sense remains after the transition called

3 death, no mortal knoweth; but this is sure, that the mists

of error, sooner or later, will melt in the fervent heat of

suffering, mortality will burst the barriers of sense, and

6 man be found perfect and eternal. Of his intermediate

conditions - the purifying processes and terrible revolu-

tions necessary to effect this end - I am ignorant.

9 Inasmuch as these momentous facts in the Science of

being must be learned some time, now is the most accept-

able time for beginning the lesson. If Science is pointing

12 the way, and is found to bring with it health, holiness, and

immortality, then to-day is none too soon for entering this

path. The proof that Christian Science is the way of sal-

15 vation given by Christ, I consider well established. The

present, as well as the future, reveals the fact that Truth

is never understood too soon.

18 Has Truth, as demonstrated by Jesus, reappeared?

Study Christian Science and practise it, and you will

know that Truth has reappeared. What is demonstrably

true cannot be gainsaid; but getting the letter and omitting

the spirit of this Science is neither the comprehension of

its Principle nor the practice of its Life.

HAS MAN A SOUL?

The Scriptures inform us that "the soul that sinneth,

it shall die." Here soul means sense and organic life; and

Page 29

1 this passage refers to the Jewish law, that a mortal should

be put to death for his own sin, but not for another's.

3 Not Soul, but mortal sense, sins and dies. Immortal man

has immortal Soul and a deathless sense of being. Mortal

man has but a false sense of Soul and body. He believes

6 that Spirit, or Soul, exists in matter. This is pantheism,

and is not the Science of Soul. The mind-quacks have

so slight a knowledge of Soul that they believe material

and sinning sense to be soul; and then they doctor this

soul as if it were not even a material sense.

In Dr. Gordon's sermon on The Ministry of Healing,

12 he said, "The forgiven soul in a sick body is not half a

man." Is this pantheistic statement sound theology, -

that Soul is in matter, and the immortal part of man a sin-

15 ner? Is not this a disparagement of the person of man and

a denial of God's power? Better far that we impute such

doctrines to mortal opinion than to the divine Word.

18 To my sense, such a statement is a shocking reflection

on the divine power. A mortal pardoned by God is not

sick, he is made whole. He in whom sin, disease, and

21 death are destroyed, is more than a fraction of himself.

Such sermons, though clad in soft raiment, are spirit-

less waifs, literary driftwood on the ocean of thought;

while Truth walks triumphantly over the waves of sin,

sickness, and death.

Page 30

IS SIN FORGIVEN?

The law of Life and Truth is the law of Christ, destroy-

3 ng all sense of sin and death. It does more than forgive

the false sense named sin, for it pursues and punishes it,

and will not let sin go until it is destroyed, - until nothing

6 is left to be forgiven, to suffer, or to be punished. For-

given thus, sickness and sin have no relapse. God's law

reaches and destroys evil by virtue of the allness of God.

9 He need not know the evil He destroys, any more than

the legislator need know the criminal who is punished by

the law enacted. God's law is in three words, "I am All;"

12 and this perfect law is ever present to rebuke any claim

of another law. God pities our woes with the love of a

Father for His child, - not by becoming human, and

15 knowing sin, or naught, but by removing our knowledge

of what is not. He could not destroy our woes totally

if He possessed any knowledge of them. His sympathy

18 is divine, not human. It is Truth's knowledge of its own

infinitude which forbids the genuine existence of even

a claim to error. This knowledge is light wherein there

21 is no darkness, - not light holding darkness within itself.

The consciousness of light is like the eternal law of God,

revealing Him and nothing else.

Sympathy with sin, sorrow, and sickness would dethrone

God as Truth, for Truth has no sympathy for error. In

Science, the cure of the sick demonstrates this grand

Page 31

1 verity of Christian Science, that you cannot eradicate dis-

ease if you admit that God sends it or sees it. Material

3 and mortal mind-healing (so-called) has for ages been

a pretender, but has not healed mortals; and they are

yet sick and sinful.

6 Disease and sin appear to-day in subtler forms than

they did yesterday. They progress and will multiply into

worse forms, until it is understood that disease and sin are

unreal, unknown to Truth, and never actual persons or

real facts.

Our phraseology varies. To me divine pardon is that

12 divine presence which is the sure destruction of sin; and

I insist on the destruction of sin as the only full proof of

its pardon. "For this purpose the Son of God was mani-

fested, that he might destroy the works of the devil"

(1 John iii. 8).

Jesus cast out evils, mediating between what is and is

18 not, until a perfect consciousness is attained. He healed

disease as he healed sin; but he treated them both,

not as in or of matter, but as mortal beliefs to be

21 exterminated. Physical and mental healing were one

and the same with this master Metaphysician. If the

evils called sin, sickness, and death had been forgiven

24 in the generally accepted sense, they would have returned,

to be again forgiven; but Jesus said to disease: "Come

out of him, and enter no more into him." He said also:

"If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death;"

and "Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound

Page 32

1 in heaven." The misinterpretation of such passages has

retarded the progress of Christianity and the spirituali-

zation of the race.

A magistrate's pardon may encourage a criminal to

repeat the offense; because forgiveness, in the popular

6 sense of the word, can neither extinguish a crime nor the

motives leading to it. The belief in sin - its pleasure,

pain, or power - must suffer, until it is self-destroyed.

"Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

IS THERE ANY SUCH THING AS SIN?

Frequently when I touch this subject my meaning is

12 ignorantly or maliciously misconstrued. Christian Science

Mind-healing lifts with a steady arm, and cleaves sin with

a broad battle-axe. It gives the lie to sin, in the spirit of

15 Truth; but other theories make sin true. Jesus declared

that the devil was "a liar, and the father of it." A lie is

negation, - alias nothing, or the opposite of something.

18 Good is great and real. Hence its opposite, named evil,

must be small and unreal. When this sense is attained,

we shall no longer be the servants of sin, and shall cease

to love it.

The domination of good destroys the sense of evil. To

illustrate: It seems a great evil to belie and belittle Chris-

tian Science, and persecute a Cause which is healing its

thousands and rapidly diminishing the percentage of sin.

But reduce this evil to its lowest terms, nothing, and slander

Page 33

1 loses its power to harm; for even the wrath of man shall

praise Him. The reduction of evil, in Science, gives the

dominance to God, and must lead us to bless those who

curse, that thus we may overcome evil with good.

If the Bible and my work Science and Health had their

6 rightful place in schools of learning, they would revolu-

tionize the world by advancing the kingdom of Christ.

It requires sacrifice, struggle, prayer, and watchfulness

to understand and demonstrate what these volumes teach,

because they involve divine Science, with fixed Principle,

a given rule, and unmistakable proof.

IS THERE NO SACRIFICIAL ATONEMENT?

Self-sacrifice is the highway to heaven. The sacri-

fice of our blessed Lord is undeniable, and it was a million

15 times greater than the brief agony of the cross; for that

would have been insufficient to insure the glory his sacri-

fice brought and the good it wrought. The spilling of

18 human blood was inadequate to represent the blood of

Christ, the outpouring love that sustains man's at-one-

ment with God; though shedding human blood brought

21 to light the efficacy of divine Life and Love and its power

over death. Jesus' sacrifice stands preeminently amidst

physical suffering and human woe. The glory of human

life is in overcoming sickness, sin, and death. Jesus suf-

fered for all mortals to bring in this glory; and his pur-

pose was to show them that the way out of the flesh, out

Page 34

1 of the delusion of all human error, must be through the

baptism of suffering, leading up to health, harmony, and

heaven.

We shall leave the ceremonial law when we gain the

truer sense of following Christ in spirit, and we shall no

6 longer venture to materialize the spiritual and infinite

meaning and efficacy of Truth and Love, and the sacrifice

that Jesus made for us, by commemorating his death

9 with a material rite. Jesus said: "The hour cometh, and

now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father

in spirit and in truth." They drink the cup of Christ and

12 are baptized in the purification of persecution who discern

his true merit, - the unseen glory of suffering for others.

Physical torture affords but a slight illustration of the

15 pangs which come to one upon whom the world of sense

falls with its leaden weight in the endeavor to crush out

of a career its divine destiny.

18 The blood of Christ speaketh better things than that

of Abel. The real atonement - so infinitely beyond the

heathen conception that God requires human blood to

21 propitiate His justice and bring His mercy - needs to be

understood. The real blood or Life of Spirit is not yet

discerned. Love bruised and bleeding, yet mounting to

24 the throne of glory in purity and peace, over the steps of

uplifted humanity, - this is the deep significance of the

blood of Christ. Nameless woe, everlasting victories, are

the blood, the vital currents of Christ Jesus' life, purchas-

ing the freedom of mortals from sin and death.

Page 35

1 This blood of Jesus is everything to human hope and

faith. Without it, how poor the precedents of Christian-

3 ity! What manner of Science were Christian Science

without the power to demonstrate the Principle of such

Life; and what hope have mortals but through deep hu-

6 mility and adoration to reach the understanding of this

Principle! When human struggles cease, and mortals

yield lovingly to the purpose of divine Love, there will be

no more sickness, sorrow, sin, and death. He who pointed

the way of Life conquered also the drear subtlety of death.

It was not to appease the wrath of God, but to show the

12 allness of Love and the nothingness of hate, sin, and death,

that Jesus suffered. He lived that we also might live. He

suffered, to show mortals the awful price paid by sin, and

15 how to avoid paying it. He atoned for the terrible un-

reality of a supposed existence apart from God. He

suffered because of the shocking human idolatry that

18 presupposes Life, substance, Soul, and intelligence in

matter,-which is the antipode of God, and yet governs

mankind. The glorious truth of being - namely, that

21 God is the only Mind, Life, substance, Soul - needs no

reconciliation with God, for it is one with Him now and

forever.

24 Jesus came announcing Truth, and saying not only "the

kingdom of God is at hand," but "the kingdom of God

is within you." Hence there is no sin, for God's kingdom

is everywhere and supreme, and it follows that the human

kingdom is nowhere, and must be unreal. Jesus taught

Page 36

1 and demonstrated the infinite as one, and not as two.

He did not teach that there are two deities, - one in-

3 finite and the other finite; for that would be impossible.

He knew God as infinite, and therefore as the All-in-all;

and we shall know this truth when we awake in the divine

6 likeness. Jesus' true and conscious being never left

heaven for earth. It abode forever above, even while

mortals believed it was here. He once spoke of himself

9 (John iii. 13) as "the Son of man which is in heaven," -

remarkable words, as wholly opposed to the popular view

of Jesus' nature.

12 The real Christ was unconscious of matter, of sin,

disease, and death, and was conscious only of God, of

good, of eternal Life, and harmony. Hence the human

15 Jesus had a resort to his higher self and relation to the

Father, and there could find rest from unreal trials in

the conscious reality and royalty of his being, - holding

18 the mortal as unreal, and the divine as real. It was this

retreat from material to spiritual selfhood which recuper-

ated him for triumph over sin, sickness, and death. Had

21 he been as conscious of these evils as he was of God,

wherein there is no consciousness of human error, Jesus

could not have resisted them; nor could he have conquered

24 the malice of his foes, rolled away the stone from the

sepulchre, and risen from human sense to a higher con-

cept than that in which he appeared at his birth.

Mankind's concept of Jesus was a babe born in a manger,

even while the divine and ideal Christ was the Son of God,

Page 37

1 spiritual and eternal. In human conception God's off-

spring had to grow, develop; but in Science his divine

3 nature and manhood were forever complete, and dwelt

forever in the Father. Jesus said, "Ye do err, not know-

ing the Scriptures, nor the power of God." Mortal thought

6 gives the eternal God and infinite consciousness the license

of a short-lived sinner, to begin and end, to know both

evil and good; when evil is temporal and God is eternal, -

and when, as a sphere of Mind, He cannot know begin-

ning or end.

The spiritual interpretation of the vicarious atonement

12 of Jesus, in Christian Science, unfolds the full-orbed glory

of that event; but to regard this wonder of glory, this

most marvellous demonstration, as a personal and material

15 bloodgiving - or as a proof that sin is known to the

divine Mind, and that what is unlike God demands His

continual presence, knowledge, and power, to meet and

18 master it - would make the atonement to be less than

the at-one-ment, whereby the work of Jesus would lose

its efficacy and lack the "signs following."

21 From Genesis to Revelation the Scriptures teach an in-

finite God, and none beside Him; and on this basis

Messiah and prophet saved the sinner and raised the dead,

24 - uplifting the human understanding, buried in a false

sense of being. Jesus rendered null and void whatever

is unlike God; but he could not have done this if error

and sin existed in the Mind of God. What God knows,

He also predestinates; and it must be fulfilled. Jesus

Page 38

1 proved to perfection, so far as this could be done in that

age, what Christian Science is to-day proving in a small

3 degree, - the falsity of the evidence of the material senses

that sin, sickness, and death are sensible claims, and that

God substantiates their evidence by knowing their claim.

6 He established the only true idealism on the basis that God

is All, and He is good, and good is Spirit; hence there is

no intelligent sin, evil mind or matter: and this is the only

9 true philosophy and realism. This divine mystery of

godliness was the rock of Truth, on which he built his

Church of the new-born, against which the gates of hell

cannot prevail.

This Truth is the rock which the builders rejected; but

"the same is become the head of the corner." This is

the chief corner-stone, the basis and support of creation,

the interpreter of one God. the infinity and unity of good.

In proportion as mortals approximate the understand-

18 ing of Christian Science, they take hold of harmony, and

material incumbrance disappears. Having one God, one

Mind, one consciousness, - which includes only His own

nature, - and loving your neighbor as yourself, constitute

Christian Science, which must demonstrate the nothing-

ness of any other state or stage of being.

IS THERE NO INTERCESSORY PRAYER?

All prayer that is desire is intercessory; but kindling

desire loses a part of its purest spirituality if the lips try to

Page 39

1 express it. It is a truism that we can think more lucidly

and profoundly than we can write or speak. The silent

3 intercession and unvoiced imploring is an honest and po-

tent prayer to heal and save. The audible prayer may be

offered to be heard of men, though ostensibly to catch

6 God's ear, - after the fashion of Baal's prophets, - by

speaking loud enough to be heard; but when the heart

prays, and not the lips, no dishonesty or vanity influences

the petition.

Prophet and apostle have glorified God in secret prayer,

and He has rewarded them openly. Prayer can neither

12 change God, nor bring His designs into mortal modes; but

it can and does change our modes and our false sense of

Life, Love, and Truth, uplifting us to Him. Such prayer

humiliates, purifies, and quickens activity, in the direction

that is unerring.

True prayer is not asking God for love; it is learning to

18 love, and to include all mankind in one affection. Prayer

is the utilization of the love wherewith He loves us. Prayer

begets an awakened desire to be and do good. It makes

21 new and scientific discoveries of God, of His goodness and

power. It shows us more clearly than we saw before,

what we already have and are; and most of all, it shows

24 us what God is. Advancing in this light, we reflect it;

and this light reveals the pure Mind-pictures, in silent

prayer, even as photography grasps the solar light to por-

tray the face of pleasant thought.

What but silent prayer can meet the demand, "Pray

Page 40

1 without ceasing"? The apostle James said: "Ye ask,

and receive not, because ye ask amiss, to consume it on

3 your lusts." Because of vanity and self-righteousness,

mortals seek, and expect to receive, a material sense of

approval; and they expect also what is impossible, - a

material and mortal sense of spiritual and immortal

Truth.

It is sometimes wise to hide from dull and base ears the

9 pure pearls of awakened consciousness, lest your pearls

be trampled upon. Words may belie desire, and pour

forth a hypocrite's prayer; but thoughts are our honest

conviction. I have no objection to audible prayer of the

right kind; but the inaudible is more effectual.

I instruct my students to pursue their mental ministra-

15 tions very sacredly, and never to touch the human thought

save to issues of Truth; never to trespass mentally on in-

dividual rights; never to take away the rights, but only

18 the wrongs of mankind. Otherwise they forfeit their

ability to heal in Science. Only when sickness, sin, and

fear obstruct the harmony of Mind and body, is it right

for one mind to meddle with another mind, and control

aright the thought struggling for freedom.

It is Truth and Love that cast out fear and heal the sick,

24 and mankind are better because of this. If a change in

the religious views of the patient comes with the change to

health, our Father has done this; for the human mind

and body are made better only by divine influence.

Page 41

SHOULD CHRISTIANS BEWARE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE?

3 History repeats itself. The Pharisees of old warned

the people to beware of Jesus, and contemptuously called

him "this fellow." Jesus said, "For which of these

6 works do ye stone me?" as much as to ask, Is it the

work most derided and envied that is most acceptable to

God? Not that he would cease to do the will of his Father

9 on account of persecution, but he would repeat his work

to the best advantage for mankind and the glory of his

Father.

12 There are sinners in all societies, and it is vain to look

for perfection in churches or associations. The life of

Christ is the perfect example; and to compare mortal

15 lives with this model is to subject them to severe scrutiny.

Without question, the subtlest forms of sin are trying to

force the doors of Science and enter in; but this white

18 sanctuary will never admit such as come to steal and to

rob. Through long ages people have slumbered over

Christ's commands, "Go ye into all the world, and preach

21 the gospel;" "Heal the sick, cast out devils;" and now

the Church seems almost chagrined that by new discoveries

of Truth sin is losing prestige and power.

The Rev. Dr. A.J. Gordon, a Boston Baptist clergyman,

said in a sermon: "The prayer of faith shall save the

sick, and it is doing it to-day; and as the faith of the Church

Page 42

1 increases, and Christians more and more learn their duty

to believe all things written in the Scriptures, will such

3 manifestations of God's power increase among us." Such

sentiments are wholesome avowals of Christian Science.

God is not unable or unwilling to heal, and mortals are not

6 compelled to have other gods before Him, and employ

material forms to meet a mental want. The divine Spirit

supplies all human needs. Jesus said to the sick, "Thy

sins are forgiven thee; rise up and walk!" God's pardon

is the destruction of all "the ills that flesh is heir to."

All power belongs to God; and it is not in all the vain

12 power of dogma and philosophy to dispossess the divine

Mind of healing power, or to cast out error with error,

even in the name and for the sake of Christ, and so heal

15 the sick. While Science is engulfing error in bottomless

oblivion, the material senses would enthrone error as om-

nipotent and omnipresent, with power to determine the

18 fact and fate to being. It is said that the devil is the ape

of God. The lie of evil holds its own by declaring itself

both true and good. The path of Christian Science is be-

21 set with false claimants, aping its virtues, but cleaving to

their own vices. Denial of the authorship of "Science

and Health with Key to the Scriptures" would make a

lie the author of Truth, and so make Truth itself a lie.

A distinguished clergyman came to be healed. He said:

"I am suffering from nervous prostration, and have to eat

beefsteak and drink strong coffee to support me through

a sermon." Here a skeptic might well ask if the atone-

Page 43

1 ment had lost its efficacy for him, and if Christ's power to

heal was not equal to the power of daily meat and drink.

3 The power of Truth is not contingent on matter. Our

Master said, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are

heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Truth rebukes

error; and whether stall-fed or famishing, theology needs

Truth to stimulate and sustain a good sermon.

A lady said: "Only He who knows all things can esti-

mate the good your books are doing."

A distinguished Doctor of Divinity said: "Your book

leavens my sermons."

12 The following extract from a letter is a specimen of

those received daily: "Your book Science and Health is

healing the sick, binding up the broken-hearted, preach-

ing deliverance to the captive, convicting the infidel, alarm-

ing the hypocrite, and quickening the Christian."

Christian Science Mind-healing is dishonored by those

18 who take it up from mercenary motives, for wealth and

fame, or think to build a baseless fabric of their own on

another's foundation. They cannot put the "new wine

21 into old bottles;" they can never engraft Truth into error.

Such students come to my College to learn a system which

they go away to disgrace. Stealing or garbling my state-

ments of Mind-science will never prevent or reconstruct

the wrecks of '"isms" and help humanity.

Science often suffers blame through the sheer ignorance

of people, while envy and hatred bark and bite at its heels.

A man's inability to heal, on the Principle of Christian

Page 44

1 Science, substantiates his ignorance of its Principle and

practice, and incapacitates him for correct comment.

This failure should make him modest.

Christian Science involves a new language, and a higher

demonstration of medicine and religion. It is the "new

6 tongue" of Truth, having its best interpretation in the

power of Christianity to heal. My system of Mind-heal-

ing swerves not from the highest ethics and from the spirit-

9 ual goal. To climb up by some other way than Truth is

to fall. Error has no hobby, however boldly ridden or

brilliantly caparisoned, that can leap into the sanctum

of Christian Science.

In Queen Elizabeth's time Protestantism could sentence

men to the dungeon or stake for their religion, and so

15 abrogate the rights of conscience and choke the channels

of God. Ecclesiastical tyranny muzzled the mouth lisping

God's praise; and instead of healing, it palsied the weak

18 hand outstretched to God. Progress, legitimate to the

human race, pours the healing balm of Truth and Love

into every wound. It reassures us that no Reign of Terror

21 or rule of error will again unite Church and State, or re-

enact, through the civil arm of government, the horrors of

religious persecution.

24 The Rev. S. E. Herrick, a Congregational clergyman of

Boston, says: "Heretics of yesterday are martyrs to-day."

In every age and clime, "On earth peace, good will to-

ward men" must be the watchword of Christianity.

Jesus said: "I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven

Page 45

1 and earth, that Thou hast hid these things from the wise

and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes."

3 St. Paul said that without charity we are "as sound-

ing brass, or a tinkling cymbal;" and he added: "Charity

suffereth long, and is kind; . . . doth not behave itself

unseemly, . . . thinketh no evil, . . . but rejoiceth in the

truth."

To hinder the unfolding truth, to ostracize whatever

9 uplifts mankind, is of course out of the question. Such an

attempt indicates weakness, fear, or malice; and such

efforts arise from a spiritual lack, felt, though unacknowl-

edged.

Let it not be heard in Boston that woman, "last at the

cross and first at the sepulchre," has no rights which man

15 is bound to respect. In natural law and in religion the

right of woman to fill the highest measure of enlightened

understanding and the highest places in government, is

18 inalienable, and these rights are ably vindicated by the

noblest of both sexes. This is woman's hour, with all its

sweet amenities and its moral and religious reforms.

21 Drifting into intellectual wrestlings, we should agree to

disagree; and this harmony would anchor the Church in

more spiritual latitudes, and so fulfil her destiny.

24 Let the Word have free course and be glorified. The

people clamor to leave cradle and swaddling-clothes. The

spiritual status is urging its highest demands on mortals,

and material history is drawing to a close. Truth cannot

be stereotyped; it unfoldeth forever. "One on God's

Page 46

1 side is a majority;" and "Lo, I am with you alway," is

the pledge of the Master.

3 The question now at issue is: Shall we have a prac-

tical, spiritual Christianity, with its healing power, or

shall we have material medicine and superficial religion?

6 The advancing hope of the race, craving health and holi-

ness, halts for a reply; and the reappearing Christ, whose

life-giving understanding Christian Science imparts, must

9 answer the constant inquiry: "Art thou he that should

come?" Woman should not be ordered to the rear, or

laid on the rack, for joining the overture of angels. Theo-

logians descant pleasantly upon free moral agency; but

they should begin by admitting individual rights.

The author's ancestors were among the first settlers of

15 New Hampshire. They reared there the Puritan standard

of undefiled religion. As dutiful descendants of Puritans,

let us lift their standard higher, rejoicing, as Paul did,

that we are free born.

Man has a noble destiny; and the full-orbed significance

of this destiny has dawned on the sick-bound and sin-

21 enslaved. For the unfolding of this upward tendency to

health, greatness, and goodness, I shall continue to labor

and wait.

Table of Contents

Pulpit and Press

Mary Baker Eddy

Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science

and Author of Science and Health with

Key to the Scriptures

Published by the

Trustees under the Will of Mary Baker G. Eddy

Boston, U.S.A.

By Mary Baker G. Eddy

_____________

Printed in the United States of America

THE DEAR TWO THOUSAND AND SIX HUNDRED

CHILDREN

WHOSE CONTRIBUTIONS OF $4,460(1) WERE DEVOTED

TO THE MOTHER'S ROOM IN THE FIRST CHURCH

OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST, BOSTON, THIS UNIQUE

BOOK IS TENDERLY DEDICATED BY

MARY BAKER EDDY

(1) See footnote on page nine

Preface

1 THIS volume contains scintillations from press and

pulpit - utterances which epitomize the story of the

3 birth of Christian Science, in 1866, and its progress

during the ensuing thirty years. Three quarters of a

century hence, when the children of to-day are the elders

6 of the twentieth century, it will be interesting to have

not only a record of the inclination given their own

thoughts in the latter half of the nineteenth century,

but also a registry of the rise of the mercury in the glass

of the world's opinion.

It will then be instructive to turn backward the tele-

12 scope of that advanced age, with its lenses of more

spiritual mentality, indicating the gain of intellectual

momentum, on the early footsteps of Christian Science

15 as planted in the pathway of this generation; to note

the impetus thereby given to Christianity; to con the

facts surrounding the cradle of this grand verity - that

18 the sick are healed and sinners saved, not by matter, but

by Mind; and to scan further the features of the vast

problem of eternal life, as expressed in the absolute

power of Truth and the actual bliss of man's existence

in Science.

MARY BAKER EDDY

February, 1895

Pulpit and Press

DEDICATORY SERMON

BY REV. MARY BAKER EDDY

First Pastor of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston, Mass.

Delivered January 6, 1895

1 TEXT: They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of Thy

house; and Thou shalt make them drink of the river of Thy pleasures.

3 - PSALMS xxxvi. 8.

A NEW year is a nursling, a babe of time, a prophecy

and promise clad in white raiment, kissed - and

6 encumbered with greetings - redolent with grief and

gratitude.

An old year is time's adult, and 1893 was a distinguished

9 character, notable for good and evil. Time past and time

present, both, may pain us, but time improved is elo-

quent in God's praise. For due refreshment garner the

memory of 1894; for if wiser by reason of its large lessons,

and records deeply engraven, great is the value thereof.

Pass on, returnless year!

15 The path behind thee is with glory crowned;

This spot whereon thou troddest was holy ground;

Pass proudly to thy bier!

To-day, being with you in spirit, what need that I should

be present in propria persona? Were I present, methinks

Page 2

1 I should be much like the Queen of Sheba, when she saw

the house Solomon had erected. In the expressive language

3 of Holy Writ, "There was no more spirit in her;" and

she said, "Behold, the half was not told me: thy wisdom

and prosperity exceedeth the fame which I heard." Both

6 without and within, the spirit of beauty dominates The

Mother Church, from its mosaic flooring to the soft shim-

mer of its starlit dome.

9 Nevertheless, there is a thought higher and deeper than

the edifice. Material light and shade are temporal, not

eternal. Turning the attention from sublunary views,

12 however enchanting, think for a moment with me of the

house wherewith "they shall be abundantly satisfied," -

even the "house not made with hands, eternal in the

15 heavens." With the mind's eye glance at the direful

scenes of the war between China and Japan. Imagine

yourselves in a poorly barricaded fort, fiercely besieged

18 by the enemy. Would you rush forth single-handed to

combat the foe? Nay, would you not rather strengthen

your citadel by every means in your power, and remain

21 within the walls for its defense? Likewise should we do

as metaphysicians and Christian Scientists. The real

house in which "we live, and move, and have our being"

24 is Spirit, God, the eternal harmony of infinite Soul. The

enemy we confront would overthrow this sublime fortress,

and it behooves us to defend our heritage.

27 How can we do this Christianly scientific work? By

intrenching ourselves in the knowledge that our true

temple is no human fabrication, but the superstructure

of Truth, reared on the foundation of Love, and pinnacled

Page 3

1 in Life. Such being its nature, how can our godly temple

possibly be demolished, or even disturbed? Can eternity

3 end? Can Life die? Can Truth be uncertain? Can

Love be less than boundless? Referring to this temple,

our Master said: "Destroy this temple, and in three days

6 I will raise it up." He also said: "The kingdom of God

is within you." Know, then, that you possess sovereign

power to think and act rightly, and that nothing can dis-

9 possess you of this heritage and trespass on Love. If you

maintain this position, who or what can cause you to sin

or suffer? Our surety is in our confidence that we are

12 indeed dwellers in Truth and Love, man's eternal mansion.

Such a heavenly assurance ends all warfare, and bids tu-

mult cease, for the good fight we have waged is over, and

15 divine Love gives us the true sense of victory. "They

shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of Thy house;

and Thou shalt make them drink of the river of Thy

18 pleasures." No longer are we of the church militant, but

of the church triumphant; and with Job of old we ex-

claim, "Yet in my flesh shall I see God." The river of

21 His pleasures is a tributary of divine Love, whose living

waters have their source in God, and flow into everlasting

Life. We drink of this river when all human desires are

quenched, satisfied with what is pleasing to the divine

Mind.

Perchance some one of you may say, "The evidence of

27 spiritual verity in me is so small that I am afraid. I feel

so far from victory over the flesh that to reach out for a

present realization of my hope savors of temerity. Be-

cause of my own unfitness for such a spiritual animus my

Page 4

1 strength is naught and my faith fails." O thou "weak

and infirm of purpose." Jesus said, "Be not afraid"!

3 "What if the little rain should say,

'So small a drop as I

Can ne'er refresh a drooping earth,

6 I'll tarry in the sky.' "

Is not a man metaphysically and mathematically num-

ber one, a unit, and therefore whole number, governed

9 and protected by his divine Principle, God? You have

simply to preserve a scientific, positive sense of unity with

your divine source, and daily demonstrate this. Then you

12 will find that one is as important a factor as duodecillions

in being and doing right, and thus demonstrating deific

Principle. A dewdrop reflects the sun. Each of Christ's

15 little ones reflects the infinite One, and therefore is the

seer's declaration true, that "one on God's side is a

majority."

A single drop of water may help to hide the stars, or

crown the tree with blossoms.

Who lives in good, lives also in God, - lives in all Life,

21 through all space. His is an individual kingdom, his dia-

dem a crown of crowns. His existence is deathless, for-

ever unfolding its eternal Principle. Wait patiently on

24 illimitable Love, the lord and giver of Life. Reflect this

Life, and with it cometh the full power of being. "They

shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of Thy

house."

In 1893 the World's Parliament of Religions, held in

Chicago, used, in all its public sessions, my form of prayer

Page 5

1 since 1866; and one of the very clergymen who had pub-

licly proclaimed me "the prayerless Mrs. Eddy," offered

3 his audible adoration in the words I use, besides listening

to an address on Christian Science from my pen, read by

Judge S. J. Hanna, in that unique assembly.

6 When the light of one friendship after another passes

from earth to heaven, we kindle in place thereof the glow

of some deathless reality. Memory, faithful to goodness,

9 holds in her secret chambers those characters of holiest

sort, bravest to endure, firmest to suffer, soonest to re-

nounce. Such was the founder of the Concord School of

Philosophy - the late A. Bronson Alcott.

After the publication of "Science and Health with Key

to the Scriptures," his athletic mind, scholarly and serene,

15 was the first to bedew my hope with a drop of humanity.

When the press and pulpit cannonaded this book, he

introduced himself to its author by saying, "I have come

18 to comfort you." Then eloquently paraphrasing it, and

prophesying its prosperity, his conversation with a beauty

all its own reassured me. That prophecy is fulfilled.

21 This book, in 1895, is in its ninety-first edition of one

thousand copies. It is in the public libraries of the prin-

cipal cities, colleges, and universities of America; also

24 the same in Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia,

Italy, Greece, Japan, India, and China; in the Oxford

University and the Victoria Institute, England; in the

Academy of Greece, and the Vatican at Rome.

This book is the leaven fermenting religion; it is

palpably working in the sermons, Sunday Schools, and

literature of our and other lands. This spiritual chemi-

Page 6

1 calization is the upheaval produced when Truth is neutral-

izing error and impurities are passing off. And it will

3 continue till the antithesis of Christianity, engendering the

limited forms of a national or tyrannical religion, yields to

the church established by the Nazarene Prophet and main-

tained on the spiritual foundation of Christ's healing.

Good, the Anglo-Saxon term for God, unites Science to

Christianity. It presents to the understanding, not matter,

but Mind; not the deified drug, but the goodness of God -

healing and saving mankind.

The author of "Marriage of the Lamb," who made the

12 mistake of thinking she caught her notions from my book,

wrote to me in 1894, "Six months ago your book, Science

and Health, was put into my hands. I had not read three

15 pages before I realized I had found that for which I had

hungered since girlhood, and was healed instantaneously

of an ailment of seven years' standing. I cast from me the

18 false remedy I had vainly used, and turned to the 'great

Physician.' I went with my husband, a missionary to

China, in 1884. He went out under the auspices of the

Methodist Episcopal Church. I feel the truth is leading

us to return to Japan."

Another brilliant enunciator, seeker, and servant of

24 Truth, the Rev. William R. Alger of Boston, signalled

me kindly as my lone bark rose and fell and rode the rough

sea. At a conversazione in Boston, he said, "You may

find in Mrs. Eddy's metaphysical teachings more than is

dreamt of in your philosophy."

Also that renowned apostle of anti-slavery, Wendell

Phillips, the native course of whose mind never swerved

Page 7

1 from the chariot-paths of justice, speaking of my work,

said: "Had I young blood in my veins, I would help that

woman."

I love Boston, and especially the laws of the State where-

of this city is the capital. To-day, as of yore, her laws

have befriended progress.

Yet when I recall the past, - how the gospel of healing

was simultaneously praised and persecuted in Boston, -

9 and remember also that God is just, I wonder whether,

were our dear Master in our New England metropolis at

this hour, he would not weep over it, as he wept over

12 Jerusalem! O ye tears! Not in vain did ye flow. Those

sacred drops were but enshrined for future use, and God

has now unsealed their receptacle with His outstretched

15 arm. Those crystal globes made morals for mankind.

They will rise with joy, and with power to wash away, in

floods of forgiveness, every crime, even when mistakenly

committed in the name of religion.

An unjust, unmerciful, and oppressive priesthood must

perish, for false prophets in the present as in the past

21 stumble onward to their doom; while their tabernacles

crumble with dry rot. "God is not mocked," and "the

word of the Lord endureth forever."

24 I have ordained the Bible and the Christian Science

textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,"

as pastor of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in

27 Boston, - so long as this church is satisfied with this

pastor. This is my first ordination. "They shall be

abundantly satisfied with the fatness of Thy house; and

Thou shalt make them drink of the river of Thy pleasures. "

Page 8

1 All praise to the press of America's Athens, - and

throughout our land the press has spoken out historically,

3 impartially. Like the winds telling tales through the

leaves of an ancient oak, unfallen, may our church chimes

repeat my thanks to the press.

6 Notwithstanding the perplexed condition of our na-

tion's finances, the want and woe with millions of dollars

unemployed in our money centres, the Christian Scientists,

9 within fourteen months, responded to the call for this

church with $191,012. Not a mortgage was given nor a

loan solicited, and the donors all touchingly told their

12 privileged joy at helping to build The Mother Church.

There was no urging, begging, or borrowing; only the

need made known, and forth came the money, or dia-

monds, which served to erect this "miracle in stone."

Even the children vied with their parents to meet the

demand. Little hands, never before devoted to menial

18 services, shoveled snow, and babes gave kisses to earn a

few pence toward this consummation. Some of these

lambs my prayers had christened, but Christ will rechristen

21 them with his own new name. "Out of the mouths of

babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise." The

resident youthful workers were called "Busy Bees."

24 Sweet society, precious children, your loving hearts and

deft fingers distilled the nectar and painted the finest

flowers in the fabric of this history, - even its centre-piece,

27 - Mother's Room in The First Church of Christ, Sci-

entist, in Boston. The children are destined to witness

results which will eclipse Oriental dreams. They belong

to the twentieth century. By juvenile aid, into the build-

Page 9

1 ing fund have come $4,460.(1) Ah, children, you are the

bulwarks of freedom, the cement of society, the hope of

our race!

Brothers of the Christian Science Board of Directors,

when your tireless tasks are done - well done - no Del-

6 phian Iyre could break the full chords of such a rest. May

the altar you have built never be shattered in our hearts,

but justice, mercy, and love kindle perpetually its fires.

9 It was well that the brother whose appliances warm

this house, warmed also our perishless hope, and nerved

its grand fulfilment. Woman, true to her instinct, came

12 to the rescue as sunshine from the clouds; so, when man

quibbled over an architectural exigency, a woman climbed

with feet and hands to the top of the tower, and helped

settle the subject.

After the loss of our late lamented pastor, Rev. D. A.

Easton, the church services were maintained by excellent

18 sermons from the editor of The Christian Science Journal

(who, with his better half, is a very whole man), together

with the Sunday School giving this flock "drink from the

21 river of His pleasures." O glorious hope and blessed as-

surance, "it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the

kingdom." Christians rejoice in secret, they have a bounty

24 hidden from the world. Self-forgetfulness, purity, and

love are treasures untold - constant prayers, prophecies,

and anointings. Practice, not profession, - goodness, not

27 doctrines, - spiritual understanding, not mere belief,

gain the ear and right hand of omnipotence, and call down

blessings infinite. "Faith without works is dead." The

foundation of enlightened faith is Christ's teachings and

(1)This sum was increased to $5,568.51 by contributions which reached the Treas-

urer after the Dedicatory Services.

Page 10

1 practice. It was our Master's self-immolation, his life-

giving love, healing both mind and body, that raised the

3 deadened conscience, paralyzed by inactive faith, to a

quickened sense of mortal's necessities, - and God's

power and purpose to supply them. It was, in the words

of the Psalmist, He "who forgiveth all thine iniquities;

who healeth all thy diseases."

Rome's fallen fanes and silent Aventine is glory's tomb;

9 her pomp and power lie low in dust. Our land, more

favored, had its Pilgrim Fathers. On shores of solitude,

at Plymouth Rock, they planted a nation's heart, - the

12 rights of conscience, imperishable glory. No dream of

avarice or ambition broke their exalted purpose, theirs

was the wish to reign in hope's reality - the realm of

Love.

Christian Scientists, you have planted your standard

on the rock of Christ, the true, the spiritual idea, - the

18 chief corner-stone in the house of our God. And our

Master said: "The stone which the builders rejected, the

same is become the head of the corner." If you are less

21 appreciated to-day than your forefathers, wait - for if

you are as devout as they, and more scientific, as progress

certainly demands, your plant is immortal. Let us rejoice

24 that chill vicissitudes have not withheld the timely shelter

of this house, which descended like day-spring from on

high.

27 Divine presence, breathe Thou Thy blessing on every

heart in this house. Speak out, O soul! This is the new-

born of Spirit, this is His redeemed; this, His beloved.

May the kingdom of God within you, - with you alway, -

Page 11

1 reascending, bear you outward, upward, heavenward.

May the sweet song of silver-throated singers, making

3 melody more real, and the organ's voice, as the sound of

many waters, and the Word spoken in this sacred temple

dedicated to the ever-present God - mingle with the joy

of angels and rehearse your hearts' holy intents. May all

whose means, energies, and prayers helped erect The

Mother Church, find within it home, and heaven.

Page 12

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE TEXTBOOK

1 The following selections from "Science and Health

with Key to the Scriptures," pages 568-571, were read

from the platform. The impressive stillness of the audi-

ence indicated close attention.

Revelation xii. 10-12. And I heard a loud voice saying in

6 heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the king-

dom of our God, and the power of His Christ: for the accuser

of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our

9 God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood

of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they

loved not their lives unto the death. Therefore rejoice, ye

12 heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters

of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto

you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath

but a short time.

For victory over a single sin, we give thanks and mag-

nify the Lord of Hosts. What shall we say of the mighty

18 conquest over all sin? A louder song, sweeter than has

ever before reached high heaven, now rises clearer and

nearer to the great heart of Christ; for the accuser is not

21 there, and Love sends forth her primal and everlasting

strain. Self-abnegation, by which we lay down all for

Truth, or Christ, in our warfare against error, is a rule in

Christian Science. This rule clearly interprets God as

Page 13

1 divine Principle, - as Life, represented by the Father;

as Truth, represented by the Son; as Love, represented

3 by the Mother. Every mortal at some period, here or here-

after, must grapple with and overcome the mortal belief

in a power opposed to God.

6 The Scripture, "Thou hast been faithful over a few

things, I will make thee ruler over many," is literally ful-

filled, when we are conscious of the supremacy of Truth,

9 by which the nothingness of error is seen; and we know

that the nothingness of error is in proportion to its wicked-

ness. He that touches the hem of Christ's robe and masters

12 his mortal beliefs, animality, and hate, rejoices in the proof

of healing, - in a sweet and certain sense that God is

Love. Alas for those who break faith with divine Science

15 and fail to strangle the serpent of sin as well as of sickness!

They are dwellers still in the deep darkness of belief.

They are in the surging sea of error, not struggling to lift

their heads above the drowning wave.

What must the end be? They must eventually expiate

their sin through suffering. The sin, which one has made

21 his bosom companion, comes back to him at last with

accelerated force, for the devil knoweth his time is short.

Here the Scriptures declare that evil is temporal, not

24 eternal. The dragon is at last stung to death by his own

malice; but how many periods of torture it may take to

remove all sin, must depend upon sin's obduracy.

Revelation xii. 13. And when the dragon saw that he was

cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought

forth the man child.

Page 14

1 The march of mind and of honest investigation will

bring the hour when the people will chain, with fetters of

3 some sort, the growing occultism of this period. The

present apathy as to the tendency of certain active yet un-

seen mental agencies will finally be shocked into another

extreme mortal mood, - into human indignation; for

one extreme follows another.

Revelation xii. 15, 16. And the serpent cast out of his

9 mouth water as a flood, after the woman, that he might

cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth

helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and

swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his

mouth.

Millions of unprejudiced minds - simple seekers for

15 Truth, weary wanderers, athirst in the desert - are wait-

ing and watching for rest and drink. Give them a cup of

cold water in Christ's name, and never fear the conse-

18 quences. What if the old dragon should send forth a new

flood to drown the Christ-idea? He can neither drown

your voice with its roar, nor again sink the world into the

21 deep waters of chaos and old night. In this age the earth

will help the woman; the spiritual idea will be understood.

Those ready for the blessing you impart will give thanks.

The waters will be pacified, and Christ will command the

wave.

When God heals the sick or the sinning, they should

know the great benefit which Mind has wrought. They

should also know the great delusion of mortal mind, when

it makes them sick or sinful. Many are willing to open

Page 15

1 the eyes of the people to the power of good resident in

divine Mind, but they are not so willing to point out the

evil in human thought, and expose evil's hidden mental

ways of accomplishing iniquity.

Why this backwardness, since exposure is necessary to

6 ensure the avoidance of the evil? Because people like

you better when you tell them their virtues than when you

tell them their vices. It requires the spirit of our blessed

9 Master to tell a man his faults, and so risk human dis-

pleasure for the sake of doing right and benefiting our

race. Who is telling mankind of the foe in ambush? Is

12 the informer one who sees the foe? If so, listen and be

wise. Escape from evil, and designate those as unfaithful

stewards who have seen the danger and yet have given

no warning.

At all times and under all circumstances, overcome evil

with good. Know thyself, and God will supply the wisdom

18 and the occasion for a victory over evil. Clad in the

panoply of Love, human hatred cannot reach you. The

cement of a higher humanity will unite all interests in the

one divinity.

Page 16

HYMNS

BY REV. MARY BAKER EDDY

1 [Set to the Church Chimes and Sung on This Occasion]

LAYING THE CORNER-STONE

3 Laus Deo, it is done!

Rolled away from loving heart

Is a stone.

6 Joyous, risen, we depart

Having one.

Laus Deo, - on this rock

9 (Heaven chiselled squarely good)

Stands His church, -

God is Love, and understood

12 By His flock.

Laus Deo, night starlit

Slumbers not in God's embrace;

15 Then, O man!

Like this stone, be in thy place;

Stand, not sit.

18 Cold, silent, stately stone,

Dirge and song and shoutings low,

In thy heart

Dwell serene, - and sorrow? No,

It has none,

Laus Deo!

Page 17

"FEED MY SHEEP"

Shepherd, show me how to go

3 O'er the hillside steep,

How to gather, how to sow, -

How to feed Thy sheep;

6 I will listen for Thy voice,

Lest my footsteps stray;

I will follow and rejoice

9 All the rugged way.

Thou wilt bind the stubborn will,

Wound the callous breast,

12 Make self-righteousness be still,

Break earth's stupid rest.

Strangers on a barren shore,

15 Lab'ring long and lone -

We would enter by the door,

And Thou know'st Thine own.

18 So, when day grows dark and cold,

Tear or triumph harms,

Lead Thy lambkins to the fold,

21 Take them in Thine arms;

Feed the hungry, heal the heart,

Till the morning's beam;

White as wool, ere they depart -

Shepherd, wash them clean.

Page 18

CHRIST MY REFUGE

O'er waiting harpstrings of the mind

3 There sweeps a strain,

Low, sad, and sweet, whose measures bind

The power of pain.

6 And wake a white-winged angel throng

Of thoughts, illumed

By faith, and breathed in raptured song,

9 With love perfumed.

Then His unveiled, sweet mercies show

Life's burdens light.

12 I kiss the cross, and wake to know

A world more bright.

And o'er earth's troubled, angry sea

15 I see Christ walk,

And come to me, and tenderly,

Divinely talk.

18 Thus Truth engrounds me on the rock,

Upon Life's shore;

'Gainst which the winds and waves can shock,

21 Oh, nevermore !

From tired joy and grief afar,

And nearer Thee, -

Father, where Thine own children are,

I love to be.

Page 19

1 My prayer, some daily good to do

To Thine, for Thee;

An offering pure of Love, whereto

God leadeth me.

Page 20

NOTE

BY REV. MARY BAKER EDDY

1 The land whereon stands The First Church of Christ,

Scientist, in Boston, was first purchased by the church

3 and society. Owing to a heavy loss, they were unable to

pay the mortgage; therefore I paid it, and through trustees

gave back the land to the church.

6 In 1892 I had to recover the land from the trustees, re-

organize the church, and reobtain its charter - not, how-

ever, through the State Commissioner, who refused to

9 grant it, but by means of a statute of the State, and through

Directors regive the land to the church. In 1895 I recon-

structed my original system of ministry and church gov-

ernment. Thus committed to the providence of God, the

prosperity of this church is unsurpassed.

From first to last The Mother Church seemed type and

15 shadow of the warfare between the flesh and Spirit, even

that shadow whose substance is the divine Spirit, im-

peratively propelling the greatest moral, physical, civil,

18 and religious reform ever known on earth. In the words

of the prophet: "The shadow of a great rock in a weary

land."

21 This church was dedicated on January 6, anciently one

of the many dates selected and observed in the East as the

day of the birth and baptism of our master Metaphysician,

Jesus of Nazareth.

Page 21

1 Christian Scientists, their children and grandchildren

to the latest generations, inevitably love one another with

3 that love wherewith Christ loveth us; a love unselfish,

unambitious, impartial, universal, - that loves only be-

cause it is Love. Moreover, they love their enemies, even

6 those that hate them. This we all must do to be Christian

Scientists in spirit and in truth. I long, and live, to see

this love demonstrated. I am seeking and praying for it

9 to inhabit my own heart and to be made manifest in my

life. Who will unite with me in this pure purpose, and

faithfully struggle till it be accomplished? Let this be our

Christian endeavor society, which Christ organizes and

blesses.

While we entertain due respect and fellowship for what

15 is good and doing good in all denominations of religion,

and shun whatever would isolate us from a true sense of

goodness in others, we cannot serve mammon.

18 Christian Scientists are really united to only that which

is Christlike, but they are not indifferent to the welfare of

any one. To perpetuate a cold distance between our de-

21 nomination and other sects, and close the door on church

or individuals - however much this is done to us - is

not Christian Science. Go not into the way of the un-

24 christly, but wheresoever you recognize a clear expression

of God's likeness, there abide in confidence and hope.

Our unity with churches of other denominations must

27 rest on the spirit of Christ calling us together. It cannot

come from any other source. Popularity, self-aggrandize-

ment, aught that can darken in any degree our spirituality,

must be set aside. Only what feeds and fills the sentiment

Page 22

1 with unworldliness, can give peace and good will towards

men.

3 All Christian churches have one bond of unity, one

nucleus or point of convergence, one prayer, - the Lord's

Prayer. It is matter for rejoicing that we unite in love,

6 and in this sacred petition with every praying assembly

on earth, - "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in

earth, as it is in heaven."

9 If the lives of Christian Scientists attest their fidelity

to Truth, I predict that in the twentieth century every

Christian church in our land, and a few in far-off lands,

12 will approximate the understanding of Christian Science

sufficiently to heal the sick in his name. Christ will give

to Christianity his new name, and Christendom will be

15 classified as Christian Scientists.

When the doctrinal barriers between the churches are

broken, and the bonds of peace are cemented by spiritual

18 understanding and Love, there will be unity of spirit, and

the healing power of Christ will prevail. Then shall Zion

have put on her most beautiful garments, and her waste

places budded and blossomed as the rose.

Page 23

CLIPPINGS FROM NEWSPAPERS

[Daily Inter-Ocean, Chicago, December 31, 1894]

MARY BAKER EDDY

COMPLETION OF THE FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST, BOSTON

- "OUR PRAYER IN STONE" - DESCRIPTION OF THE MOST

UNIQUE STRUCTURE IN ANY CITY - A BEAUTIFUL TEMPLE

AND ITS FURNISHINGS - MRS. EDDY'S WORK AND HER INFLUENCE

Boston, Mass., December 28. - Special Correspond-

9 ence. - The "great awakening" of the time of Jonathan

Edwards has been paralleled during the last decade by a

wave of idealism that has swept over the country, manif-

12 esting itself under several different aspects and under

various names, but each having the common identity of

spiritual demand. This movement, under the guise of

15 Christian Science, and ingenuously calling out a closer

inquiry into Oriental philosophy, prefigures itself to us

as one of the most potent factors in the social evolution

18 of the last quarter of the nineteenth century. History

shows the curious fact that the closing years of every cen-

tury are years of more intense life, manifested in unrest

21 or in aspiration, and scholars of special research, like

Prof. Max Muller, assert that the end of a cycle, as is the

latter part of the present century, is marked by peculiar

intimations of man's immortal life.

Page 24

1 The completion of the first Christian Science church

erected in Boston strikes a keynote of definite attention.

3 This church is in the fashionable Back Bay, between

Commonwealth and Huntington Avenues. It is one of

the most beautiful, and is certainly the most unique struc-

6 ture in any city. The First Church of Christ, Scientist,

as it is officially called, is termed by its Founder, "Our

prayer in stone." It is located at the intersection of Nor-

9 way and Falmouth Streets, on a triangular plot of ground,

the design a Romanesque tower with a circular front and

an octagonal form, accented by stone porticos and turreted

corners. On the front is a marble tablet, with the follow-

ing inscription carved in bold relief: -

"The First Church of Christ, Scientist, erected Anno

15 Domini 1894. A testimonial to our beloved teacher,

the Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, Discoverer and Founder

of Christian Science; author of "Science and Health

18 with Key to the Scriptures;" president of the Massa-

chusetts Metaphysical College, and the first pastor of

this denomination."

21 THE CHURCH EDIFICE

The church is built of Concord granite in light gray,

with trimmings of the pink granite of New Hampshire,

24 Mrs. Eddy's native State. The architecture is Romanesque

throughout. The tower is one hundred and twenty feet in

height and twenty-one and one half feet square. The en-

trances are of marble, with doors of antique oak richly

carved. The windows of stained glass are very rich in

Page 25

1 pictorial effect. The lighting and cooling of the church -

for cooling is a recognized feature as well as heating -

3 are done by electricity, and the heat generated by two

large boilers in the basement is distributed by the four

systems with motor electric power. The partitions are

6 of iron; the floors of marble in mosaic work, and the

edifice is therefore as literally fire-proof as is conceivable.

The principal features are the auditorium, seating eleven

9 hundred people and capable of holding fifteen hundred;

the "Mother's Room," designed for the exclusive use of

Mrs. Eddy; the "directors' room," and the vestry. The

12 girders are all of iron, the roof is of terra cotta tiles, the

galleries are in plaster relief, the window frames are of

iron, coated with plaster; the staircases are of iron, with

marble stairs of rose pink, and marble approaches.

The vestibule is a fitting entrance to this magnificent

temple. In the ceiling is a sunburst with a seven-pointed

18 star, which illuminates it. From this are the entrances

leading to the auditorium, the "Mother's Room," and

the directors' room.

21 The auditorium is seated with pews of curly birch, up-

holstered in old rose plush. The floor is in white Italian

mosaic, with frieze of the old rose, and the wainscoting

24 repeats the same tints. The base and cap are of pink

Tennessee marble. On the walls are bracketed oxidized

silver lamps of Roman design, and there are frequent

27 illuminated texts from the Bible and from Mrs. Eddy's

"Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" im-

panelled. A sunburst in the centre of the ceiling takes

the place of chandeliers. There is a disc of cut glass in

Page 26

1 decorative designs, covering one hundred and forty-four

electric lights in the form of a star, which is twenty-one

3 inches from point to point, the centre being of pure white

light, and each ray under prisms which reflect the rainbow

tints. The galleries are richly panelled in relief work.

6 The organ and choir gallery is spacious and rich beyond

the power of words to depict. The platform - corre-

sponding to the chancel of an Episcopal church - is a

9 mosaic work, with richly carved seats following the sweep

of its curve, with a lamp stand of the Renaissance period

on either end, bearing six richly wrought oxidized silver

12 lamps, eight feet in height. The great organ comes from

Detroit. It is one of vast compass, with AEolian attach-

ment, and cost eleven thousand dollars. It is the gift of

a single individual - a votive offering of gratitude for the

healing of the wife of the donor.

The chime of bells includes fifteen, of fine range and

perfect tone.

THE "MOTHER'S ROOM"

The "Mother's Room" is approached by an entrance of

21 Italian marble, and over the door, in large golden letters on

a marble tablet, is the word "Love." In this room the

mosaic marble floor of white has a Romanesque border and

24 is decorated with sprays of fig leaves bearing fruit. The

room is toned in pale green with relief in old rose. The

mantel is of onyx and gold. Before the great bay window

hangs an Athenian lamp over two hundred years old,

which will be kept always burning day and night.(1) Lead-

(1) At Mrs. Eddy's request the lamp was not kept burning.

Page 27

1 ing off the "Mother's Room" are toilet apartments, with

full-length French mirrors and every convenience.

3 The directors' room is very beautiful in marble ap-

proaches and rich carving, and off this is a vault for the

safe preservation of papers.

The vestry seats eight hundred people, and opening from

it are three large class-rooms and the pastor's study.

The windows are a remarkable feature of this temple.

9 There are no "memorial" windows; the entire church is a

testimonial, not a memorial - a point that the members

strongly insist upon.

12 In the auditorium are two rose windows - one repre-

senting the heavenly city which "cometh down from God

out of heaven," with six small windows beneath, emblem-

15 atic of the six water-pots referred to in John ii. 6. The

other rose window represents the raising of the daughter

of Jairus. Beneath are two small windows bearing palms

of victory, and others with lamps, typical of Science and

Health.

Another great window tells its pictorial story of the four

21 Marys - the mother of Jesus, Mary anointing the head of

Jesus, Mary washing the feet of Jesus, Mary at the resur-

rection; and the woman spoken of in the Apocalypse,

chapter 12, God-crowned.

One more window in the auditorium represents the

raising of Lazarus.

27 In the gallery are windows representing John on the

Isle of Patmos, and others of pictorial significance. In

the "Mother's Room" the windows are of still more unique

interest. A large bay window, composed of three separate

Page 28

1 panels, is designed to be wholly typical of the work of Mrs.

Eddy. The central panel represents her in solitude and

3 meditation, searching the Scriptures by the light of a single

candle, while the star of Bethlehem shines down from above.

Above this is a panel containing the Christian Science seal,

6 and other panels are decorated with emblematic designs,

with the legends, "Heal the Sick," "Raise the Dead,"

"Cleanse the Lepers," and "Cast out Demons."

9 The cross and the crown and the star are presented in

appropriate decorative effect. The cost of this church is

two hundred and twenty-one thousand dollars, exclusive

of the land - a gift from Mrs. Eddy - which is valued

at some forty thousand dollars.

THE ORDER OF SERVICE

15 The order of service in the Christian Science Church

does not differ widely from that of any other sect, save that

its service includes the use of Mrs. Eddy's book, entitled

18 "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," in per-

haps equal measure to its use of the Bible. The reading

is from the two alternately; the singing is from a compila-

21 tion called the "Christian Science Hymnal," but its songs

are for the most part those devotional hymns from Herbert,

Faber, Robertson, Wesley, Bowring, and other recog-

24 nized devotional poets, with selections from Whittier and

Lowell, as are found in the hymn-books of the Unitarian

churches. For the past year or two Judge Hanna, for-

merly of Chicago, has filled the office of pastor to the

church in this city, which held its meetings in Chickering

Page 29

1 Hall, and later in Copley Hall, in the new Grundmann

Studio Building on Copley Square. Preceding Judge

3 Hanna were Rev. D. A. Easton and Rev. L. P. Norcross,

both of whom had formerly been Congregational clergy-

men. The organizer and first pastor of the church here

was Mrs. Eddy herself, of whose work I shall venture to

speak, a little later, in this article.

Last Sunday I gave myself the pleasure of attending the

9 service held in Copley Hall. The spacious apartment was

thronged with a congregation whose remarkable earnest-

ness impressed the observer. There was no straggling

12 of late-comers. Before the appointed hour every seat in the

hall was filled and a large number of chairs pressed into

service for the overflowing throng. The music was spirited,

15 and the selections from the Bible and from Science and

Health were finely read by Judge Hanna. Then came his

sermon, which dealt directly with the command of Christ

18 to "heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast

out demons." In his admirable discourse Judge Hanna

said that while all these injunctions could, under certain

21 conditions, be interpreted and fulfilled literally, the

special lesson was to be taken spiritually - to cleanse the

leprosy of sin, to cast out the demons of evil thought.

The discourse was able, and helpful in its suggestive

interpretation.

THE CHURCH MEMBERS

Later I was told that almost the entire congregation was

composed of persons who had either been themselves, or

Page 30

1 had seen members of their own families, healed by Chris-

tian Science treatment; and I was further told that once

3 when a Boston clergyman remonstrated with Judge Hanna

for enticing a separate congregation rather than offering

their strength to unite with churches already established -

6 I was told he replied that the Christian Science Church did

not recruit itself from other churches, but from the grave-

yards! The church numbers now four thousand members;

9 but this estimate, as I understand, is not limited to the

Boston adherents, but includes those all over the country.

The ceremonial of uniting is to sign a brief "confession of

12 faith," written by Mrs. Eddy, and to unite in communion,

which is not celebrated by outward symbols of bread and

wine, but by uniting in silent prayer.

15 The "confession of faith" includes the declaration that

the Scriptures are the guide to eternal Life; that there is a

Supreme Being, and His Son, and the Holy Ghost, and

18 that man is made in His image. It affirms the atonement;

it recognizes Jesus as the teacher and guide to salvation;

the forgiveness of sin by God, and affirms the power of

21 Truth over error, and the need of living faith at the

moment to realize the possibilities of the divine Life.

The entire membership of Christian Scientists throughout

24 the world now exceeds two hundred thousand people. The

church in Boston was organized by Mrs. Eddy, and the

first meeting held on April 12, 1879. It opened with

27 twenty-six members, and within fifteen years it has grown

to its present impressive proportions, and has now its own

magnificent church building, costing over two hundred

housand dollars, and entirely paid for when its consecra-

Page 31

1 tion service on January 6 shall be celebrated. This is

certainly a very remarkable retrospect.

3 Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, the Founder of this denomina-

tion and Discoverer of Christian Science, as they term her

work in affirming the present application of the principles

6 asserted by Jesus, is a most interesting personality. At

the risk of colloquialism, I am tempted to "begin at the

beginning" of my own knowledge of Mrs. Eddy, and take,

9 as the point of departure, my first meeting with her and

the subsequent development of some degree of familiarity

with the work of her life which that meeting inaugurated

for me.

MRS. EDDY

It was during some year in the early '80's that I became

15 aware - from that close contact with public feeling result-

ing from editorial work in daily journalism - that the

Boston atmosphere was largely thrilled and pervaded by a

18 new and increasing interest in the dominance of mind over

matter, and that the central figure in all this agitation was

Mrs. Eddy. To a note which I wrote her, begging the

21 favor of an interview for press use, she most kindly replied,

naming an evening on which she would receive me. At

the hour named I rang the bell at a spacious house on

24 Columbus Avenue, and I was hardly more than seated be-

fore Mrs. Eddy entered the room. She impressed me as

singularly graceful and winning in bearing and manner,

and with great claim to personal beauty. Her figure was

tall, slender, and as flexible in movement as that of a Del-

Page 32

1 sarte disciple; her face, framed in dark hair and lighted

by luminous blue eyes, had the transparency and rose-flush

3 of tint so often seen in New England, and she was magnetic,

earnest, impassioned. No photographs can do the least

justice to Mrs. Eddy, as her beautiful complexion and

6 changeful expression cannot thus be reproduced. At once

one would perceive that she had the temperament to domi-

nate, to lead, to control, not by any crude self-assertion, but

9 a spiritual animus. Of course such a personality, with the

wonderful tumult in the air that her large and enthusiastic

following excited, fascinated the imagination. What had

12 she originated? I mentally questioned this modern St.

Catherine, who was dominating her followers like any ab-

bess of old. She told me the story of her life, so far as out-

ward events may translate those inner experiences which

alone are significant.

Mary Baker was the daughter of Mark and Abigail

18 (Ambrose) Baker, and was born in Concord, N. H., some-

where in the early decade of 1820-'30. At the time I met

her she must have been some sixty years of age, yet she had

21 the coloring and the elastic bearing of a woman of thirty,

and this, she told me, was due to the principles of Chris-

tian Science. On her father's side Mrs. Eddy came from

24 Scotch and English ancestry, and Hannah More was a

relative of her grandmother. Deacon Ambrose, her mater-

nal grandfather, was known as a "godly man," and her

mother was a religious enthusiast, a saintly and consecrated

character. One of her brothers, Albert Baker, graduated

at Dartmouth and achieved eminence as a lawyer.

Page 33

1 MRS. EDDY AS A CHILD

As a child Mary Baker saw visions and dreamed dreams.

3 When eight years of age she began, like Jeanne d'Arc, to

hear "voices," and for a year she heard her name called

distinctly, and would often run to her mother questioning

6 if she were wanted. One night the mother related to her

the story of Samuel, and bade her, if she heard the voice

again to reply as he did: "Speak, Lord, for Thy servant

9 heareth." The call came, but the little maid was afraid

and did not reply. This caused her tears of remorse and

she prayed for forgiveness, and promised to reply if the call

came again. It came, and she answered as her mother had

bidden her, and after that it ceased.

These experiences, of which Catholic biographies are

15 full, and which history not infrequently emphasizes, cer-

tainly offer food for meditation. Theodore Parker related

that when he was a lad, at work in a field one day on his

18 father's farm at Lexington, an old man with a snowy beard

suddenly appeared at his side, and walked with him as he

worked, giving him high counsel and serious thought. All

21 inquiry in the neighborhood as to whence the stranger

came or whither he went was fruitless; no one else had

seen him, and Mr. Parker always believed, so a friend has

24 told me, that his visitor was a spiritual form from another

world. It is certainly true that many and many persons,

whose life has been destined to more than ordinary achieve-

ment, have had experiences of voices or visions in their

early youth.

Page 34

1 At an early age Miss Baker was married to Colonel

Glover, of Charleston, S. C., who lived only a year. She

returned to her father's home - in 1844 - and from that

time until 1866 no special record is to be made.

In 1866, while living in Lynn, Mass., Mrs. Eddy

6 met with a severe accident, and her case was pro-

nounced hopeless by the physicians. There came a

Sunday morning when her pastor came to bid her good-

9 by before proceeding to his morning service, as there was

no probability that she would be alive at its close. During

this time she suddenly became aware of a divine illumina-

12 tion and ministration. She requested those with her to

withdraw, and reluctantly they did so, believing her de-

lirious. Soon, to their bewilderment and fright, she walked

into the adjoining room, "and they thought I had died,

and that it was my apparition," she said.

THE PRINCIPLE OF DIVINE HEALING

18 From that hour dated her conviction of the Principle of

divine healing, and that it is as true to-day as it was in the

days when Jesus of Nazareth walked the earth. "I felt

21 that the divine Spirit had wrought a miracle," she said, in

reference to this experience. "How, I could not tell, but

later I found it to be in perfect scientific accord with the

divine law." From 1866-'69 Mrs. Eddy withdrew from the

world to meditate, to pray, to search the Scriptures.

"During this time," she said, in reply to my questions,

"the Bible was my only textbook. It answered my ques-

tions as to the process by which I was restored to health;

Page 35

1 it came to me with a new meaning, and suddenly I appre-

hended the spiritual meaning of the teaching of Jesus and

3 the Principle and the law involved in spiritual Science

and metaphysical healing - in a word - Christian

Science."

6 Mrs. Eddy came to perceive that Christ's healing was not

miraculous, but was simply a natural fulfilment of divine

law - a law as operative in the world to-day as it was

9 nineteen hundred years ago. "Divine Science is begotten

of spirituality," she says, "since only the 'pure in heart'

can see God."

12 In writing of this experience, Mrs. Eddy has said: -

"I had learned that thought must be spiritualized in

order to apprehend Spirit. It must become honest, un-

15 selfish, and pure, in order to have the least understanding

of God in divine Science. The first must become last.

Our reliance upon material things must be transferred to

18 a perception of and dependence on spiritual things. For

Spirit to be supreme in demonstration, it must be supreme

in our affections, and we must be clad with divine power.

I had learned that Mind reconstructed the body, and that

nothing else could. All Science is a revelation."

Through homoeopathy, too, Mrs. Eddy became con-

24 vinced of the Principle of Mind-healing, discovering that

the more attenuated the drug, the more potent was its

effects.

27 In 1877 Mrs. Glover married Dr. Asa Gilbert Eddy, of

Londonderry, Vermont, a physician who had come into

sympathy with her own views, and who was the first to

place "Christian Scientist" on the sign at his door. Dr.

Page 36

1 Eddy died in 1882, a year after her founding of the Meta-

physical College in Boston, in which he taught.

3 The work in the Metaphysical College lasted nine years,

and it was closed (in 1889) in the very zenith of its pros-

perity, as Mrs. Eddy felt it essential to the deeper founda-

6 tion of her religious work to retire from active contact with

the world. To this College came hundreds and hundreds

of students, from Europe as well as this country. I was

9 present at the class lectures now and then, by Mrs. Eddy's

kind invitation, and such earnestness of attention as was

given to her morning talks by the men and women present

I never saw equalled.

MRS. EDDY'S PERSONALITY

On the evening that I first met Mrs. Eddy by her hos-

15 pitable courtesy, I went to her peculiarly fatigued. I came

away in a state of exhilaration and energy that made me

feel I could have walked any conceivable distance. I have

met Mrs. Eddy many times since then, and always with

this experience repeated.

Several years ago Mrs. Eddy removed from Columbus

21 to Commonwealth Avenue, where, just beyond Massa-

chusetts Avenue, at the entrance to the Back Bay Park,

she bought one of the most beautiful residences in Boston.

24 The interior is one of the utmost taste and luxury, and the

house is now occupied by Judge and Mrs. Hanna, who are

the editors of The Christian Science Journal, a monthly

publication, and to whose courtesy I am much indebted

for some of the data of this paper. "It is a pleasure to

Page 37

1 give any information for The Inter-Ocean," remarked

Mrs. Hanna, "for it is the great daily that is so fair and so

just in its attitude toward all questions."

The increasing demands of the public on Mrs. Eddy

have been, it may be, one factor in her removal to Concord,

6 N. H., where she has a beautiful residence, called Pleasant

View. Her health is excellent, and although her hair is

white, she retains in a great degree her energy and power;

9 she takes a daily walk and drives in the afternoon. She

personally attends to a vast correspondence; superin-

tends the church in Boston, and is engaged on further

12 writings on Christian Science. In every sense she is the

recognized head of the Christian Science Church. At the

same time it is her most earnest aim to eliminate the ele-

15 ment of personality from the faith. "On this point, Mrs.

Eddy feels very strongly," said a gentleman to me on

Christmas eve, as I sat in the beautiful drawing-room,

18 where Judge and Mrs. Hanna, Miss Elsie Lincoln, the

soprano for the choir of the new church, and one or two

other friends were gathered.

21 "Mother feels very strongly," he continued, "the danger

and the misfortune of a church depending on any one

personality. It is difficult not to centre too closely around

a highly gifted personality."

THE FIRST ASSOCIATION

The first Christian Scientist Association was organized

on July 4, 1876, by seven persons, including Mrs. Eddy.

In April, 1879, the church was founded with twenty-six

Page 38

1 members, and its charter obtained the following June.(1)

Mrs. Eddy had preached in other parishes for five years

before being ordained in this church, which ceremony

took place in 1881.

The first edition of Mrs. Eddy's book, Science and

6 Health, was issued in 1875. During these succeeding

twenty years it has been greatly revised and enlarged, and

it is now in its ninety-first edition. It consists of fourteen

9 chapters, whose titles are as follows: "Science, Theology,

Medicine," "Physiology," "Footsteps of Truth," "Crea-

tion," "Science of Being," "Christian Science and Spirit-

12 ualism," "Marriage," "Animal Magnetism," "Some

Objections Answered," "Prayer," "Atonement and Eu-

charist," "Christian Science Practice," "Teaching Chris-

tian Science," "Recapitulation." Key to the Scriptures,

Genesis, Apocalypse, and Glossary.

The Christian Scientists do not accept the belief we call

18 spiritualism. They believe those who have passed the

change of death are in so entirely different a plane of con-

sciousness that between the embodied and disembodied

there is no possibility of communication.

They are diametrically opposed to the philosophy of

Karma and of reincarnation, which are the tenets of

theosophy. They hold with strict fidelity to what they

believe to be the literal teachings of Christ.

Yet each and all these movements, however they may

differ among themselves, are phases of idealism and mani-

festations of a higher spirituality seeking expression.

It is good that each and all shall prosper, serving those

who find in one form of belief or another their best aid

(1) Steps were taken to promote the Church of Christ, Scientist, in April, May,

and June; formal organization was accomplished and the charter obtained in

August, 1879.

Page 39

1 and guidance, and that all meet on common ground in the

great essentials of love to God and love to man as a signal

3 proof of the divine origin of humanity which finds no rest

until it finds the peace of the Lord in spirituality. They

all teach that one great truth, that

God's greatness flows around our incompleteness,

Round our restlessness, His rest.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

------

9 I add on the following page a little poem that I con-

sider superbly sweet - from my friend, Miss Whiting,

the talented author of "The World Beautiful." - M. B.

EDDY

AT THE WINDOW

[Written for the Traveller]

15 The sunset, burning low,

Throws o'er the Charles its flood of golden light.

Dimly, as in a dream, I watch the flow

Of waves of light.

The splendor of the sky

Repeats its glory in the river's flow;

And sculptured angels, on the gray church tower,

Gaze on the world below.

Dimly, as in a dream,

I see the hurrying throng before me pass,

But 'mid them all I only see one face,

Under the meadow grass.

Page 40

1 Ah, love! I only know

How thoughts of you forever cling to me:

I wonder how the seasons come and go

Beyond the sapphire sea?

LILIAN WHITING

6 April 15, 1888

________________

[Boston Herald, January 7, 1895]

[Extract]

A TEMPLE GIVEN TO GOD - DEDICATION OF THE

MOTHER CHURCH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

NOVEL METHOD OF ENABLING SIX THOUSAND BELIEVERS TO

ATTEND THE EXERCISES - THE SERVICE REPEATED FOUR

TIMES - SERMON BY REV. MARY BAKER EDDY, FOUNDER OF

THE DENOMINATION - BEAUTIFUL ROOM WHICH THE CHILDREN

BUILT

With simple ceremonies, four times repeated, in the

presence of four different congregations, aggregating

18 nearly six thousand persons, the unique and costly edifice

erected in Boston at Norway and Falmouth Streets as a

home for The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and a

testimonial to the Discoverer and Founder of Christian

Science, Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, was yesterday dedicated

to the worship of God.

Page 41

1 The structure came forth from the hands of the artisans

with every stone paid for - with an appeal, not for more

3 money, but for a cessation of the tide of contributions

which continued to flow in after the full amount needed

was received. From every State in the Union, and from

6 many lands, the love-offerings of the disciples of Christian

Science came to help erect this beautiful structure, and

more than four thousand of these contributors came to

9 Boston, from the far-off Pacific coast and the Gulf States

and all the territory that lies between, to view the new-

built temple and to listen to the Message sent them by

the teacher they revere.

From all New England the members of the denomina-

tion gathered; New York sent its hundreds, and even

15 from the distant States came parties of forty and fifty.

The large auditorium, with its capacity for holding from

fourteen hundred to fifteen hundred persons, was hopelessly

18 incapable of receiving this vast throng, to say nothing of

nearly a thousand local believers. Hence the service was

repeated until all who wished had heard and seen; and

each of the four vast congregations filled the church to

repletion.

At 7 :30 a. m. the chimes in the great stone tower, which

24 rises one hundred and twenty-six feet above the earth,

rung out their message of "On earth peace, good will

toward men."

27 Old familiar hymns - "All hail the power of Jesus'

name," and others such - were chimed until the hour for

the dedication service had come.

At 9 a. m. the first congregation gathered. Before this

Page 42

1 service had closed the large vestry room and the spacious

lobbies and the sidewalks around the church were all

3 filled with a waiting multitude. At l0:30 o'clock another

service began, and at noon still another. Then there was

an intermission, and at 3 p. m. the service was repeated

for the last time.

There was scarcely even a minor variation in the exer-

cises at any one of these services. At 10:30 a. m., how-

9 ever, the scene was rendered particularly interesting by

the presence of several hundred children in the central

pews. These were the little contributors to the building

12 fund, whose money was devoted to the "Mother's Room,"

a superb apartment intended for the sole use of Mrs. Eddy.

These children are known in the church as the "Busy

15 Bees," and each of them wore a white satin badge with a

golden beehive stamped upon it, and beneath the beehive

the words, "Mother's Room," in gilt letters.

18 The pulpit end of the auditorium was rich with the

adornment of flowers. On the wall of the choir gallery

above the platform, where the organ is to be hereafter

21 placed, a huge seven-pointed star was hung - a star of

lilies resting on palms, with a centre of white immortelles,

upon which in letters of red were the words: "Love-

Children's Offering - 1894."

In the choir and the steps of the platform were potted

palms and ferns and Easter lilies. The desk was wreathed

27 with ferns and pure white roses fastened with a broad

ribbon bow. On its right was a large basket of white

carnations resting on a mat of palms, and on its left a vase

filled with beautiful pink roses.

Page 43

1 Two combined choirs - that of First Church of Christ,

Scientist, of New York, and the choir of the home church,

3 numbering thirty-five singers in all - led the singing,

under the direction, respectively, of Mr. Henry Lincoln

Case and Miss Elsie Lincoln.

6 Judge S. J. Hanna, editor of The Christian Science

Journal, presided over the exercises. On the platform

with him were Messrs. Ira O. Knapp, Joseph Armstrong,

9 Stephen A. Chase, and William B. Johnson, who compose

the Board of Directors, and Mrs. Henrietta Clark Bemis,

a distinguished elocutionist, and a native of Concord, New

Hampshire.

The utmost simplicity marked the exercises. After an

organ voluntary, the hymn, "Laus Deo, it is done!"

15 written by Mrs. Eddy for the corner-stone laying last

spring, was sung by the congregation. Selections from the

Scriptures and from "Science and Health with Key to the

Scriptures," were read by Judge Hanna and Dr. Eddy.

A few minutes of silent prayer came next, followed by

the recitation of the Lord's Prayer, with its spiritual inter-

pretation as given in the Christian Science textbook.

The sermon prepared for the occasion by Mrs. Eddy,

which was looked forward to as the chief feature of the

24 dedication, was then read by Mrs. Bemis. Mrs. Eddy

remained at her home in Concord, N. H., during the day,

because, as heretofore stated in The Herald, it is her

custom to discourage among her followers that sort of

personal worship which religious teachers so often receive.

Before presenting the sermon, Mrs. Bemis read the fol-

lowing letter from a former pastor of the church: -

Page 44

"To Rev. Mary Baker Eddy

"Dear Teacher, Leader, Guide: - 'Laus Deo, it is done!'

3 At last you begin to see the fruition of that you have worked,

toiled, prayed for. The 'prayer in stone' is accomplished.

Across two thousand miles of space, as mortal sense puts

6 it, I send my hearty congratulations. You are fully occu-

pied, but I thought you would willingly pause for an

instant to receive this brief message of congratulation.

9 Surely it marks an era in the blessed onward work of

Christian Science. It is a most auspicious hour in your

eventful career. While we all rejoice, yet the mother in

Israel, alone of us all, comprehends its full significance.

"Yours lovingly,

"LANSON P. NORCROSS"

----------

[Boston Sunday Globe, January 6, 1895]

[Extract]

STATELY HOME FOR BELIEVERS IN GOSPEL HEALING -

A WOMAN OF WEALTH WHO DEVOTES ALL TO HER

CHURCH WORK

Christian Science has shown its power over its students,

21 as they are called, by building a church by voluntary con-

tributions, the first of its kind; a church which will be

dedicated to-day with a quarter of a million dollars ex-

pended and free of debt.

The money has flowed in from all parts of the United

States and Canada without any special appeal, and it kept

coming until the custodian of funds cried "enough" and

refused to accept any further checks by mail or otherwise.

Page 45

1 Men, women, and children lent a helping hand, some

giving a mite and some substantial sums. Sacrifices were

made in many an instance which will never be known in

this world.

Christian Scientists not only say that they can effect

6 cures of disease and erect churches, but add that they can

get their buildings finished on time, even when the feat

seems impossible to mortal senses. Read the following,

from a publication of the new denomination: -

"One of the grandest and most helpful features of this

glorious consummation is this: that one month before the

12 close of the year every evidence of material sense declared

that the church's completion within the year 1894 tran-

scended human possibility. The predictions of workman

15 and onlooker alike were that it could not be completed

before April or May of 1895. Much was the ridicule

heaped upon the hopeful, trustful ones, who declared and

18 repeatedly asseverated to the contrary. This is indeed,

then, a scientific demonstration. It has proved, in most

striking manner, the oft-repeated declarations of our

textbooks, that the evidence of the mortal senses is

unreliable."

A week ago Judge Hanna withdrew from the pastorate

24 of the church, saying he gladly laid down his responsibili-

ties to be succeeded by the grandest of ministers - the

Bible and "Science and Health with Key to the Scrip-

27 tures." This action, it appears, was the result of rules

made by Mrs. Eddy. The sermons hereafter will consist

of passages read from the two books by Readers, who will

be elected each year by the congregation.

Page 46

1 A story has been abroad that Judge Hanna was so elo-

quent and magnetic that he was attracting listeners who

3 came to hear him preach, rather than in search of the

truth as taught. Consequently the new rules were formu-

lated. But at Christian Science headquarters this is denied;

Mrs. Eddy says the words of the judge speak to the point,

and that no such inference is to be drawn therefrom.

In Mrs. Eddy's personal reminiscences, which are pub-

9 lished under the title of "Retrospection and Introspection,"

much is told of herself in detail that can only be touched

upon in this brief sketch.

12 Aristocratic to the backbone, Mrs. Eddy takes delight

in going back to the ancestral tree and in tracing those

branches which are identified with good and great names

both in Scotland and England.

Her family came to this country not long before the

Revolution. Among the many souvenirs that Mrs. Eddy

18 remembers as belonging to her grandparents was a heavy

sword, encased in a brass scabbard, upon which had been

inscribed the name of the kinsman upon whom the sword

had been bestowed by Sir William Wallace of mighty

Scottish fame.

Mrs. Eddy applied herself, like other girls, to her studies,

24 though perhaps with an unusual zest, delighting in philos-

ophy, logic, and moral science, as well as looking into the

ancient languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.

27 Her last marriage was in the spring of 1877, when, at

Lynn, Mass., she became the wife of Asa Gilbert Eddy.

He was the first organizer of a Christian Science Sunday

School, of which he was the superintendent, and later he

Page 47

1 attracted the attention of many clergymen of other de-

nominations by his able lectures upon Scriptural topics.

He died in 1882.

Mrs. Eddy is known to her circle of pupils and admirers

as the editor and publisher of the first official organ of this

6 sect. It was called the Journal of Christian Science, and

has had great circulation with the members of this fast-

increasing faith.

9 In recounting her experiences as the pioneer of Chris-

tian Science, she states that she sought knowledge concern-

ing the physical side in this research through the different

12 schools of allopathy, homoeopathy, and so forth, without

receiving any real satisfaction. No ancient or modern

philosophy gave her any distinct statement of the Science

15 of Mind-healing. She claims that no human reason has

been equal to the question. And she also defines care-

fully the difference in the theories between faith-cure and

18 Christian Science, dwelling particularly upon the terms

belief and understanding, which are the key words respec-

tively used in the definitions of these two healing arts.

21 Besides her Boston home, Mrs. Eddy has a delightful

country home one mile from the State House of New

Hampshire's quiet capital, an easy driving distance for

24 her when she wishes to catch a glimpse of the world. But

for the most part she lives very much retired, driving rather

into the country, which is so picturesque all about Con-

cord and its surrounding villages.

The big house, so delightfully remodelled and modern-

ized from a primitive homestead that nothing is left ex-

cepting the angles and pitch of the roof, is remarkably

Page 48

1 well placed upon a terrace that slopes behind the build-

ings, while they themselves are in the midst of green

stretches of lawns, dotted with beds of flowering shrubs,

with here and there a fountain or summer-house.

Mrs. Eddy took the writer straight to her beloved "look-

6 out" - a broad piazza on the south side of the second

story of the house, where she can sit in her swinging chair,

revelling in the lights and shades of spring and summer

9 greenness. Or, as just then, in the gorgeous October

coloring of the whole landscape that lies below, across the

farm, which stretches on through an intervale of beautiful

meadows and pastures to the woods that skirt the valley

of the little truant river, as it wanders eastward.

It pleased her to point out her own birthplace. Straight

15 as the crow flies, from her piazza, does it lie on the brow

of Bow hill, and then she paused and reminded the reporter

that Congressman Baker from New Hampshire, her cousin,

18 was born and bred in that same neighborhood. The

photograph of Hon. Hoke Smith, another distinguished

relative, adorned the mantel.

21 Then my eye caught her family coat of arms and the

diploma given her by the Society of the Daughters of the

Revolution.

24 The natural and lawful pride that comes with a tincture

of blue and brave blood, is perhaps one of her characteris-

tics, as is many another well-born woman's. She had a

27 long list of worthy ancestors in Colonial and Revolutionary

days, and the McNeils and General Knox figure largely in

her genealogy, as well as the hero who killed the ill-starred

Paugus.

Page 49

1 This big, sunny room which Mrs. Eddy calls her den -

or sometimes "Mother's room," when speaking of her

3 many followers who consider her their spiritual Leader -

has the air of hospitality that marks its hostess herself.

Mrs. Eddy has hung its walls with reproductions of some

of Europe's masterpieces, a few of which had been the

gifts of her loving pupils.

Looking down from the windows upon the tree-tops

9 on the lower terrace, the reporter exclaimed: "You have

lived here only four years, and yet from a barren waste

of most unpromising ground has come forth all this

beauty!"

"Four years!" she ejaculated; "two and a half, only

two and a half years." Then, touching my sleeve and

15 pointing, she continued: "Look at those big elms! I had

them brought here in warm weather, almost as big as they

are now, and not one died."

18 Mrs. Eddy talked earnestly of her friendships . . . .

She told something of her domestic arrangements, of how

she had long wished to get away from her busy career in

21 Boston, and return to her native granite hills, there to

build a substantial home that should do honor to that

precinct of Concord.

24 She chose the stubbly old farm on the road from Con-

cord, within one mile of the "Eton of America," St. Paul's

School. Once bought, the will of the woman set at work,

and to-day a strikingly well-kept estate is the first impres-

sion given to the visitor as he approaches Pleasant View.

She employs a number of men to keep the grounds and

farm in perfect order, and it was pleasing to learn that this

Page 50

1 rich woman is using her money to promote the welfare of

industrious workmen, in whom she takes a vital interest.

3 Mrs. Eddy believes that "the laborer is worthy of his

hire," and, moreover, that he deserves to have a home and

family of his own. Indeed, one of her motives in buying

6 so large an estate was that she might do something for the

toilers, and thus add her influence toward the advancement

of better home life and citizenship.

[Boston Transcript, December 31, 1894]

[Extract]

The growth of Christian Science is properly marked by

12 the erection of a visible house of worship in this city, which

will be dedicated to-morrow. It has cost two hundred

thousand dollars, and no additional sums outside of the

15 subscriptions are asked for. This particular phase of

religious belief has impressed itself upon a large and in-

creasing number of Christian people, who have been

18 tempted to examine its principles, and doubtless have been

comforted and strengthened by them. Any new move-

ment will awaken some sort of interest. There are many

21 who have worn off the novelty and are thoroughly carried

away with the requirements, simple and direct as they are,

of Christian Science. The opposition against it from the

24 so-called orthodox religious bodies keeps up a while, but

after a little skirmishing, finally subsides. No one religious

body holds the whole of truth, and whatever is likely to

show even some one side of it will gain followers and live

down any attempted repression.

Page 51

1 Christian Science does not strike all as a system of truth.

If it did, it would be a prodigy. Neither does the Christian

3 faith produce the same impressions upon all. Freedom to

believe or to dissent is a great privilege in these days. So

when a number of conscientious followers apply themselves

6 to a matter like Christian Science, they are enjoying that

liberty which is their inherent right as human beings, and

though they cannot escape censure, yet they are to be

9 numbered among the many pioneers who are searching

after religious truth. There is really nothing settled.

Every truth is more or less in a state of agitation. The

12 many who have worked in the mine of knowledge are glad

to welcome others who have different methods, and with

them bring different ideas.

15 It is too early to predict where this movement will go,

and how greatly it will affect the well-established methods.

That it has produced a sensation in religious circles, and

18 called forth the implements of theological warfare, is very

well known. While it has done this, it may, on the other

hand, have brought a benefit. Ere this many a new project

in religious belief has stirred up feeling, but as time has

gone on, compromises have been welcomed.

The erection of this temple will doubtless help on the

24 growth of its principles. Pilgrims from everywhere will go

there in search of truth, and some may be satisfied and some

will not. Christian Science cannot absorb the world's

27 thought. It may get the share of attention it deserves, but

it can only aspire to take its place alongside other great

demonstrations of religious belief which have done some-

thing good for the sake of humanity.

Page 52

1 Wonders will never cease. Here is a church whose

treasurer has to send out word that no sums except those

3 already subscribed can be received! The Christian

Scientists have a faith of the mustard-seed variety.

What a pity some of our practical Christian folk have not a

faith approximate to that of these "impractical" Christian

Scientists.

-----------

[Jackson Patriot, Jackson, Mich., January 20, 1895]

[Extract]

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

The erection of a massive temple in Boston by Christian

12 Scientists, at a cost of over two hundred thousand dollars,

love-offerings of the disciples of Mary Baker Eddy, reviver

of the ancient faith and author of the textbook from which,

15 with the New Testament at the foundation, believers

receive light, health, and strength, is evidence of the rapid

growth of the new movement. We call it new. It is not.

18 The name Christian Science alone is new. At the begin-

ning of Christianity it was taught and practised by Jesus

and his disciples. The Master was the great healer. But

21 the wave of materialism and bigotry that swept over the

world for fifteen centuries, covering it with the blackness

of the Dark Ages, nearly obliterated all vital belief in his

teachings. The Bible was a sealed book. Recently a

revived belief in what he taught is manifest, and Christian

Science is one result. No new doctrine is proclaimed, but

Page 53

1 here is the fresh development of a Principle that was put

into practice by the Founder of Christianity nineteen hun-

3 dred years ago, though practised in other countries at an

earlier date. "The thing that hath been, it is that which

shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be

done: and there is no new thing under the sun."

The condition which Jesus of Nazareth, on various

occasions during the three years of his ministry on earth,

9 declared to be essential, in the mind of both healer and

patient, is contained in the one word - faith. Can drugs

suddenly cure leprosy? When the ten lepers were cleansed

12 and one returned to give thanks in Oriental phrase, Jesus

said to him: "Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee

whole." That was Christian Science. In his "Law of

15 Psychic Phenomena" Hudson says: "That word, more

than any other, expresses the whole law of human felicity

and power in this world, and of salvation in the world to

18 come. It is that attribute of mind which elevates man

above the level of the brute, and gives dominion over the

physical world. It is the essential element of success in

21 every field of human endeavor. It constitutes the power

of the human soul. When Jesus of Nazareth proclaimed

its potency from the hilltops of Palestine, he gave to man-

24 kind the key to health and heaven, and earned the title

of Saviour of the World." Whittier, grandest of mystic

poets, saw the truth: -

27 That healing gift he lends to them

Who use it in his name;

The power that filled his garment's hem

Is evermore the same.

Page 54

Again, in a poem entitled "The Master," he wrote: -

The healing of his seamless dress

3 Is by our beds of pain;

We touch him in life's throng and press,

And we are whole again.(1)

6 That Jesus operated in perfect harmony with natural

law, not in defiance, suppression, or violation of it, we can-

not doubt. The perfectly natural is the perfectly spiritual.

9 Jesus enunciated and exemplified the Principle; and,

obviously, the conditions requisite in psychic healing

to-day are the same as were necessary in apostolic times.

12 We accept the statement of Hudson: "There was no law

of nature violated or transcended. On the contrary, the

whole transaction was in perfect obedience to the laws of

15 nature. He understood the law perfectly, as no one before

him understood it; and in the plenitude of his power he

applied it where the greatest good could be accomplished."

18 A careful reading of the accounts of his healings, in the

light of modern science, shows that he observed, in his

practice of mental therapeutics, the conditions of environ-

21 ment and harmonious influence that are essential to success.

In the case of Jairus' daughter they are fully set forth.

He kept the unbelievers away, "put them all out," and

24 permitting only the father and mother, with his closest

friends and followers, Peter, James, and John, in the

chamber with him, and having thus the most perfect

obtainable environment, he raised the daughter to life.

(1) NOTE: - About 1868, the author of Science and Health healed

Mr. Whittier with one visit, at his home in Amesbury, of incipient

pulmonary consumption. - M. B. EDDY

Page 55

1 "Not in blind caprice of will,

Not in cunning sleight of skill.

Not for show of power, was wrought

Nature's marvel in thy thought."

In a previous article we have referred to cyclic changes

6 that came during the last quarter of preceding centuries.

Of our remarkable nineteenth century not the least event-

ful circumstance is the advent of Christian Science.

9 That it should be the work of a woman is the natural out-

come of a period notable for her emancipation from many

of the thraldoms, prejudices, and oppressions of the past.

12 We do not, therefore, regard it as a mere coincidence that

the first edition of Mrs. Eddy's Science and Health should

have been published in 1875. Since then she has revised

15 it many times, and the ninety-first edition is announced.

Her discovery was first called, "The Science of Divine

Metaphysical Healing." Afterward she selected the name

18 Christian Science. It is based upon what is held to be

scientific certainty, namely, - that all causation is of

Mind, every effect has its origin in desire and thought.

21 The theology - if we may use the word - of Christian

Science is contained in the volume entitled "Science and

Health with Key to the Scriptures."

24 The present Boston congregation was organized

April 12, 1879, and has now over four thousand members.

It is regarded as the parent organization, all others being

27 branches, though each is entirely independent in the

management of its own affairs. Truth is the sole recognized

authority. Of actual members of different congregations

there are between one hundred thousand and two hundred

Page 56

1 thousand. One or more organized societies have sprung

up in New York, Chicago, Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincin-

3 nati, Philadelphia, Detroit, Toledo, Milwaukee, Madison,

Scranton, Peoria, Atlanta, Toronto, and nearly every other

centre of population, besides a large and growing number

6 of receivers of the faith among the members of all the

churches and non-church-going people. In some churches

a majority of the members are Christian Scientists, and, as

a rule, are the most intelligent.

Space does not admit of an elaborate presentation on the

occasion of the erection of the temple, in Boston, the

12 dedication taking place on the 6th of January, of one of

the most remarkable, helpful, and powerful movements

of the last quarter of the century. Christian Science

15 has brought hope and comfort to many weary souls. It

makes people better and happier. Welding Christianity

and Science, hitherto divorced because dogma and truth

could not unite, was a happy inspiration.

"And still we love the evil cause,

And of the just effect complain;

We tread upon life's broken laws,

And mourn our self-inflicted pain."

------------

[The Outlook, New York, January 19, 1895]

A CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH

A great Christian Science church was dedicated in Bos-

ton on Sunday, the 6th inst. It is located at Norway and

Falmouth Streets, and is intended to be a testimonial to

Page 57

1 the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, the

Rev. Mary Baker Eddy. The building is fire-proof, and

3 cost over two hundred thousand dollars. It is entirely

paid for, and contributions for its erection came from every

State in the Union, and from many lands. The auditorium

6 is said to seat between fourteen and fifteen hundred, and

was thronged at the four services on the day of dedication.

The sermon, prepared by Mrs. Eddy, was read by Mrs.

9 Bemis. It rehearsed the significance of the building, and

reenunciated the truths which will find emphasis there.

From the description we judge that it is one of the most

12 beautiful buildings in Boston, and, indeed, in all New

England. Whatever may be thought of the peculiar tenets

of the Christian Scientists, and whatever difference of

15 opinion there may be concerning the organization of such

a church, there can be no question but that the adherents

of this church have proved their faith by their works.

[American Art Journal, New York, January 26, 1895]

"OUR PRAYER IN STONE"

Such is the excellent name given to a new Boston church.

21 Few people outside its own circles realize how extensive is

the belief in Christian Science. There are several sects of

mental healers, but this new edifice on Back Bay, just off

24 Huntington Avenue, not far from the big Mechanics

Building and the proposed site of the new Music Hall,

belongs to the followers of Rev. Mary Baker Glover Eddy,

a lady born of an old New Hampshire family, who, after

Page 58

1 many vicissitudes, found herself in Lynn, Mass., healed by

the power of divine Mind, and thereupon devoted herself

3 to imparting this faith to her fellow-beings. Coming to

Boston about 1880, she began teaching, gathered an

association of students, and organized a church. For

6 several years past she has lived in Concord, N. H., near

her birthplace, owning a beautiful estate called Pleasant

View; but thousands of believers throughout this country

9 have joined The Mother Church in Boston, and have now

erected this edifice at a cost of over two hundred thousand

dollars, every bill being paid.

12 Its appearance is shown in the pictures we are permitted

to publish. In the belfry is a set of tubular chimes. Inside

is a basement room, capable of division into seven excellent

15 class-rooms, by the use of movable partitions. The main

auditorium has wide galleries, and will seat over a thousand

in its exceedingly comfortable pews. Scarcely any wood-

18 work is to be found. The floors are all mosaic, the steps

marble, and the walls stone. It is rather dark, often too

much so for comfortable reading, as all the windows are of

21 colored glass, with pictures symbolic of the tenets of the

organization. In the ceiling is a beautiful sunburst window.

Adjoining the chancel is a pastor's study; but for an

24 indefinite time their prime instructor has ordained that the

only pastor shall be the Bible, with her book, called

"Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." In the

27 tower is a room devoted to her, and called "Mother's

Room," furnished with all conveniences for living, should

she wish to make it a home by day or night. Therein is

a portrait of her in stained glass; and an electric light,

Page 59

1 behind an antique lamp, kept perpetually burning (1) in her

honor; though she has not yet visited her temple, which

was dedicated on New Year's Sunday in a somewhat novel

way.

There was no special sentence or prayer of consecration,

6 but continuous services were held from nine to four o'clock,

every hour and a half, so long as there were attendants;

and some people heard these exercises four times repeated.

9 The printed program was for some reason not followed,

certain hymns and psalms being omitted. There was sing-

ing by a choir and congregation. The Pater Noster was

12 repeated in the way peculiar to Christian Scientists, the

congregation repeating one sentence and the leader re-

sponding with its parallel interpretation by Mrs. Eddy.

15 Antiphonal paragraphs were read from the book of

Revelation and her work respectively. The sermon,

prepared by Mrs. Eddy, was well adapted for its purpose,

18 and read by a professional elocutionist, not an adherent of

the order, Mrs. Henrietta Clark Bemis, in a clear emphatic

style. The solo singer, however, was a Scientist, Miss Elsie

21 Lincoln; and on the platform sat Joseph Armstrong,

formerly of Kansas, and now the business manager of the

Publishing Society, with the other members of the Christian

24 Science Board of Directors - Ira O. Knapp, Edward P.

Bates, Stephen A. Chase, - gentlemen officially connected

with the movement. The children of believing families

27 collected the money for the Mother's Room, and seats were

especially set apart for them at the second dedicatory

service. Before one service was over and the auditors left

by the rear doors, the front vestibule and street (despite

(1) At Mrs. Eddy's request the lamp was not kept burning.

Page 60

1 the snowstorm) were crowded with others, waiting for

admission.

3 On the next Sunday the new order of service went

into operation. There was no address of any sort, no

notices, no explanation of Bible or their textbook. Judge

6 Hanna, who was a Colorado lawyer before coming into

this work, presided, reading in clear, manly, and intelli-

gent tones, the Quarterly Bible Lesson, which happened

9 that day to be on Jesus' miracle of loaves and fishes.

Each paragraph he supplemented first with illustrative

Scripture parallels, as set down for him, and then by pas-

12 sages selected for him from Mrs. Eddy's book. The place

was again crowded, many having remained over a week

from among the thousands of adherents who had come

15 to Boston for this auspicious occasion from all parts of

the country. The organ, made by Farrand & Votey in

Detroit, at a cost of eleven thousand dollars, is the gift of

18 a wealthy Universalist gentleman, but was not ready for

the opening. It is to fill the recess behind the spacious

platform, and is described as containing pneumatic wind-

21 chests throughout, and having an AEolian attachment.

It is of three-manual compass, C. C. C. to C. 4, 61 notes;

and pedal compass, C. C. C. to F. 30. The great organ

24 has double open diapason (stopped bass), open diapason,

dulciana, viola di gamba, doppel flute, hohl flute, octave,

octave quint, superoctave, and trumpet, - 61 pipes each.

27 The swell organ has bourdon, open diapason, salicional,

aeoline, stopped diapason, gemshorn, flute harmonique,

flageolet, cornet - 3 ranks, 183, - cornopean, oboe, vox

humana - 61 pipes each. The choir organ, enclosed in

Page 61

1 separate swell-box, has geigen principal, dolce, concert

flute, quintadena, fugara, flute d'amour, piccolo harmo-

3 nique, clarinet, - 61 pipes each. The pedal organ has

open diapason, bourdon, lieblich gedeckt (from stop 10),

violoncello-wood, - 30 pipes each. Couplers: swell to

6 great; choir to great; swell to choir; swell to great oc-

taves, swell to great sub-octaves; choir to great sub-

octaves; swell octaves; swell to pedal; great to pedal;

9 choir to pedal. Mechanical accessories: swell tremulant,

choir tremulant, bellows signal; wind indicator. Pedal

movements: three affecting great and pedal stops, three

12 affecting swell and pedal stops; great to pedal reversing

pedal; crescendo and full organ pedal; balanced great

and choir pedal; balanced swell pedal.

15 Beautiful suggestions greet you in every part of this

unique church, which is practical as well as poetic, and

justifies the name given by Mrs. Eddy, which stands at

the head of this sketch. J. H. W.

----------

[Boston Journal, January 7, 1895]

CHIMES RANG SWEETLY

21 Much admiration was expressed by all those fortunate

enough to listen to the first peal of the chimes in the tower

of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, corner of Fal-

24 mouth and Norway Streets, dedicated yesterday. The

sweet, musical tones attracted quite a throng of people,

who listened with delight.

The chimes were made by the United States Tubular

Page 62

1 Bell Company, of Methuen, Mass., and are something

of a novelty in this country, though for some time well

and favorably known in the Old Country, especially in

England.

They are a substitution of tubes of drawn brass for the

6 heavy cast bells of old-fashioned chimes. They have the

advantage of great economy of space, as well as of cost, a

chime of fifteen bells occupying a space not more than

five by eight feet.

Where the old-fashioned chimes required a strong man

to ring them, these can be rung from an electric keyboard,

12 and even when rung by hand require but little muscular

power to manipulate them and call forth all the purity

and sweetness of their tones. The quality of tone is some-

15 thing superb, being rich and mellow. The tubes are care-

fully tuned, so that the harmony is perfect. They have

all the beauties of a great cathedral chime, with infinitely

less expense.

There is practically no limit to the uses to which these

bells may be put. They can be called into requisition in

theatres, concert halls, and public buildings, as they range

in all sizes, from those described down to little sets of

silver bells that might be placed on a small centre table.

Page 63

[The Republic, Washington, D. C., February 2, 1895]

[Extract]

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

MARY BAKER EDDY THE "MOTHER" OF THE IDEA - SHE HAS AN

IMMENSE FOLLOWING THROUGHOUT THE UNITED STATES, AND

A CHURCH COSTING $250,000 WAS RECENTLY BUILT IN HER

HONOR AT BOSTON

"My faith has the strength to nourish trees as well as

9 souls," was the remark Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, the

"Mother" of Christian Science, made recently as she

pointed to a number of large elms that shade her delight-

12 ful country home in Concord, N. H. "I had them brought

here in warm weather, almost as big as they are now, and

not one died." This is a remarkable statement, but it is

15 made by a remarkable woman, who has originated a new

phase of religious belief, and who numbers over one hun-

dred thousand intelligent people among her devoted

followers.

The great hold she has upon this army was demon-

strated in a very tangible and material manner recently,

21 when "The First Church of Christ, Scientist," erected at

a cost of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, was

dedicated in Boston. This handsome edifice was paid

24 for before it was begun, by the voluntary contributions of

Christian Scientists all over the country, and a tablet im-

bedded in its wall declares that it was built as "a testi-

monial to our beloved teacher, Rev. Mary Baker Eddy,

Page 64

1 Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, author of

its textbook, 'Science and Health with Key to the Scrip-

tures,' president of the Massachusetts Metaphysical Col-

lege, and the first pastor of this denomination."

There is usually considerable difficulty in securing suffi-

6 cient funds for the building of a new church, but such was

not the experience of Rev. Mary Baker Eddy. Money

came freely from all parts of the United States. Men,

9 women, and children contributed, some giving a pittance,

others donating large sums. When the necessary amount

was raised, the custodian of the funds was compelled to

refuse further contributions, in order to stop the continued

inflow of money from enthusiastic Christian Scientists.

Mrs. Eddy says she discovered Christian Science in

15 1866. She studied the Scriptures and the sciences, she

declares, in a search for the great curative Principle. She

investigated allopathy, homoeopathy, and electricity, with-

18 out finding a clew; and modern philosophy gave her no

distinct statement of the Science of Mind-healing. After

careful study she became convinced that the curative

Principle was the Deity.

--------

[New York Tribune, February 7, 1895]

[Extract]

24 Boston has just dedicated the first church of the Chris-

tian Scientists, in commemoration of the Founder of that

sect, the Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, drawing together six

thousand people to participate in the ceremonies, showing

Page 65

1 that belief in that curious creed is not confined to its

original apostles and promulgators, but that it has pene-

3 trated what is called the New England mind to an un-

looked-for extent. In inviting the Eastern churches and

the Anglican fold to unity with Rome, the Holy Father

6 should not overlook the Boston sect of Christian Scientists,

which is rather small and new, to be sure, but is undoubt-

edly an interesting faith and may have a future before it,

whatever attitude Rome may assume toward it.

--------------

[Journal, Kansas City, Mo., January 10, 1895]

[Extract]

GROWTH OF A FAITH

Attention is directed to the progress which has been

made by what is called Christian Science by the dedication

15 at Boston of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist."

It is a most beautiful structure of gray granite, and its

builders call it their "prayer in stone," which suggests

18 to recollection the story of the cathedral of Amiens, whose

architectural construction and arrangement of statuary

and paintings made it to be called the Bible of that city.

21 The Frankish church was reared upon the spot where, in

pagan times, one bitter winter day, a Roman soldier parted

his mantle with his sword and gave half of the garment to

24 a naked beggar; and so was memorialized in art and

stone what was called the divine spirit of giving, whose un-

believing exemplar afterward became a saint. The Boston

church similarly expresses the faith of those who believe

Page 66

1 in what they term the divine art of healing, which, to their

minds, exists as much to-day as it did when Christ healed

the sick.

The first church organization of this faith was founded

fifteen years ago with a membership of only twenty-six,

6 and since then the number of believers has grown with

remarkable rapidity, until now there are societies in every

part of the country. This growth, it is said, proceeds

9 more from the graveyards than from conversions from

other churches, for most of those who embrace the faith

claim to have been rescued from death miraculously under

12 the injunction to "heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise

the dead, cast out demons." They hold with strict fidelity

to what they conceive to be the literal teachings of the

Bible as expressed in its poetical and highly figurative

language.

Altogether the belief and service are well suited to

18 satisfy a taste for the mystical which, along many lines, has

shown an uncommon development in this country during

the last decade, and which is largely Oriental in its choice.

21 Such a rapid departure from long respected views as is

marked by the dedication of this church, and others of

kindred meaning, may reasonably excite wonder as to

24 how radical is to be this encroachment upon prevailing

faiths, and whether some of the pre-Christian ideas of

the Asiatics are eventually to supplant those in company

with which our civilization has developed.

Page 67

[Montreal Daily Herald, Saturday, February 2, 1895]

[Extract]

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

SKETCH OF ITS ORIGIN AND GROWTH - THE MONTREAL BRANCH

"If you would found a new faith, go to Boston," has

6 been said by a great American writer. This is no idle

word, but a fact borne out by circumstances. Boston can

fairly claim to be the hub of the logical universe, and an

9 accurate census of the religious faiths which are to be

found there to-day would probably show a greater number

of them than even Max O'Rell's famous enumeration of

John Bull's creeds.

Christian Science, or the Principle of divine healing,

is one of those movements which seek to give expression

15 to a higher spirituality. Founded twenty-five years ago,

it was still practically unknown a decade since, but to-day

it numbers over a quarter of a million of believers, the

18 majority of whom are in the United States, and is rapidly

growing. In Canada, also, there is a large number of

members. Toronto and Montreal have strong churches,

comparatively, while in many towns and villages single

believers or little knots of them are to be found.

It was exactly one hundred years from the date of the

24 Declaration of Independence, when on July 4, 1876, the

first Christian Scientist Association was organized by

seven persons, of whom the foremost was Mrs. Eddy.

The church was founded in April, 1879, with twenty-six

members, and a charter was obtained two months later.

Page 68

1 Mrs. Eddy assumed the pastorship of the church during

its early years, and in 1881 was ordained, being now known

as the Rev. Mary Baker Eddy.

The Massachusetts Metaphysical College was founded

by Mrs. Eddy in 1881, and here she taught the principles

6 of the faith for nine years. Students came to it in hun-

dreds from all parts of the world, and many are now pastors

or in practice. The college was closed in 1889, as Mrs.

Eddy felt it necessary for the interests of her religious work

to retire from active contact with the world. She now

lives in a beautiful country residence in her native State.

-----------

[The American, Baltimore, Md., January 14, 1895]

[Extract]

MRS. EDDY'S DISCIPLES

15 It is not generally known that a Christian Science con-

gregation was organized in this city about a year ago. It

now holds regular services in the parlor of the residence

18 of the pastor, at 1414 Linden Avenue. The dedication in

Boston last Sunday of the Christian Science church, called

The Mother Church, which cost over two hundred thou-

21 sand dollars, adds interest to the Baltimore organization.

There are many other church edifices in the United States

owned by Christian Scientists. Christian Science was

founded by Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy. The Baltimore con-

gregation was organized at a meeting held at the present

location on February 27, 1894.

Page 69

1 Dr. Hammond, the pastor, came to Baltimore about

three years ago to organize this movement. Miss Cross

3 came from Syracuse, N. Y., about eighteen months ago.

Both were under the instruction of Mrs. Mary Baker

Eddy, the Founder of the movement.

6 Dr. Hammond says he was converted to Christian Sci-

ence by being cured by Mrs. Eddy of a physical ailment

some twelve years ago, after several doctors had pronounced

9 his case incurable. He says they use no medicines, but

rely on Mind for cure, believing that disease comes from

evil and sick-producing thoughts, and that, if they can so

12 fill the mind with good thoughts as to leave no room there

for the bad, they can work a cure. He distinguishes Chris-

tian Science from the faith-cure, and added: "This Chris-

15 tian Science really is a return to the ideas of primitive

Christianity. It would take a small book to explain fully

all about it, but I may say that the fundamental idea is that

18 God is Mind, and we interpret the Scriptures wholly from

the spiritual or metaphysical standpoint. We find in this

view of the Bible the power fully developed to heal the

21 sick. It is not faith-cure, but it is an acknowledgment of

certain Christian and scientific laws, and to work a cure the

practitioner must understand these laws aright. The

24 patient may gain a better understanding than the Church

has had in the past. All churches have prayed for the cure

of disease, but they have not done so in an intelligent man-

ner, understanding and demonstrating the Christ-healing."

Page 70

[The Reporter, Lebanon, Ind., January 18, 1895]

[Extract]

3 DISCOVERED CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

REMARKABLE CAREER OF REV. MARY BAKER EDDY, WHO HAS

OVER ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND FOLLOWERS

6 Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, Discoverer and Founder of

Christian Science, author of its textbook, "Science and

Health with Key to the Scriptures," president of the Mas-

9 sachusetts Metaphysical College, and first pastor of the

Christian Science denomination, is without doubt one of

the most remarkable women in America. She has within a

12 few years founded a sect that has over one hundred thou-

sand converts, and very recently saw completed in Boston,

as a testimonial to her labors, a handsome fire-proof church

that cost two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and was

paid for by Christian Scientists all over the country.

Mrs. Eddy asserts that in 1866 she became certain that

18 "all causation was Mind, and every effect a mental phe-

nomenon." Taking her text from the Bible, she endeav-

ored in vain to find the great curative Principle - the Deity

21 - in philosophy and schools of medicine, and she con-

cluded that the way of salvation demonstrated by Jesus

was the power of Truth over all error, sin, sickness, and

24 death. Thus originated the divine or spiritual Science of

Mind-healing, which she termed Christian Science. She

has a palatial home in Boston and a country-seat in

Concord, N. H. The Christian Science Church has a

Page 71

membership of four thousand, and eight hundred of the

members are Bostonians.

-------------

[N. Y. Commercial Advertiser, January 9, 1895]

The idea that Christian Science has declined in popu-

larity is not borne out by the voluntary contribution of a

quarter of a million dollars for a memorial church for Mrs.

Eddy, the inventor of this cure. The money comes from

Christian Science believers exclusively.

---------------

[The Post, Syracuse, New York, February 1, 1895]

DO NOT BELIEVE SHE WAS DEIFIED

CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS OF SYRACUSE SURPRISED AT THE NEWS

ABOUT MRS. MARY BAKER EDDY, FOUNDER OF THE FAITH

Christian Scientists in this city, and in fact all over the

country, have been startled and greatly discomfited over

15 the announcements in New York papers that Mrs. Mary

Baker G. Eddy, the acknowledged Christian Science

Leader, has been exalted by various dignitaries of the

faith. . . .

It is well known that Mrs. Eddy has resigned herself

completely to the study and foundation of the faith to which

many thousands throughout the United States are now so

entirely devoted. By her followers and cobelievers she is

unquestionably looked upon as having a divine mission to

Page 72

1 fulfil, and as though inspired in her great task by super-

natural power.

3 For the purpose of learning the feeling of Scientists in this

city toward the reported deification of Mrs. Eddy, a Post

reporter called upon a few of the leading members of the

faith yesterday and had a number of very interesting con-

versations upon the subject.

Mrs. D. W. Copeland of University Avenue was one of

9 the first to be seen. Mrs. Copeland is a very pleasant and

agreeable lady, ready to converse, and evidently very much

absorbed in the work to which she has given so much of

12 her attention. Mrs. Copeland claims to have been healed

a number of years ago by Christian Scientists, after she

had practically been given up by a number of well-known

physicians.

"And for the past eleven years," said Mrs. Copeland,

"I have not taken any medicine or drugs of any kind, and

yet have been perfectly well."

In regard to Mrs. Eddy, Mrs. Copeland said that she

was the Founder of the faith, but that she had never

21 claimed, nor did she believe that Mrs. Lathrop had, that

Mrs. Eddy had any power other than that which came

from God and through faith in Him and His teachings.

24 "The power of Christ has been dormant in mankind for

ages," added the speaker, "and it was Mrs. Eddy's mission

to revive it. In our labors we take Christ as an example,

27 going about doing good and healing the sick. Christ has

told us to do his work, naming as one great essential that

we have faith in him.

"Did you ever hear of Jesus' taking medicine himself, or

Page 73

1 giving it to others?" inquired the speaker. "Then why

should we worry ourselves about sickness and disease?

3 If we become sick, God will care for us, and will send to

us those who have faith, who believe in His unlimited and

divine power. Mrs. Eddy was strictly an ardent follower

6 after God. She had faith in Him, and she cured herself of

a deathly disease through the mediation of her God. Then

she secluded herself from the world for three years and

9 studied and meditated over His divine Word. She delved

deep into the Biblical passages, and at the end of the period

came from her seclusion one of the greatest Biblical schol-

12 ars of the age. Her mission was then the mission of a

Christian, to do good and heal the sick, and this duty she

faithfully performed. She of herself had no power. But

God has fulfilled His promises to her and to the world.

If you have faith, you can move mountains."

Mrs. Henrietta N. Cole is also a very prominent member

18 of the church. When seen yesterday she emphasized her-

self as being of the same theory as Mrs. Copeland. Mrs.

Cole has made a careful and searching study in the beliefs

21 of Scientists, and is perfectly versed in all their beliefs and

doctrines. She stated that man of himself has no power,

but that all comes from God. She placed no credit what-

24 ever in the reports from New York that Mrs. Eddy has

been accredited as having been deified. She referred the

reporter to the large volume which Mrs. Eddy had herself

written, and said that no more complete and yet concise

idea of her belief could be obtained than by a perusal of it.

Page 74

[New York Herald, February 6, 1895]

MRS. EDDY SHOCKED

[By Telegraph to the Herald]

Concord, N. H., February 4, 1895. - The article pub-

lished in the Herald on January 29, regarding a statement

6 made by Mrs. Laura Lathrop, pastor of the Christian Sci-

ence congregation that meets every Sunday in Hodgson

Hall, New York, was shown to Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy,

the Christian Science "Discoverer," to-day.

Mrs. Eddy preferred to prepare a written answer to the

interrogatory, which she did in this letter, addressed to the

editor of the Herald: -

"A despatch is given me, calling for an interview to an-

swer for myself, 'Am I the second Christ?'

15 "Even the question shocks me. What I am is for God

to declare in His infinite mercy. As it is, I claim nothing

more than what I am, the Discoverer and Founder of

Christian Science, and the blessing it has been to mankind

which eternity enfolds.

"I think Mrs. Lathrop was not understood. If she said

aught with intention to be thus understood, it is not what

I have taught her, and not at all as I have heard her talk.

"My books and teachings maintain but one conclusion

and statement of the Christ and the deification of mortals.

"Christ is individual, and one with God, in the sense

of divine Love and its compound divine ideal.

"There was, is, and never can be but one God, one

Page 75

1 Christ, one Jesus of Nazareth. Whoever in any age ex-

presses most of the spirit of Truth and Love, the Principle

of God's idea, has most of the spirit of Christ, of that Mind

which was in Christ Jesus.

"If Christian Scientists find in my writings, teachings,

6 and example a greater degree of this spirit than in others,

they can justly declare it. But to think or speak of me in

any manner as a Christ, is sacrilegious. Such a statement

9 would not only be false, but the absolute antipode of Chris-

tian Science, and would savor more of heathenism than of

my doctrines.

"MARY BAKER EDDY"

--------------

[ The Globe, Toronto, Canada, January 12, 1895]

[Extract]

CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS

DEDICATION TO THE FOUNDER OF THE ORDER OF A BEAUTIFUL CHURCH AT BOSTON - MANY TORONTO SCIENTISTS PRESENT

18 The Christian Scientists of Toronto, to the number of

thirty, took part in the ceremonies at Boston last Sunday

and for the day or two following, by which the members

21 of that faith all over North America celebrated the dedica-

tion of the church constructed in the great New England

capital as a testimonial to the Discoverer and Founder of

Christian Science, Rev. Mary Baker Eddy.

The temple is believed to be the most nearly fire-proof

church structure on the continent, the only combustible

Page 76

1 material used in its construction being that used in the

doors and pews. A striking feature of the church is a

3 beautiful apartment known as the "Mother's Room,"

which is approached through a superb archway of Italian

marble set in the wall. The furnishing of the "Mother's

6 Room" is described as "particularly beautiful, and blends

harmoniously with the pale green and gold decoration of the

walls. The floor is of mosaic in elegant designs, and two

9 alcoves are separated from the apartment by rich hangings

of deep green plush, which in certain lights has a shimmer

of silver. The furniture frames are of white mahogany

12 in special designs, elaborately carved, and the upholstery

is in white and gold tapestry. A superb mantel of Mexican

onyx with gold decoration adorns the south wall, and before

15 the hearth is a large rug composed entirely of skins of the

eider-dawn duck, brought from the Arctic regions. Pic-

tures and bric-a-brac everywhere suggest the tribute of

loving friends. One of the two alcoves is a retiring-room

and the other a lavatory in which the plumbing is all

heavily plated with gold."

------------

[Evening Monitor, Concord, N. H., February 27, 1895]

AN ELEGANT SOUVENIR

REV. MARY BAKER EDDY MEMORIALIZED BY A CHRISTIAN

24 SCIENCE CHURCH

Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, Discoverer of Christian Science,

has received from the members of The First Church of

Christ, Scientist, Boston, an invitation formally to accept

Page 77

1 the magnificent new edifice of worship which the church

has just erected.

3 The invitation itself is one of the most chastely elegant

memorials ever prepared, and is a scroll of solid gold,

suitably engraved, and encased in a handsome plush

casket with white silk linings. Attached to the scroll is a

golden key of the church structure.

The inscription reads thus: -

9 "Dear Mother: - During the year eighteen hundred and

ninety-four a church edifice was erected at the intersection

of Falmouth and Norway Streets, in the city of Boston,

12 by the loving hands of four thousand members. This

edifice is built as a testimonial to Truth, as revealed by

divine Love through you to this age. You are hereby

15 most lovingly invited to visit and formally accept this

testimonial on the twentieth day of February, eighteen

hundred and ninety-five, at high noon.

18 "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, at Boston, Mass.

"BY EDWARD P. BATES,

"CAROLINE S. BATES

"To the Reverend Mary Baker Eddy,

"Boston, January 6th, 1895"

-----------------

[People and Patriot, Concord, N. H., February 27, 1895]

MAGNIFICENT TESTIMONIAL

Members of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, at

Boston, have forwarded to Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy of

Page 78

1 this city, the Founder of Christian Science, a testimonial

which is probably one of the most magnificent examples

3 of the goldsmith's art ever wrought in this country. It is

in the form of a gold scroll, twenty-six inches long, nine

inches wide, and an eighth of an inch thick.

It bears upon its face the following inscription, cut in

script letters: -

"Dear Mother: - During the year 1894 a church edi-

9 fice was erected at the intersection of Falmouth and Nor-

way Streets, in the city of Boston, by the loving hands of

four thousand members. This edifice is built as a testi-

12 monial to Truth, as revealed by divine Love through you

to this age. You are hereby most lovingly invited to visit

and formally accept this testimonial on the 20th day of

February, 1895, at high noon.

"The First Church of Christ, Scientist, at Boston, Mass.

"BY EDWARD P. BATES,

"CAROLINE S. BATES

"To the Rev. Mary Baker Eddy,

"Boston, January 6, 1895"

Attached by a white ribbon to the scroll is a gold key

to the church door.

The testimonial is encased in a white satin-lined box

of rich green velvet.

The scroll is on exhibition in the window of J. C.

Derby's jewelry store.

Page 79

[The Union Signal, Chicago]

[Extract]

THE NEW WOMAN AND THE NEW CHURCH

The dedication, in Boston, of a Christian Science temple

costing over two hundred thousand dollars, and for which

6 the money was all paid in so that no debt had to be taken

care of on dedication day, is a notable event. While we

are not, and never have been, devotees of Christian Science,

9 it becomes us as students of public questions not to ignore

a movement which, starting fifteen years ago, has already

gained to itself adherents in every part of the civilized

12 world, for it is a significant fact that one cannot take up

a daily paper in town or village - to say nothing of cities -

without seeing notices of Christian Science meetings, and

in most instances they are held at "headquarters."

We believe there are two reasons for this remarkable

development, which has shown a vitality so unexpected.

18 The first is that a revolt was inevitable from the crass

materialism of the cruder science that had taken posses-

sion of men's minds, for as a wicked but witty writer has

21 said, "If there were no God, we should be obliged to in-

vent one." There is something in the constitution of

man that requires the religious sentiment as much as his

lungs call for breath; indeed, the breath of his soul is a

belief in God.

But when Christian Science arose, the thought of the

world's scientific leaders had become materialistically

"lopsided," and this condition can never long continue.

Page 80

1 There must be a righting-up of the mind as surely as of a

ship when under stress of storm it is ready to capsize. The

3 pendulum that has swung to one extreme will surely find

the other. The religious sentiment in women is so strong

that the revolt was headed by them; this was inevitable

6 in the nature of the case. It began in the most intellectual

city of the freest country in the world - that is to say,

it sought the line of least resistance. Boston is emphati-

9 cally the women's paradise, - numerically, socially, in-

deed every way. Here they have the largest individuality,

the most recognition, the widest outlook. Mrs. Eddy we

12 have never seen; her book has many a time been sent

us by interested friends, and out of respect to them we

have fairly broken our mental teeth over its granitic peb-

15 bles. That we could not understand it might be rather

to the credit of the book than otherwise. On this subject

we have no opinion to pronounce, but simply state the

fact.

We do not, therefore, speak of the system it sets forth,

either to praise or blame, but this much is true: the spirit

21 of Christian Science ideas has caused an army of well-mean-

ing people to believe in God and the power of faith, who

did not believe in them before. It has made a myriad of

24 women more thoughtful and devout; it has brought a

hopeful spirit into the homes of unnumbered invalids.

The belief that "thoughts are things," that the invisible

27 is the only real world, that we are here to be trained into

harmony with the laws of God, and that what we are here

determines where we shall be hereafter - all these ideas

are Christian.

Page 81

1 The chimes on the Christian Science temple in Boston

played "All hail the power of Jesus' name," on the morn-

3 ing of the dedication. We did not attend, but we learn

that the name of Christ is nowhere spoken with more

reverence than it was during those services, and that he

is set forth as the power of God for righteousness and the

express image of God for love.

---------------

[The New Century, Boston, February, 1895]

ONE POINT OF VIEW - THE NEW WOMAN

We all know her - she is simply the woman of the past

with an added grace - a newer charm. Some of her

12 dearest ones call her "selfish" because she thinks so much

of herself she spends her whole time helping others. She

represents the composite beauty, sweetness, and nobility

15 of all those who scorn self for the sake of love and her

handmaiden duty - of all those who seek the brightness

of truth not as the moth to be destroyed thereby, but as

18 the lark who soars and sings to the great sun. She is of

those who have so much to give they want no time to take,

and their name is legion. She is as full of beautiful possi-

21 bilities as a perfect harp, and she realizes that all the har-

monies of the universe are in herself, while her own soul

plays upon magic strings the unwritten anthems of love.

She is the apostle of the true, the beautiful, the good, com-

missioned to complete all that the twelve have left undone.

Hers is the mission of missions - the highest of all - to

Page 82

1 make the body not the prison, but the palace of the soul,

with the brain for its great white throne.

3 When she comes like the south wind into the cold haunts

of sin and sorrow, her words are smiles and her smiles are

the sunlight which heals the stricken soul. Her hand is

6 tender - but steel tempered with holy resolve, and as

one whom her love had glorified once said - she is soft

and gentle, but you could no more turn her from her

9 course than winter could stop the coming of spring. She

has long learned with patience, and to-day she knows

many things dear to the soul far better than her teachers.

12 In olden times the Jews claimed to be the conservators

of the world's morals - they treated woman as a chattel,

and said that because she was created after man, she was

15 created solely for man. Too many still are Jews who

never called Abraham "Father," while the Jews them-

selves have long acknowledged woman as man's proper

18 helpmeet. In those days women had few lawful claims

and no one to urge them. True, there were Miriam and

Esther, but they sang and sacrificed for their people, not

for their sex.

To-day there are ten thousand Esthers, and Miriams

by the million, who sing best by singing most for their

24 own sex. They are demanding the right to help make

the laws, or at least to help enforce the laws upon

which depends the welfare of their husbands, their chil-

27 dren, and themselves. Why should our selfish self longer

remain deaf to their cry? The date is no longer B. C.

Might no longer makes right, and in this fair land at least

fear has ceased to kiss the iron heel of wrong. Why then

Page 83

1 should we continue to demand woman's love and woman's

help while we recklessly promise as lover and candidate

3 what we never fulfil as husband and office-holder? In

our secret heart our better self is shamed and dishonored,

and appeals from Philip drunk to Philip sober, but has

6 not yet the moral strength and courage to prosecute the

appeal. But the east is rosy, and the sunlight cannot long

be delayed. Woman must not and will not be disheart-

9 ened by a thousand denials or a million of broken pledges.

With the assurance of faith she prays, with the certainty

of inspiration she works, and with the patience of genius

12 she waits. At last she is becoming "as fair as the morn,

as bright as the sun, and as terrible as an army with ban-

ners" to those who march under the black flag of oppres-

sion and wield the ruthless sword of injustice.

In olden times it was the Amazons who conquered the

invincibles, and we must look now to their daughters to

18 overcome our own allied armies of evil and to save us from

ourselves. She must and will succeed, for as David sang

- "God shall help her, and that right early." When we

21 try to praise her later works it is as if we would pour

incense upon the rose. It is the proudest boast of many

of us that we are "bound to her by bonds dearer than free-

24 dom," and that we live in the reflected royalty which

shines from her brow. We rejoice with her that at last

we begin to know what John on Patmos meant - "And

27 there appeared a great wonder in heaven, a woman clothed

with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her

head a crown of twelve stars." She brought to warring

men the Prince of Peace, and he, departing, left his scepter

Page 84

1 not in her hand, but in her soul. "The time of times"

is near when "the new woman" shall subdue the whole

3 earth with the weapons of peace. Then shall wrong be

robbed of her bitterness and ingratitude of her sting,

revenge shall clasp hands with pity, and love shall dwell

in the tents of hate; while side by side, equal partners in

all that is worth living for, shall stand the new man with

the new woman.

---------------

[The Christian Science Journal, January, 1895]

[Extract]

THE MOTHER CHURCH

12 The Mother Church edifice - The First Church of

Christ, Scientist, in Boston, is erected. The close of the

year, Anno Domini 1894, witnessed the completion of

"our prayer in stone," all predictions and prognostications

to the contrary notwithstanding.

Of the significance of this achievement we shall not

18 undertake to speak in this article. It can be better felt

than expressed. All who are awake thereto have some

measure of understanding of what it means. But only

21 the future will tell the story of its mighty meaning or un-

fold it to the comprehension of mankind. It is enough for

us now to know that all obstacles to its completion have

been met and overcome, and that our temple is completed

as God intended it should be.

This achievement is the result of long years of untiring,

unselfish, and zealous effort on the part of our beloved

teacher and Leader, the Reverend Mary Baker Eddy,

the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, who

Page 85

1 nearly thirty years ago began to lay the foundation of

this temple, and whose devotion and consecration to God

and humanity during the intervening years have made

its erection possible.

Those who now, in part, understand her mission, turn

6 their hearts in gratitude to her for her great work, and

those who do not understand it will, in the fulness of time,

see and acknowledge it. In the measure in which she has

9 unfolded and demonstrated divine Love, and built up in

human consciousness a better and higher conception of

God as Life, Truth, and Love, - as the divine Principle

12 of all things which really exist, - and in the degree in

which she has demonstrated the system of healing of Jesus

and the apostles, surely she, as the one chosen of God to

15 this end, is entitled to the gratitude and love of all who

desire a better and grander humanity, and who believe

it to be possible to establish the kingdom of heaven upon

earth in accordance with the prayer and teachings of

Jesus Christ.

--------------

[Concord Evening Monitor, March 23, 1895]

TESTIMONIAL AND GIFT

TO REV. MARY BAKER EDDY, FROM THE FIRST CHURCH OF

CHRIST, SCIENTIST, IN BOSTON

24 Rev. Mary Baker Eddy received Friday, from the Chris-

tian Science Board of Directors, Boston, a beautiful and

unique testimonial of the appreciation of her labors and

loving generosity in the Cause of their common faith. It

was a facsimile of the corner-stone of the new church of

Page 86

1 the Christian Scientists, just completed, being of granite,

about six inches in each dimension, and contains a solid

gold box, upon the cover of which is this inscription: -

"To our Beloved Teacher, the Reverend Mary Baker

Eddy, Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, from

her affectionate Students, the Christian Science Board of

Directors."

On the under side of the cover are the facsimile sig-

9 natures of the Directors, - Ira O. Knapp, William B.

Johnson, Joseph Armstrong, and Stephen A. Chase,

with the date, "1895." The beautiful souvenir is en-

cased in an elegant plush box.

Accompanying the stone testimonial was the following

address from the Board of Directors: -

Boston, March 20, 1895

To the Reverend Mary Baker Eddy, our Beloved

Teacher and Leader: - We are happy to announce to you

the completion of The First Church of Christ, Scientist,

in Boston.

In behalf of your loving students and all contributors

21 wherever they may be, we hereby present this church to

you as a testimonial of love and gratitude for your labors

and loving sacrifice, as the Discoverer and Founder of

Christian Science, and the author of its textbook, "Sci-

ence and Health with Key to the Scriptures."

We therefore respectfully extend to you the invitation

to become the permanent pastor of this church, in con-

nection with the Bible and the book alluded to above,

which you have already ordained as our pastor. And we

Page 87

1 most cordially invite you to be present and take charge

of any services that may be held therein. We especially

3 desire you to be present on the twenty-fourth day of March,

eighteen hundred and ninety-five, to accept this offering,

with our humble benediction.

6 Lovingly yours,

IRA O. KNAPP, JOSEPH ARMSTRONG,

WILLIAM B. JOHNSON, STEPHEN A. CHASE,

The Christian Science Board of Directors

REV. MRS. EDDY'S REPLY

Beloved Directors and Brethren: - For your costly offer-

12 ing, and kind call to the pastorate of "The First Church

of Christ, Scientist," in Boston - accept my profound

thanks. But permit me, respectfully, to decline their ac-

15 ceptance, while I fully appreciate your kind intentions.

If it will comfort you in the least, make me your Pastor

Emeritus, nominally. Through my book, your textbook,

18 I already speak to you each Sunday. You ask too much

when asking me to accept your grand church edifice. I

have more of earth now, than I desire, and less of heaven;

21 so pardon my refusal of that as a material offering. More

effectual than the forum are our states of mind, to bless

mankind. This wish stops not with my pen - God give

24 you grace. As our church's tall tower detains the sun,

so may luminous lines from your lives linger, a legacy to

our race.

MARY BAKER EDDY

March 25, 1895

Page 88

1 LIST OF LEADING NEWSPAPERS WHOSE ARTICLES

ARE OMITTED

3 From Canada to New Orleans, and from the Atlantic

to the Pacific ocean, the author has received leading news-

papers with uniformly kind and interesting articles on

6 the dedication of The Mother Church. They were, how-

ever, too voluminous for these pages. To those which are

copied she can append only a few of the names of other

prominent newspapers whose articles are reluctantly

omitted.

EASTERN STATES

12 Advertiser, Calais, Me.

Advertiser, Boston, Mass.

Farmer, Bridgeport, Conn.

15 Independent, Rockland, Mass.

Kennebec Journal, Augusta, Me.

News, New Haven, Conn.

18 News, Newport, R. I.

Post, Boston, Mass.

Post, Hartford, Conn.

21 Republican, Springfield, Mass.

Sentinel, Eastport, Me.

Sun, Attleboro, Mass.

MIDDLE STATES

Advertiser, New York City.

Bulletin, Auburn, N. Y.

27 Daily, York, Pa.

Evening Reporter, Lebanon, Pa.

Farmer, Bridgeport, N. Y.

Herald, Rochester, N. Y.

Independent, Harrisburg, Pa.

Inquirer, Philadelphia, Pa.

Page 89

1 Independent, New York City.

Journal, Lockport, N. Y.

3 Knickerbocker, Albany, N. Y.

News, Buffalo, N. Y.

News, Newark, N. J.

6 Once A Week, New York City.

Post, Pittsburgh, Pa.

Press, Albany, N. Y.

9 Press, New York City.

Press, Philadelphia, Pa.

Saratogian, Saratoga Springs, N. Y.

12 Sun, New York City.

Telegram, Philadelphia, Pa.

Telegram, Troy, N. Y.

Times, Trenton, N. J.

SOUTHERN STATES

Commercial, Louisville, Ky.

18 Journal, Atlanta, Ga.

Post, Washington, D. C.

Telegram, New Orleans, La.

Times, New Orleans, La.

Times-Herald, Dallas, Tex.

WESTERN STATES

24 Bee, Omaha, Neb.

Bulletin, San Francisco, Cal.

Chronicle, San Francisco, Cal.

27 Elite, Chicago, Ill.

Enquirer, Oakland, Cal.

Free Press, Detroit, Mich.

30 Gazette, Burlington, Iowa.

Herald, Grand Rapids, Mich.

Herald, St. Joseph, Mo.

33 Journal, Columbus, Ohio.

Journal, Topeka, Kans.

Leader, Bloomington, Ill.

Leader, Cleveland, Ohio.

News, St. Joseph, Mo.

Page 90

1 News-Tribune, Duluth, Minn.

Pioneer-Press, St. Paul, Minn.

3 Post-lntelligencer, Seattle, Wash.

Salt Lake Herald, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Sentinel, Indianapolis, Ind.

6 Sentinel, Milwaukee, Wis.

Star, Kansas City, Mo.

Telegram, Portland, Ore.

9 Times, Chicago, Ill.

Times, Minneapolis, Minn.

Tribune, Minneapolis, Minn.

Tribune, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Free Press, London, Can.

Table of Contents

Rudimental Divine Science

Mary Baker Eddy

Author of Science and Health with Key to

the Scriptures

Published by the

Trustees under the Will of Mary Baker G. Eddy

Boston, U.S.A.

By Mary Baker G. Eddy

_____________

Printed in the United States of America

THIS LITTLE BOOK

TENDERLY AND RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED

TO ALL

LOYAL STUDENTS, WORKING AND WAITING

FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE

SCIENCE OF MIND-HEALING

MARY BAKER EDDY

Rudimental Divine Science

How would you define Christian Science?

AS the law of God, the law of good, interpreting and

demonstrating the divine Principle and rule of

universal harmony.

What is the Principle of Christian Science?

6 It is God, the Supreme Being, infinite and immortal

Mind, the Soul of man and the universe. It is our Father

which is in heaven. It is substance, Spirit, Life, Truth,

and Love, - these are the deific Principle.

Do you mean by this that God is a person?

The word person affords a large margin for misappre-

12 hension, as well as definition. In French the equivalent

word is personne. In Spanish, Italian, and Latin, it is

persona. The Latin verb personare is compounded of

the prefix per (through) and sonare (to sound).

In law, Blackstone applies the word personal to bodily

presence, in distinction from one's appearance (in court,

for example) by deputy or proxy.

Page 2

1 Other definitions of person, as given by Webster, are

"a living soul; a self-conscious being; a moral agent;

3 especially, a living human being, a corporeal man, woman,

or child; an individual of the human race." He adds,

that among Trinitarian Christians the word stands for one

of the three subjects, or agents, constituting the Godhead.

In Christian Science we learn that God is definitely indi-

vidual, and not a person, as that word is used by the best

9 authorities, if our lexicographers are right in defining

person as especially a finite human being; but God is

personal, if by person is meant infinite Spirit.

12 We do not conceive rightly of God, if we think of Him

as less than infinite. The human person is finite; and

therefore I prefer to retain the proper sense of Deity by

15 using the phrase an individual God, rather than a per-

sonal God; for there is and can be but one infinite indi-

vidual Spirit, whom mortals have named God.

18 Science defines the individuality of God as supreme

good, Life, Truth, Love. This term enlarges our sense

of Deity, takes away the trammels assigned to God by

finite thought, and introduces us to higher definitions.

Is healing the sick the whole of Science?

Healing physical sickness is the smallest part of Chris-

24 tian Science. It is only the bugle-call to thought and

action, in the higher range of infinite goodness. The

emphatic purpose of Christian Science is the healing of

sin; and this task, sometimes, may be harder than the

Page 3

1 cure of disease; because, while mortals love to sin, they

do not love to be sick. Hence their comparative acqui-

3 escence in your endeavors to heal them of bodily ills, and

their obstinate resistance to all efforts to save them from

sin through Christ, spiritual Truth and Love, which

redeem them, and become their Saviour, through the

flesh, from the flesh, - the material world and evil.

This Life, Truth, and Love - this trinity of good - was

9 individualized, to the perception of mortal sense, in the

man Jesus. His history is emphatic in our hearts, and it

lives more because of his spiritual than his physical healing.

His example is, to Christian Scientists, what the models

of the masters in music and painting are to artists.

Genuine Christian Scientists will no more deviate mor-

15 ally from that divine digest of Science called the Sermon

on the Mount, than they will manipulate invalids, prescribe

drugs, or deny God. Jesus' healing was spiritual in its

18 nature, method, and design. He wrought the cure of

disease through the divine Mind, which gives all true

volition, impulse, and action; and destroys the mental

21 error made manifest physically, and establishes the oppo-

site manifestation of Truth upon the body in harmony

and health.

By the individuality of God, do you mean that God has

a finite form?

No. I mean the infinite and divine Principle of all

being, the ever-present I AM, filling all space, including

Page 4

1 in itself all Mind, the one Father-Mother God. Life,

Truth, and Love are this trinity in unity, and their uni-

3 verse is spiritual, peopled with perfect beings, harmonious

and eternal, of which our material universe and men are

the counterfeits.

Is God the Principle of all science, or only of Divine or

Christian Science?

Science is Mind manifested. It is not material; neither

is it of human origin.

All true Science represents a moral and spiritual force,

which holds the earth in its orbit. This force is Spirit,

that can "bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades," and

"loose the bands of Orion."

There is no material science, if by that term you mean

15 material intelligence. God is infinite Mind, hence there

is no other Mind. Good is Mind, but evil is not Mind.

Good is not in evil, but in God only. Spirit is not in matter,

18 but in Spirit only. Law is not in matter, but in Mind only.

Is there no matter?

All is Mind. According to the Scriptures and Christian

21 Science, all is God, and there is naught beside Him. "God

is Spirit;" and we can only learn and love Him through

His spirit, which brings out the fruits of Spirit and ex-

tinguishes forever the works of darkness by His marvel-

lous light.

The five material senses testify to the existence of

Page 5

1 matter. The spiritual senses afford no such evidence,

but deny the testimony of the material senses. Which

3 testimony is correct? The Bible says: "Let God be

true, and every man a liar." If, as the Scriptures imply,

God is All-in-all, then all must be Mind, since God is

6 Mind. Therefore in divine Science there is no material

mortal man, for man is spiritual and eternal, he being

made in the image of Spirit, or God.

9 There is no material sense. Matter is inert, inanimate,

and sensationless, - considered apart from Mind. Lives

there a man who has ever found Soul in the body or in

12 matter, who has ever seen spiritual substance with the

eye, who has found sight in matter, hearing in the material

ear, or intelligence in non-intelligence? If there is any

such thing as matter, it must be either mind which is

called matter, or matter without Mind.

Matter without Mind is a moral impossibility. Mind

18 in matter is pantheism. Soul is the only real conscious-

ness which cognizes being. The body does not see, hear,

smell, or taste. Human belief says that it does; but

21 destroy this belief of seeing with the eye, and we could

not see materially; and so it is with each of the physical

senses.

24 Accepting the verdict of these material senses, we should

believe man and the universe to be the football of chance

and sinking into oblivion. Destroy the five senses as

organized matter, and you must either become non-exist-

ent, or exist in Mind only; and this latter conclusion is

Page 6

1 the simple solution of the problem of being, and leads to

the equal inference that there is no matter.

3 The sweet sounds and glories of earth and sky, assum-

ing manifold forms and colors, - are they not tangible and

material?

6 As Mind they are real, but not as matter. All beauty

and goodness are in and of Mind, emanating from God;

but when we change the nature of beauty and goodness

9 from Mind to matter, the beauty is marred, through a

false conception, and, to the material senses, evil takes

the place of good.

12 Has not the truth in Christian Science met a response

from Prof. S. P. Langley, the young American astronomer?

He says that "color is in us," not "in the rose;" and he

15 adds that this is not "any metaphysical subtlety," but a

fact "almost universally accepted, within the last few

years, by physicists."

18 Is not the basis of Mind-healing a destruction of the evi-

dence of the material senses, and restoration of the true

evidence of spiritual sense?

21 It is, so far as you perceive and understand this predi-

cate and postulate of Mind-healing; but the Science of

Mind-healing is best understood in practical demonstra-

tion. The proof of what you apprehend, in the simplest

definite and absolute form of healing, can alone answer

this question of how much you understand of Christian

Page 7

1 Science Mind-healing. Not that all healing is Science,

by any means; but that the simplest case, healed in Science,

is as demonstrably scientific, in a small degree, as the most

difficult case so treated.

The infinite and subtler conceptions and consistencies

of Christian Science are set forth in my work Science and

Health.

Is man material or spiritual?

9 In Science, man is the manifest reflection of God, per-

fect and immortal Mind. He is the likeness of God; and

His likeness would be lost if inverted or perverted.

12 According to the evidence of the so-called physical

senses, man is material, fallen, sick, depraved, mortal.

Science and spiritual sense contradict this, and they afford

the only true evidence of the being of God and man, the

material evidence being wholly false.

Jesus said of personal evil, that "the truth abode not

18 in him," because there is no material sense. Matter, as

matter, has neither sensation nor personal intelligence.

As a pretension to be Mind, matter is a lie, and "the

father of lies;" Mind is not in matter, and Spirit cannot

originate its opposite, named matter.

According to divine Science, Spirit no more changes its

24 species, by evolving matter from Spirit, than natural

science, so-called, or material laws, bring about altera-

tion of species by transforming minerals into vegetables

or plants into animals, - thus confusing and confounding

Page 8

1 the three great kingdoms. No rock brings forth an apple;

no pine-tree produces a mammal or provides breast-milk

for babes.

To sense, the lion of to-day is the lion of six thousand

years ago; but in Science, Spirit sends forth its own harm-

less likeness.

How should I undertake to demonstrate Christian Science

in healing the sick?

9 As I have given you only an epitome of the Principle,

so I can give you here nothing but an outline of the prac-

tice. Be honest, be true to thyself, and true to others;

12 then it follows thou wilt be strong in God, the eternal

good. Heal through Truth and Love; there is no other

healer.

15 In all moral revolutions, from a lower to a higher con-

dition of thought and action, Truth is in the minority and

error has the majority. It is not otherwise in the field

18 of Mind-healing. The man who calls himself a Christian

Scientist, yet is false to God and man, is also uttering

falsehood about good. This falsity shuts against him the

21 Truth and the Principle of Science, but opens a way

whereby, through will-power, sense may say the unchris-

tian practitioner can heal; but Science shows that he makes

morally worse the invalid whom he is supposed to cure.

By this I mean that mortal mind should not be falsely

impregnated. If by such lower means the health is seem-

ingly restored, the restoration is not lasting, and the patient

Page 9

1 is liable to a relapse, - "The last state of that man is

worse than the first."

3 The teacher of Mind-healing who is not a Christian,

in the highest sense, is constantly sowing the seeds of

discord and disease. Even the truth he speaks is more

6 or less blended with error; and this error will spring up

in the mind of his pupil. The pupil's imperfect knowl-

edge will lead to weakness in practice, and he will be a

poor practitioner, if not a malpractitioner.

The basis of malpractice is in erring human will, and

this will is an outcome of what I call mortal mind, - a

12 false and temporal sense of Truth, Life, and Love. To

heal, in Christian Science, is to base your practice on

immortal Mind, the divine Principle of man's being; and

this requires a preparation of the heart and an answer

of the lips from the Lord.

The Science of healing is the Truth of healing. If

18 one is untruthful, his mental state weighs against his

healing power; and similar effects come from pride,

envy, lust, and all fleshly vices.

21 The spiritual power of a scientific, right thought, with-

out a direct effort, an audible or even a mental argument,

has oftentimes healed inveterate diseases.

24 The thoughts of the practitioner should be imbued with

a clear conviction of the omnipotence and omnipresence

of God; that He is All, and that there can be none beside

Him; that God is good, and the producer only of good;

and hence, that whatever militates against health, har-

Page 10

1 mony, or holiness, is an unjust usurper of the throne of

the controller of all mankind. Note this, that if you have

power in error, you forfeit the power that Truth bestows,

and its salutary influence on yourself and others.

You must feel and know that God alone governs man;

6 that His government is harmonious; that He is too pure

to behold iniquity, and divides His power with nothing

evil or material; that material laws are only human be-

9 liefs, which govern mortals wrongfully. These beliefs arise

from the subjective states of thought, producing the be-

liefs of a mortal material universe, - so-called, and of

12 material disease and mortality. Mortal ills are but errors

of thought, - diseases of mortal mind, and not of matter;

for matter cannot feel, see, or report pain or disease.

15 Disease is a thing of thought manifested on the body;

and fear is the procurator of the thought which causes

sickness and suffering. Remove this fear by the true

18 sense that God is Love, - and that Love punishes nothing

but sin, - and the patient can then look up to the loving

God, and know that He afflicteth not willingly the children

21 of men, who are punished because of disobedience to His

spiritual law. His law of Truth, when obeyed, removes

every erroneous physical and mental state. The belief

that matter can master Mind, and make you ill, is an

error which Truth will destroy.

You must learn to acknowledge God in all His ways.

It is only a lack of understanding of the allness of God,

which leads you to believe in the existence of matter, or

Page 11

1 that matter can frame its own conditions, contrary to the

law of Spirit.

3 Sickness is the schoolmaster, leading you to Christ;

first to faith in Christ; next to belief in God as omnipo-

tent; and finally to the understanding of God and man

6 in Christian Science, whereby you learn that God is good,

and in Science man is His likeness, the forever reflection of

goodness. Therefore good is one and All.

9 This brings forward the next proposition in Christian

Science, - namely, that there are no sickness, sin, and

death in the divine Mind. What seem to be disease, vice,

12 and mortality are illusions of the physical senses. These

illusions are not real, but unreal. Health is the conscious-

ness of the unreality of pain and disease; or, rather, the

15 absolute consciousness of harmony and of nothing else.

In a moment you may awake from a night-dream; just

so you can awake from the dream of sickness; but the

18 demonstration of the Science of Mind-healing by no means

rests on the strength of human belief. This demonstra-

tion is based on a true understanding of God and divine

21 Science, which takes away every human belief, and,

through the illumination of spiritual understanding, re-

veals the all-power and ever-presence of good, whence

emanate health, harmony, and Life eternal.

The lecturer, teacher, or healer who is indeed a Christian

Scientist, never introduces the subject of human anatomy;

never depicts the muscular, vascular, or nervous opera-

tions of the human frame. He never talks about the

Page 12

1 structure of the material body. He never lays his hands

on the patient, nor manipulates the parts of the body sup-

3 posed to be ailing. Above all, he keeps unbroken the Ten

Commandments, and practises Christ's Sermon on the

Mount.

6 Wrong thoughts and methods strengthen the sense of

disease, instead of cure it; or else quiet the fear of the

sick on false grounds, encouraging them in the belief of

9 error until they hold stronger than before the belief that

they are first made sick by matter, and then restored

through its agency. This fosters infidelity, and is mental

12 quackery, that denies the Principle of Mind-healing. If

the sick are aided in this mistaken fashion, their ailments

will return, and be more stubborn because the relief is

unchristian and unscientific.

Christian Science erases from the minds of invalids

their mistaken belief that they live in or because of matter,

18 or that a so-called material organism controls the health

or existence of mankind, and induces rest in God, divine

Love, as caring for all the conditions requisite for the well-

21 being of man. As power divine is the healer, why should

mortals concern themselves with the chemistry of food?

Jesus said: "Take no thought what ye shall eat."

24 The practitioner should also endeavor to free the minds

of the healthy from any sense of subordination to their

bodies, and teach them that the divine Mind, not material

law, maintains human health and life.

A Christian Scientist knows that, in Science, disease

Page 13

1 is unreal; that Mind is not in matter; that Life is God,

good; hence Life is not functional, and is neither matter

3 nor mortal mind; knows that pantheism and theosophy

are not Science. Whatever saps, with human belief,

this basis of Christian Science, renders it impossible to

demonstrate the Principle of this Science, even in the

smallest degree.

A mortal and material body is not the actual individuality

9 of man made in the divine and spiritual image of God.

The material body is not the likeness of Spirit; hence it

is not the truth of being, but the likeness of error - the

human belief which saith there is more than one God, -

there is more than one Life and one Mind.

In Deuteronomy (iv. 35) we read: "The Lord, He is

15 God; there is none else beside Him." In John (iv. 24)

we may read: "God is Spirit." These propositions, un-

derstood in their Science, elucidate my meaning.

18 When treating a patient, it is not Science to treat every

organ in the body. To aver that harmony is the real and

discord is the unreal, and then give special attention to

what according to their own belief is diseased, is scientific;

and if the healer realizes the truth, it will free his patient.

What are the means and methods of trustworthy Christian

Scientists?

These people should not be expected, more than others,

to give all their time to Christian Science work, receiving

no wages in return, but left to be fed, clothed, and sheltered

Page 14

1 by charity. Neither can they serve two masters, giving

only a portion of their time to God, and still be Christian

3 Scientists. They must give Him all their services, and

"owe no man." To do this, they must at present ask a

suitable price for their services, and then conscientiously

earn their wages, strictly practising Divine Science, and

healing the sick.

The author never sought charitable support, but gave

9 fully seven-eighths of her time without remuneration, ex-

cept the bliss of doing good. The only pay taken for her

labors was from classes, and often those were put off for

12 months, in order to do gratuitous work. She has never

taught a Primary class without several, and sometimes

seventeen, free students in it; and has endeavored to take

15 the full price of tuition only from those who were able to

pay. The student who pays must of necessity do better

than he who does not pay, and yet will expect and require

18 others to pay him. No discount on tuition was made on

higher classes, because their first classes furnished students

with the means of paying for their tuition in the higher

21 instruction, and of doing charity work besides. If the

Primary students are still impecunious, it is their own

fault, and this ill-success of itself leaves them unprepared

to enter higher classes.

People are being healed by means of my instructions,

both in and out of class. Many students, who have

27 passed through a regular course of instruction from me,

have been invalids and were healed in the class; but ex-

Page 15

1 perience has shown that this defrauds the scholar, though

it heals the sick.

3 It is seldom that a student, if healed in a class, has left

it understanding sufficiently the Science of healing to im-

mediately enter upon its practice. Why? Because the

6 glad surprise of suddenly regained health is a shock to

the mind; and this holds and satisfies the thought with

exuberant joy.

9 This renders the mind less inquisitive, plastic, and tract-

able; and deep systematic thinking is impracticable until

this impulse subsides.

12 This was the principal reason for advising diseased

people not to enter a class. Few were taken besides inva-

lids for students, until there were enough practitioners to

15 fill in the best possible manner the department of healing.

Teaching and healing should have separate departments,

and these should be fortified on all sides with suitable and

thorough guardianship and grace.

Only a very limited number of students can advanta-

geously enter a class, grapple with this subject, and well

21 assimilate what has been taught them. It is impossible

to teach thorough Christian Science to promiscuous and

large assemblies, or to persons who cannot be addressed

24 individually, so that the mind of the pupil may be dissected

more critically than the body of a subject laid bare for

anatomical examination. Public lectures cannot be such

lessons in Christian Science as are required to empty and

to fill anew the individual mind.

Page 16

1 If publicity and material control are the motives for

teaching, then public lectures can take the place of private

3 lessons; but the former can never give a thorough knowledge

of Christian Science, and a Christian Scientist will never

undertake to fit students for practice by such means. Lec-

tures in public are needed, but they must be subordinate

to thorough class instruction in any branch of education.

None with an imperfect sense of the spiritual significa-

9 tion of the Bible, and its scientific relation to Mind-

healing, should attempt overmuch in their translation of

the Scriptures into the "new tongue;" but I see that

some novices, in the truth of Science, and some impostors

are committing this error.

Is there more than one school of scientific healing?

15 In reality there is, and can be, but one school of the

Science of Mind-healing. Any departure from Science is

an irreparable loss of Science. Whatever is said and

18 written correctly on this Science originates from the Princi-

ple and practice laid down in Science and Health, a work

which I published in 1875. This was the first book, re-

corded in history, which elucidates a pathological Science

purely mental.

Minor shades of difference in Mind-healing have origi-

24 nated with certain opposing factions, springing up among

unchristian students, who, fusing with a class of aspirants

which snatch at whatever is progressive, call it their first-

fruits, or else post mortem evidence.

Page 17

1 A slight divergence is fatal in Science. Like certain

Jews whom St. Paul had hoped to convert from mere

3 motives of self-aggrandizement to the love of Christ, these

so-called schools are clogging the wheels of progress by

blinding the people to the true character of Christian

Science, - its moral power, and its divine efficacy to

heal.

The true understanding of Christian Science Mind-

9 healing never originated in pride, rivalry, or the deification

of self. The Discoverer of this Science could tell you of

timidity, of self-distrust, of friendlessness, toil, agonies, and

12 victories under which she needed miraculous vision to

sustain her, when taking the first footsteps in this

Science.

15 The ways of Christianity have not changed. Meek-

ness, selflessness, and love are the paths of His testimony

and the footsteps of His flock.

Table of Contents

Unity of Good

MARY BAKER EDDY

Author of Science and Health with Key to the

Scriptures

Published by the

Trustees under the Will of Mary Baker G. Eddy

Boston, U.S.A.

By Mary Baker G. Eddy

_____________

Printed in the United States of America

Unity of Good

CAUTION IN THE TRUTH

1 PERHAPS no doctrine of Christian Science rouses so

much natural doubt and questioning as this, that

3 God knows no such thing as sin. Indeed, this may be set

down as one of the "things hard to be understood," such

as the apostle Peter declared were taught by his fellow-

apostle Paul, "which they that are unlearned and unstable

wrest . . . unto their own destruction." (2 Peter iii. 16.)

Let us then reason together on this important subject,

whose statement in Christian Science may justly be char-

acterized as wonderful.

Does God know or behold sin, sickness, and death?

12 The nature and character of God is so little appre-

hended and demonstrated by mortals, that I counsel my

students to defer this infinite inquiry, in their discussions

15 of Christian Science. In fact, they had better leave the

subject untouched, until they draw nearer to the divine

character, and are practically able to testify, by their lives,

that as they come closer to the true understanding of God

they lose all sense of error.

Page 2

1 The Scriptures declare that God is too pure to behold

iniquity (Habakkuk i. 13); but they also declare that

3 God pitieth them who fear Him; that there is no place

where His voice is not heard; that He is "a very present

help in trouble."

6 The sinner has no refuge from sin, except in God, who

is his salvation. We must, however, realize God's pres-

ence, power, and love, in order to be saved from sin. This

9 realization takes away man's fondness for sin and his

pleasure in it; and, lastly, it removes the pain which

accrues to him from it. Then follows this, as the finale in

Science: The sinner loses his sense of sin, and gains a

higher sense of God, in whom there is no sin.

The true man, really saved, is ready to testify of God

in the infinite penetration of Truth, and can affirm that

the Mind which is good, or God, has no knowledge of sin.

In the same manner the sick lose their sense of sickness,

and gain that spiritual sense of harmony which contains

neither discord nor disease.

According to this same rule, in divine Science, the

21 dying - if they die in the Lord - awake from a sense of

death to a sense of Life in Christ, with a knowledge of

Truth and Love beyond what they possessed before; be-

24 cause their lives have grown so far toward the stature of

manhood in Christ Jesus, that they are ready for a spirit-

ual transfiguration, through their affections and under-

standing.

Those who reach this transition, called death, without

Page 3

1 having rightly improved the lessons of this primary school

of mortal existence, - and still believe in matter's reality,

3 pleasure, and pain, - are not ready to understand im-

mortality. Hence they awake only to another sphere of

experience, and must pass through another probationary

state before it can be truly said of them: "Blessed are the

dead which die in the Lord."

They upon whom the second death, of which we read

9 in the Apocalypse (Revelation xx. 6), hath no power, are

those who have obeyed God's commands, and have

washed their robes white through the sufferings of the

12 flesh and the triumphs of Spirit. Thus they have reached

the goal in divine Science, by knowing Him in whom they

have believed. This knowledge is not the forbidden fruit

15 of sin, sickness, and death, but it is the fruit which grows

on the "tree of life." This is the understanding of God,

whereby man is found in the image and likeness of

good, not of evil; of health, not of sickness; of Life, not

of death.

God is All-in-all. Hence He is in Himself only, in His

21 own nature and character, and is perfect being, or con-

sciousness. He is all the Life and Mind there is or can be.

Within Himself is every embodiment of Life and Mind.

24 If He is All, He can have no consciousness of anything

unlike Himself; because, if He is omnipresent, there can

be nothing outside of Himself.

Now this self-same God is our helper. He pities us.

He has mercy upon us, and guides every event of our

Page 4

1 careers. He is near to them who adore Him. To under-

stand Him, without a single taint of our mortal, finite sense

3 of sin, sickness, or death, is to approach Him and become

like Him.

Truth is God, and in God's law. This law declares

6 that Truth is All, and there is no error. This law of Truth

destroys every phase of error. To gain a temporary con-

sciousness of God's law is to feel, in a certain finite human

9 sense, that God comes to us and pities us; but the attain-

ment of the understanding of His presence, through the

Science of God, destroys our sense of imperfection, or

12 of His absence, through a diviner sense that God is all

true consciousness; and this convinces us that, as we

get still nearer Him, we must forever lose our own con-

sciousness of error.

But how could we lose all consciousness of error, if God

be conscious of it? God has not forbidden man to know

18 Him; on the contrary, the Father bids man have the

same Mind "which was also in Christ Jesus," - which

was certainly the divine Mind; but God does forbid man's

acquaintance with evil. Why? Because evil is no part

of the divine knowledge.

John's Gospel declares (xvii. 3) that "life eternal" con-

24 sists in the knowledge of the only true God, and of Jesus

Christ, whom He has sent. Surely from such an under-

standing of Science, such knowing, the vision of sin is

wholly excluded.

Nevertheless, at the present crude hour, no wise men or

Page 5

1 women will rudely or prematurely agitate a theme involv-

ing the All of infinity.

3 Rather will they rejoice in the small understanding

they have already gained of the wholeness of Deity, and

work gradually and gently up toward the perfect thought

6 divine. This meekness will increase their apprehension

of God, because their mental struggles and pride of opin-

ion will proportionately diminish.

9 Every one should be encouraged not to accept any per-

sonal opinion on so great a matter, but to seek the divine

Science of this question of Truth by following upward indi-

vidual convictions, undisturbed by the frightened sense of

any need of attempting to solve every Life-problem in a day.

"Great is the mystery of godliness," says Paul; and

15 mystery involves the unknown. No stubborn purpose to

force conclusions on this subject will unfold in us a higher

sense of Deity; neither will it promote the Cause of Truth

or enlighten the individual thought.

Let us respect the rights of conscience and the liberty

of the sons of God, so letting our "moderation be known

21 to all men." Let no enmity, no untempered controversy,

spring up between Christian Science students and Chris-

tians who wholly or partially differ from them as to the

24 nature of sin and the marvellous unity of man with God

shadowed forth in scientific thought. Rather let the

stately goings of this wonderful part of Truth be left to

the supernal guidance.

"These are but parts of Thy ways," says Job; and the

Page 6

1 whole is greater than its parts. Our present understanding

is but "the seed within itself," for it is divine Science,

"bearing fruit after its kind."

Sooner or later the whole human race will learn that, in

proportion as the spotless selfhood of God is understood,

6 human nature will be renovated, and man will receive a

higher selfhood, derived from God, and the redemption

of mortals from sin, sickness, and death be established on

everlasting foundations.

The Science of physical harmony, as now presented to

the people in divine light, is radical enough to promote

12 as forcible collisions of thought as the age has strength

to bear. Until the heavenly law of health, according to

Christian Science, is firmly grounded, even the thinkers

15 are not prepared to answer intelligently leading questions

about God and sin, and the world is far from ready to

assimilate such a grand and all-absorbing verity concern-

18 ing the divine nature and character as is embraced in the

theory of God's blindness to error and ignorance of sin.

No wise mother, though a graduate of Wellesley College,

will talk to her babe about the problems of Euclid.

Not much more than a half-century ago the assertion

of universal salvation provoked discussion and horror,

24 similar to what our declarations about sin and Deity must

arouse, if hastily pushed to the front while the platoons of

Christian Science are not yet thoroughly drilled in the

plainer manual of their spiritual armament. "Wait

patiently on the Lord;" and in less than another fifty

Page 7

1 years His name will be magnified in the apprehension of

this new subject, as already He is glorified in the wide

3 extension of belief in the impartial grace of God, -

shown by the changes at Andover Seminary and in multi-

tudes of other religious folds.

6 Nevertheless, though I thus speak, and from my heart

of hearts, it is due both to Christian Science and myself

to make also the following statement: When I have most

9 clearly seen and most sensibly felt that the infinite recog-

nizes no disease, this has not separated me from God, but

has so bound me to Him as to enable me instantaneously to

heal a cancer which had eaten its way to the jugular vein.

In the same spiritual condition I have been able to re-

place dislocated joints and raise the dying to instantaneous

15 health. People are now living who can bear witness to

these cures. Herein is my evidence, from on high, that

the views here promulgated on this subject are correct.

18 Certain self-proved propositions pour into my waiting

thought in connection with these experiences; and here is

one such conviction: that an acknowledgment of the per-

21 fection of the infinite Unseen confers a power nothing else

can. An incontestable point in divine Science is, that

because God is All, a realization of this fact dispels even

the sense or consciousness of sin, and brings us nearer to

God, bringing out the highest phenomena of the All-

Mind.

Page 8

SEEDTIME AND HARVEST

1 LET another query now be considered, which gives

much trouble to many earnest thinkers before Science

answers it.

Is anything real of which the physical senses are cognizant?

Everything is as real as you make it, and no more so.

6 What you see, hear, feel, is a mode of consciousness, and

can have no other reality than the sense you entertain

of it.

9 It is dangerous to rest upon the evidence of the senses,

for this evidence is not absolute, and therefore not real,

in our sense of the word. All that is beautiful and good

12 in your individual consciousness is permanent. That

which is not so is illusive and fading. My insistence upon

a proper understanding of the unreality of matter and

evil arises from their deleterious effects, physical, moral,

and intellectual, upon the race.

All forms of error are uprooted in Science, on the same

18 basis whereby sickness is healed, - namely, by the es-

tablishment, through reason, revelation, and Science, of

the nothingness of every claim of error, even the doc-

trine of heredity and other physical causes. You demon-

strate the process of Science, and it proves my view

Page 9

1 conclusively, that mortal mind is the cause of all disease.

Destroy the mental sense of the disease, and the disease

itself disappears. Destroy the sense of sin, and sin itself

disappears.

Material and sensual consciousness are mortal. Hence

6 they must, some time and in some way, be reckoned un-

real. That time has partially come, or my words would

not have been spoken. Jesus has made the way plain,

9 - so plain that all are without excuse who walk not in

it; but this way is not the path of physical science, human

philosophy, or mystic psychology.

12 The talent and genius of the centuries have wrongly

reckoned. They have not based upon revelation their

arguments and conclusions as to the source and resources

15 of being, - its combinations, phenomena, and outcome,

- but have built instead upon the sand of human reason.

They have not accepted the simple teaching and life of

Jesus as the only true solution of the perplexing problem

of human existence.

Sometimes it is said, by those who fail to understand

21 me, that I monopolize; and this is said because ideas

akin to mine have been held by a few spiritual think-

ers in all ages. So they have, but in a far different

24 form. Healing has gone on continually; yet healing, as

I teach it, has not been practised since the days of

Christ.

What is the cardinal point of the difference in my meta-

physical system? This: that by knowing the unreality of

Page 10

1 disease, sin, end death, you demonstrate the allness of God.

This difference wholly separates my system from all others.

3 The reality of these so-called existences I deny, because

they are not to be found in God, and this system is built

on Him as the sole cause. It would be difficult to name

any previous teachers, save Jesus and his apostles, who

have thus taught.

If there be any monopoly in my teaching, it lies in this

utter reliance upon the one God, to whom belong all

things.

Life is God, or Spirit, the supersensible eternal. The

12 universe and man are the spiritual phenomena of this one

infinite Mind. Spiritual phenomena never converge toward

aught but infinite Deity. Their gradations are spiritual

15 and divine; they cannot collapse, or lapse into their op-

posites, for God is their divine Principle. They live,

because He lives; and they are eternally perfect, because

18 He is perfect, and governs them in the Truth of divine

Science, whereof God is the Alpha and Omega, the centre

and circumference.

21 To attempt the calculation of His mighty ways, from

the evidence before the material senses, is fatuous. It is

like commencing with the minus sign, to learn the prin-

ciple of positive mathematics.

God was not in the whirlwind. He is not the blind

force of a material universe. Mortals must learn this;

unless, pursued by their fears, they would endeavor to

hide from His presence under their own falsities, and call

Page 11

1 in vain for the mountains of unholiness to shield them

from the penalty of error.

3 Jesus taught us to walk over, not into or with, the cur-

rents of matter, or mortal mind. His teachings beard

the lions in their dens. He turned the water into wine,

6 he commanded the winds, he healed the sick, - all in

direct opposition to human philosophy and so-called

natural science. He annulled the laws of matter, showing

9 them to be laws of mortal mind, not of God. He showed

the need of changing this mind and its abortive laws. He

demanded a change of consciousness and evidence, and

12 effected this change through the higher laws of God.

The palsied hand moved, despite the boastful sense of

physical law and order. Jesus stooped not to human

15 consciousness, nor to the evidence of the senses. He

heeded not the taunt, "That withered hand looks very

real and feels very real;" but he cut off this vain boast-

18 ing and destroyed human pride by taking away the ma-

terial evidence. If his patient was a theologian of some

bigoted sect, a physician, or a professor of natural phi-

21 losophy, - according to the ruder sort then prevalent, -

he never thanked Jesus for restoring his senseless hand;

but neither red tape nor indignity hindered the divine

24 process. Jesus required neither cycles of time nor thought

in order to mature fitness for perfection and its possibili-

ties. He said that the kingdom of heaven is here, and

is included in Mind; that while ye say, There are yet four

months, and then cometh the harvest, I say, Look up,

Page 12

1 not down, for your fields are already white for the harvest;

and gather the harvest by mental, not material processes.

3 The laborers are few in this vineyard of Mind-sowing and

reaping; but let them apply to the waiting grain the curv-

ing sickle of Mind's eternal circle, and bind it with bands

of Soul.

Page 13

THE DEEP THINGS OF GOD

1 SCIENCE reverses the evidence of the senses in the-

ology, on the same principle that it does in astronomy.

3 Popular theology makes God tributary to man, coming at

human call; whereas the reverse is true in Science. Men

must approach God reverently, doing their own work in

obedience to divine law, if they would fulfil the intended

harmony of being.

The principle of music knows nothing of discord. God

9 is harmony's selfhood. His universal laws, His unchange-

ableness, are not infringed in ethics any more than in

music. To Him there is no moral inharmony; as we shall

12 learn, proportionately as we gain the true understanding

of Deity. If God could be conscious of sin, His infinite

power would straightway reduce the universe to chaos.

15 If God has any real knowledge of sin, sickness, and

death, they must be eternal; since He is, in the very

fibre of His being, "without beginning of years or end of

18 days." If God knows that which is not permanent, it

follows that He knows something which He must learn

to unknow, for the benefit of our race.

Such a view would bring us upon an outworn theological

Page 14

1 platform, which contains such planks as the divine repent-

ance, and the belief that God must one day do His

work over again, because it was not at first done

aright.

Can it be seriously held, by any thinker, that long after

6 God made the universe, - earth, man, animals, plants,

the sun, the moon, and "the stars also," - He should so

gain wisdom and power from past experience that He

9 could vastly improve upon His own previous work, - as

Burgess, the boatbuilder, remedies in the Volunteer the

shortcomings of the Puritan's model?

12 Christians are commanded to grow in grace. Was it

necessary for God to grow in grace, that He might rectify

His spiritual universe?

15 The Jehovah of limited Hebrew faith might need

repentance, because His created children proved sinful;

but the New Testament tells us of "the Father of lights,

18 with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."

God is not the shifting vane on the spire, but the

corner-stone of living rock, firmer than everlasting hills.

21 As God is Mind, if this Mind is familiar with evil, all

cannot be good therein. Our infinite model would be

taken away. What is in eternal Mind must be reflected

24 in man, Mind's image. How then could man escape, or

hope to escape, from a knowledge which is everlasting in

his creator?

God never said that man would become better by learn-

ing to distinguish evil from good, - but the contrary, that

Page 15

1 by this knowledge, by man's first disobedience, came

"death into the world, and all our woe."

3 "Shall mortal man be more just than God?" asks the

poet-patriarch. May men rid themselves of an incubus

which God never can throw off? Do mortals know more

than God, that they may declare Him absolutely cognizant

of sin?

God created all things, and pronounced them good.

9 Was evil among these good things? Man is God's child

and image. If God knows evil, so must man, or the like-

ness is incomplete, the image marred.

12 If man must be destroyed by the knowledge of evil,

then his destruction comes through the very knowledge

caught from God, and the creature is punished for his

likeness to his creator.

God is commonly called the sinless, and man the sinful;

but if the thought of sin could be possible in Deity, would

18 Deity then be sinless? Would God not of necessity take

precedence as the infinite sinner, and human sin become

only an echo of the divine?

21 Such vagaries are to be found in heathen religious his-

tory. There are, or have been, devotees who worship not

the good Deity, who will not harm them, but the bad

24 deity, who seeks to do them mischief, and whom there-

fore they wish to bribe with prayers into quiescence,

as a criminal appeases, with a money-bag, the venal

officer.

Surely this is no Christian worship! In Christianity

Page 16

1 man bows to the infinite perfection which he is bidden to

imitate. In Truth, such terms as divine sin and infinite

sinner are unheard-of contradictions, - absurdities; but

would they be sheer nonsense, if God has, or can have,

a real knowledge of sin?

Page 17

WAYS HIGHER THAN OUR WAYS

1 A LIE has only one chance of successful deception, -

to be accounted true. Evil seeks to fasten all error

upon God, and so make the lie seem part of eternal Truth.

Emerson says, "Hitch your wagon to a star." I say,

Be allied to the deific power, and all that is good will aid

6 your journey, as the stars in their courses fought against

Sisera. (Judges v. 20.) Hourly, in Christian Science,

man thus weds himself with God, or rather he ratifies a

9 union predestined from all eternity; but evil ties its wagon-

load of offal to the divine chariots, - or seeks so to do, -

that its vileness may be christened purity, and its darkness

get consolation from borrowed scintillations.

Jesus distinctly taught the arrogant Pharisees that, from

the beginning, their father, the devil, was the would-be

15 murderer of Truth. A right apprehension of the wonder-

ful utterances of him who "spake as never man spake,"

would despoil error of its borrowed plumes, and trans-

form the universe into a home of marvellous light, - "a

consummation devoutly to be wished."

Error says God must know evil because He knows all

things; but Holy Writ declares God told our first parents

that in the day when they should partake of the fruit of

evil, they must surely die. Would it not absurdly follow

Page 18

1 that God must perish, if He knows evil and evil neces-

sarily leads to extinction? Rather let us think of God as

3 saying, I am infinite good; therefore I know not evil.

Dwelling in light, I can see only the brightness of My

own glory.

6 Error may say that God can never save man from sin,

if He knows and sees it not; but God says, I am too pure

to behold iniquity, and destroy everything that is unlike

Myself.

Many fancy that our heavenly Father reasons thus:

If pain and sorrow were not in My mind, I could not

12 remedy them, and wipe the tears from the eyes of My chil-

dren. Error says you must know grief in order to console

it. Truth, God, says you oftenest console others in

troubles that you have not. Is not our comforter always

from outside and above ourselves?

God says, I show My pity through divine law, not

18 through human. It is My sympathy with and My knowl-

edge of harmony (not inharmony) which alone enable Me

to rebuke, and eventually destroy, every supposition of

discord.

Error says God must know death in order to strike at

its root; but God saith, I am ever-conscious Life, and

24 thus I conquer death; for to be ever conscious of Life is

to be never conscious of death. I am All. A knowledge

of aught beside Myself is impossible.

If such knowledge of evil were possible to God, it would

lower His rank.

Page 19

1 With God, knowledge is necessarily foreknowledge; and

foreknowledge and foreordination must be one, in an in-

3 finite Being. What Deity foreknows, Deity must fore-

ordain; else He is not omnipotent, and, like ourselves,

He foresees events which are contrary to His creative will,

yet which He cannot avert.

If God knows evil at all, He must have had foreknowl-

edge thereof; and if He foreknew it, He must virtually

have intended it, or ordered it aforetime, - foreordained

it; else how could it have come into the world?

But this we cannot believe of God; for if the supreme

12 good could predestine or foreknow evil, there would be

sin in Deity, and this would be the end of infinite moral

unity. "If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness,

how great is that darkness!" On the contrary, evil is

only a delusive deception, without any actuality which

Truth can know.

Page 20

RECTIFICATIONS

1 HOW is a mistake to be rectified? By reversal or re-

vision, - by seeing it in its proper light, and then

turning it or turning from it.

We undo the statements of error by reversing them.

Through these three statements, or misstatements, evil

comes into authority: -

First: The Lord created it.

Second: The Lord knows it.

Third: I am afraid of it.

By a reverse process of argument evil must be de-

throned: -

12 First: God never made evil.

Second: He knows it not.

Third: We therefore need not fear it.

15 Try this process, dear inquirer, and so reach that per-

fect Love which "casteth out fear," and then see if this

Love does not destroy in you all hate and the sense of evil.

18 You will awake to the perception of God as All-in-all.

You will find yourself losing the knowledge and the opera-

tion of sin, proportionably as you realize the divine in-

finitude and believe that He can see nothing outside of

His own focal distance.

Page 21

A COLLOQUY

1 IN Romans (ii. 15) we read the apostle's description of

mental processes wherein human thoughts are "the

3 mean while accusing or else excusing one another." If we

observe our mental processes, we shall find that we are

perpetually arguing with ourselves; yet each mortal is

not two personalities, but one.

In like manner good and evil talk to one another; yet

they are not two but one, for evil is naught, and good only

is reality.

Evil. God hath said, "Ye shall eat of every tree of the

garden." If you do not, your intellect will be circum-

12 scribed and the evidence of your personal senses be de-

nied. This would antagonize individual consciousness

and existence.

15 Good. The Lord is God. With Him is no conscious-

ness of evil, because there is nothing beside Him or

outside of Him. Individual consciousness in man is

18 inseparable from good. There is no sensible matter, no

sense in matter; but there is a spiritual sense, a sense of

Spirit, and this is the only consciousness belonging to true

individuality, or a divine sense of being.

Page 22

Evil. Why is this so?

Good. Because man is made after God's eternal like-

3 ness, and this likeness consists in a sense of harmony and

immortality, in which no evil can possibly dwell. You

may eat of the fruit of Godlikeness, but as to the fruit of

ungodliness, which is opposed to Truth, - ye shall not

touch it, lest ye die.

Evil. But I would taste and know error for myself.

9 Good. Thou shalt not admit that error is something

to know or be known, to eat or be eaten, to see or be seen,

to feel or be felt. To admit the existence of error would

be to admit the truth of a lie.

Evil. But there is something besides good. God

knows that a knowledge of this something is essential to

15 happiness and life. A lie is as genuine as Truth, though

not so legitimate a child of God. Whatever exists must

come from God, and be important to our knowledge.

Error, even, is His offspring.

Good. Whatever cometh not from the eternal Spirit,

has its origin in the physical senses and material brains,

called human intellect and will-power, - alias intelligent

matter.

In Shakespeare's tragedy of King Lear, it was the

Page 23

1 traitorous and cruel treatment received by old Gloster

from his bastard son Edmund which makes true the lines:

The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices

Make instruments to scourge us.

His lawful son, Edgar, was to his father ever loyal. Now

6 God has no bastards to turn again and rend their Maker.

The divine children are born of law and order, and Truth

knows only such.

9 How well the Shakespearean tale agrees with the word

of Scripture, in Hebrews xii. 7, 8: "If ye endure chasten-

ing, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is

12 he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be with-

out chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye

bastards, and not sons."

15 The doubtful or spurious evidence of the senses is not

to be admitted, - especially when they testify concern-

ing Spirit, whereof they are confessedly incompetent to

speak.

Evil. But mortal mind and sin really exist!

Good. How can they exist, unless God has created

21 them? And how can He create anything so wholly unlike

Himself and foreign to His nature? An evil material mind,

so-called, can conceive of God only as like itself, and

knowing both evil and good; but a purely good and

spiritual consciousness has no sense whereby to cognize

Page 24

1 evil. Mortal mind is the opposite of immortal Mind, and

sin the opposite of goodness. I am the infinite All. From

3 me proceedeth all Mind, all consciousness, all individu-

ality, all being. My Mind is divine good, and cannot

drift into evil. To believe in minds many is to depart

6 from the supreme sense of harmony. Your assumptions

insist that there is more than the one Mind, more than the

one God; but verily I say unto you, God is All-in-all;

and you can never be outside of His oneness.

Evil. I am a finite consciousness, a material individu-

ality, - a mind in matter, which is both evil and good.

12 Good. All consciousness is Mind; and Mind is God, -

an infinite, and not a finite consciousness. This conscious-

ness is reflected in individual consciousness, or man, whose

15 source is infinite Mind. There is no really finite mind, no

finite consciousness. There is no material substance, for

Spirit is all that endureth, and hence is the only substance.

18 There is, can be, no evil mind, because Mind is God.

God and His ideas - that is, God and the universe -

constitute all that exists. Man, as God's offspring, must

be spiritual, perfect, eternal.

Evil. I am something separate from good or God. I

am substance. My mind is more than matter. In my

mortal mind, matter becomes conscious, and is able to see,

taste, hear, feel, smell. Whatever matter thus affirms is

Page 25

1 mainly correct. If you, O good, deny this, then I deny

your truthfulness. If you say that matter is unconscious,

3 you stultify my intellect, insult my conscience, and dispute

self-evident facts; for nothing can be clearer than the

testimony of the five senses.

6 Good. Spirit is the only substance. Spirit is God, and

God is good; hence good is the only substance, the only

Mind. Mind is not, cannot be, in matter. It sees, hears,

9 feels, tastes, smells as Mind, and not as matter. Matter

cannot talk; and hence, whatever it appears to say of

itself is a lie. This lie, that Mind can be in matter, -

12 claiming to be something beside God, denying Truth and

its demonstration in Christian Science, - this lie I declare

an illusion. This denial enlarges the human intellect by

15 removing its evidence from sense to Soul, and from finite-

ness into infinity. It honors conscious human individu-

ality by showing God as its source.

Evil. I am a creator, - but upon a material, not a

spiritual basis. I give life, and I can destroy life.

Good. Evil is not a creator. God, good, is the only

21 creator. Evil is not conscious or conscientious Mind; it

is not individual, not actual. Evil is not spiritual, and

therefore has no groundwork in Life, whose only source

is Spirit. The elements which belong to the eternal All, -

Life, Truth, Love, - evil can never take away.

Page 26

1 Evil. I am intelligent matter; and matter is egoistic,

having its own innate selfhood and the capacity to evolve

3 mind. God is in matter, and matter reproduces God.

From Him come my forms, near or remote. This is my

honor, that God is my author, authority, governor, dis-

6 poser. I am proud to be in His outstretched hands, and

I shirk all responsibility for myself as evil, and for my

varying manifestations.

9 Good. You mistake, O evil! God is not your authority

and law. Neither is He the author of the material changes,

the phantasma, a belief in which leads to such teaching

as we find in the hymn-verse so often sung in church: -

Chance and change are busy ever,

Man decays and ages move;

But His mercy waneth never, -

God is wisdom, God is love.

Now if it be true that God's power never waneth, how

18 can it be also true that chance and change are universal

factors, - that man decays? Many ordinary Christians

protest against this stanza of Bowring's, and its sentiment

21 is foreign to Christian Science. If God be changeless good-

ness, as sings another line of this hymn, what place has

chance in the divine economy? Nay, there is in God

naught fantastic. All is real, all is serious. The phan-

tasmagoria is a product of human dreams.

Page 27

THE EGO

1 FROM various friends comes inquiry as to the meaning

of a word employed in the foregoing colloquy.

3 There are two English words, often used as if they were

synonyms, which really have a shade of difference between

them.

An egotist is one who talks much of himself. Egotism

implies vanity and self-conceit.

Egoism is a more philosophical word, signifying a

9 passionate love of self, which doubts all existence except

its own. An egoist, therefore, is one uncertain of every-

thing except his own existence.

12 Applying these distinctions to evil and God, we shall

find that evil is egotistic, - boastful, but fleeing like a

shadow at daybreak; while God is egoistic, knowing only

His own all-presence, all-knowledge, all-power.

Page 28

SOUL

1 WE read in the Hebrew Scriptures, "The soul that

sinneth, it shall die."

3 What is Soul? Is it a reality within the mortal body?

Who can prove that? Anatomy has not descried nor

described Soul. It was never touched by the scalpel nor

cut with the dissecting-knife. The five physical senses do

not cognize it.

Who, then, dares define Soul as something within man ?

9 As well might you declare some old castle to be peopled

with demons or angels, though never a light or form was

discerned therein, and not a spectre had ever been seen

going in or coming out.

The common hypotheses about souls are even more

vague than ordinary material conjectures, and have less

basis; because material theories are built on the evidence

of the material senses.

Soul must be God; since we learn Soul only as we learn

18 God, by spiritualization. As the five senses take no cog-

nizance of Soul, so they take no cognizance of God. What-

ever cannot be taken in by mortal mind - by human

reflection, reason, or belief - must be the unfathomable

Mind, which "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard." Soul

Page 29

1 stands in this relation to every hypothesis as to its human

character.

3 If Soul sins, it is a sinner, and Jewish law condemned

the sinner to death, - as does all criminal law, to a cer-

tain extent.

6 Spirit never sins, because Spirit is God. Hence, as

Spirit, Soul is sinless, and is God. Therefore there is,

there can be, no spiritual death.

9 Transcending the evidence of the material senses,

Science declares God to be the Soul of all being, the only

Mind and intelligence in the universe. There is but one

12 God, one Soul, or Mind, and that one is infinite, supplying

all that is absolutely immutable and eternal, - Truth,

Life, Love.

15 Science reveals Soul as that which the senses cannot

define from any standpoint of their own. What the physi-

cal senses miscall soul, Christian Science defines as mate-

18 rial sense; and herein lies the discrepancy between the

true Science of Soul and that material sense of a soul which

that very sense declares can never be seen or measured or

weighed or touched by physicality.

Often we can elucidate the deep meaning of the Scrip-

tures by reading sense instead of soul, as in the Forty-

24 second Psalm: "Why art thou cast down, O my soul

[sense] ? . . . Hope thou in God [Soul]: for I shall yet

praise Him, who is the health of my countenance, and

my God [my Soul, immortality]."

The Virgin-mother's sense being uplifted to behold

Page 30

1 Spirit as the sole origin of man, she exclaimed, "My soul

[spiritual sense] doth magnify the Lord."

3 Human language constantly uses the word soul for

sense. This it does under the delusion that the senses can

reverse the spiritual facts of Science, whereas Science re-

verses the testimony of the material senses.

Soul is Life, and being spiritual Life, never sins. Mate-

rial sense is the so-called material life. Hence this lower

9 sense sins and suffers, according to material belief, till

divine understanding takes away this belief and restores

Soul, or spiritual Life. "He restoreth my soul," says

David.

In his first epistle to the Corinthians (xv. 45) Paul writes:

"The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last

15 Adam was made a quickening spirit." The apostle re-

fers to the second Adam as the Messiah, our blessed

Master, whose interpretation of God and His creation -

18 by restoring the spiritual sense of man as immortal instead

of mortal - made humanity victorious over death and the

grave.

21 When I discovered the power of Spirit to break the

cords of matter, through a change in the mortal sense of

things, then I discerned the last Adam as a quickening

24 Spirit, and understood the meaning of the declaration of

Holy Writ, "The first shall be last," - the living Soul

shall be found a quickening Spirit; or, rather, shall reflect

the Life of the divine Arbiter.

Page 31

THERE IS NO MATTER

1 "GOD is a Spirit" (or, more accurately translated,

"God is Spirit"), declares the Scripture (John iv.

24), "and they that worship Him must worship Him in

spirit and in truth."

If God is Spirit, and God is All, surely there can be no

matter; for the divine All must be Spirit.

The tendency of Christianity is to spiritualize thought

and action. The demonstrations of Jesus annulled the

claims of matter, and overruled laws material as emphati-

cally as they annihilated sin.

According to Christian Science, the first idolatrous claim

12 of sin is, that matter exists; the second, that matter is

substance; the third, that matter has intelligence; and

the fourth, that matter, being so endowed, produces life

and death.

Hence my conscientious position, in the denial of matter,

rests on the fact that matter usurps the authority of God,

18 Spirit; and the nature and character of matter, the anti-

pode of Spirit, include all that denies and defies Spirit, in

quantity or quality.

This subject can be enlarged. It can be shown, in

detail, that evil does not obtain in Spirit, God; and that

God, or good, is Spirit alone; whereas, evil does, accord-

Page 32

1 ing to belief, obtain in matter; and that evil is a false

claim, - false to God, false to Truth and Life. Hence

3 the claim of matter usurps the prerogative of God, saying,

"I am a creator. God made me, and I make man and

the material universe."

6 Spirit is the only creator, and man, including the uni-

verse, is His spiritual concept. By matter is commonly

meant mind, - not the highest Mind, but a false form of

mind. This so-called mind and matter cannot be sep-

arated in origin and action.

What is this mind? It is not the Mind of Spirit; for

12 spiritualization of thought destroys all sense of matter as

substance, Life, or intelligence, and enthrones God in

the eternal qualities of His being.

15 This lower, misnamed mind is a false claim, a sup-

positional mind, which I prefer to call mortal mind. True

Mind is immortal. This mortal mind declares itself ma-

terial, in sin, sickness, and death, virtually saying, "I am

the opposite of Spirit, of holiness, harmony, and Life."

To this declaration Christian Science responds, even

21 as did our Master: "You were a murderer from the begin-

ning. The truth abode not in you. You are a liar, and

the father of it." Here it appears that a liar was in the

24 neuter gender, - neither masculine nor feminine. Hence

it was not man (the image of God) who lied, but the false

claim to personality, which I call mortal mind; a claim

which Christian Science uncovers, in order to demonstrate

the falsity of the claim.

Page 33

1 There are lesser arguments which prove matter to be

identical with mortal mind, and this mind a lie.

3 The physical senses (matter really having no sense)

give the only pretended testimony there can be as to the

existence of a substance called matter. Now these senses,

6 being material, can only testify from their own evidence,

and concerning themselves; yet we have it on divine

authority: "If I bear witness of myself, my witness is

not true." (John v. 31.)

In other words: matter testifies of itself, "I am matter;"

but unless matter is mind, it cannot talk or testify; and

if it is mind, it is certainly not the Mind of Christ, not

the Mind that is identical with Truth.

Brain, thus assuming to testify, is only matter within

15 the skull, and is believed to be mind only through error

and delusion. Examine that form of matter called brains,

and you find no mind therein. Hence the logical sequence,

18 that there is in reality neither matter nor mortal mind,

but that the self-testimony of the physical senses is

false.

21 Examine these witnesses for error, or falsity, and

observe the foundations of their testimony, and you will

find them divided in evidence, mocking the Scripture

(Matthew xviii. 16), "In the mouth of two or three wit-

nesses every word may be established."

Sight. Mortal mind declares that matter sees through

the organizations of matter, or that mind sees by means

Page 34

1 of matter. Disorganize the so-called material structure,

and then mortal mind says, "I cannot see;" and declares

3 that matter is the master of mind, and that non-intelligence

governs. Mortal mind admits that it sees only material

images, pictured on the eye's retina.

6 What then is the line of the syllogism? It must be this:

That matter is not seen; that mortal mind cannot see

without matter; and therefore that the whole function

of material sight is an illusion, a lie.

Here comes in the summary of the whole matter, where-

with we started: that God is All, and God is Spirit; there-

fore there is nothing but Spirit; and consequently there

is no matter.

Touch. Take another train of reasoning. Mortal mind

15 says that matter cannot feel matter; yet put your finger

on a burning coal, and the nerves, material nerves, do

feel matter.

18 Again I ask: What evidence does mortal mind afford

that matter is substantial, is hot or cold? Take away

mortal mind, and matter could not feel what it calls sub-

21 stance. Take away matter, and mortal mind could not

cognize its own so-called substance, and this so-called

mind would have no identity. Nothing would remain to

be seen or felt.

What is substance? What is the reality of God and the

universe? Immortal Mind is the real substance, - Spirit,

Life, Truth, and Love.

Page 35

1 Taste. Mortal mind says, "I taste; and this is sweet,

this is sour." Let mortal mind change, and say that sour

3 is sweet, and so it would be. If every mortal mind believed

sweet to be sour, it would be so; for the qualities of matter

are but qualities of mortal mind. Change the mind, and

the quality changes. Destroy the belief, and the quality

disappears.

The so-called material senses are found, upon examina-

9 tion, to be mortally mental, instead of material. Reduced

to its proper denomination, matter is mortal mind; yet,

strictly speaking, there is no mortal mind, for Mind is

immortal, and is not matter, but Spirit.

Force. What is gravitation? Mortal mind says gravi-

tation is a material power, or force. I ask, Which was

15 first, matter or power? That which was first was God,

immortal Mind, the Parent of all. But God is Truth,

and the forces of Truth are moral and spiritual, not physi-

18 cal. They are not the merciless forces of matter. What

then are the so-called forces of matter? They are the

phenomena of mortal mind, and matter and mortal

mind are one; and this one is a misstatement of Mind,

God.

A molecule, as matter, is not formed by Spirit; for

24 Spirit is spiritual consciousness alone. Hence this spiritual

consciousness can form nothing unlike itself, Spirit, and

Spirit is the only creator. The material atom is an out-

lined falsity of consciousness, which can gather additional

Page 36

1 evidence of consciousness and life only as it adds lie to lie.

This process it names material attraction, and endows

with the double capacity of creator and creation.

From the beginning this lie was the false witness against

the fact that Spirit is All, beside which there is no other

6 existence. The use of a lie is that it unwittingly confirms

Truth, when handled by Christian Science, which reverses

false testimony and gains a knowledge of God from op-

posite facts, or phenomena.

This whole subject is met and solved by Christian

Science according to Scripture. Thus we see that Spirit

12 is Truth and eternal reality; that matter is the opposite

of Spirit, - referred to in the New Testament as the flesh

at war with Spirit; hence, that matter is erroneous, tran-

sitory, unreal.

A further proof of this is the demonstration, according

to Christian Science, that by the reduction and the rejec-

18 tion of the claims of matter (instead of acquiescence

therein) man is improved physically, mentally, morally,

spiritually.

21 To deny the existence or reality of matter, and yet

admit the reality of moral evil, sin, or to say that the

divine Mind is conscious of evil, yet is not conscious of

matter, is erroneous. This error stultifies the logic of

divine Science, and must interfere with its practical

demonstration.

Page 37

IS THERE NO DEATH?

1 JESUS not only declared himself " the way" and "the

truth," but also "the life." God is Life; and as

3 there is but one God, there can be but one Life. Must

man die, then, in order to inherit eternal life and enter

heaven?

6 Our Master said, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand."

Then God and heaven, or Life, are present, and death is

not the real stepping-stone to Life and happiness. They

9 are now and here; and a change in human consciousness,

from sin to holiness, would reveal this wonder of being.

Because God is ever present, no boundary of time can

separate us from Him and the heaven of His presence;

and because God is Life, all Life is eternal.

Is it unchristian to believe there is no death? Not

unless it be a sin to believe that God is Life and All-in-all.

Evil and disease do not testify of Life and God.

Human beings are physically mortal, but spiritually

18 immortal. The evil accompanying physical personality

is illusive and mortal; but the good attendant upon spirit-

ual individuality is immortal. Existing here and now,

this unseen individuality is real and eternal. The so-

called material senses, and the mortal mind which is mis-

Page 38

1 named man, take no cognizance of spiritual individuality,

which manifests immortality, whose Principle is God.

3 To God alone belong the indisputable realities of being.

Death is a contradiction of Life, or God; therefore it is

not in accordance with His law, but antagonistic thereto.

6 Death, then, is error, opposed to Truth, - even the

unreality of mortal mind, not the reality of that Mind

which is Life. Error has no life, and is virtually without

existence. Life is real; and all is real which proceeds

from Life and is inseparable from it.

It is unchristian to believe in the transition called ma-

12 terial death, since matter has no life, and such misbelief

must enthrone another power, an imaginary life, above

the living and true God. A material sense of life robs

15 God, by declaring that not He alone is Life, but that some-

thing else also is life, - thus affirming the existence and

rulership of more gods than one. This idolatrous and

false sense of life is all that dies, or appears to die.

The opposite understanding of God brings to light

Life and immortality. Death has no quality of Life; and

no divine fiat commands us to believe in aught which is

unlike God, or to deny that He is Life eternal.

Life as God, moral and spiritual good, is not seen in

24 the mineral, vegetable, or animal kingdoms. Hence the

inevitable conclusion that Life is not in these kingdoms,

and that the popular views to this effect are not up to the

Christian standard of Life, or equal to the reality of being,

whose Principle is God.

Page 39

1 When "the Word" is "made flesh" among mortals,

the Truth of Life is rendered practical on the body.

3 Eternal Life is partially understood; and sickness, sin,

and death yield to holiness, health, and Life, - that is,

to God. The lust of the flesh and the pride of physical

6 life must be quenched in the divine essence, - that om-

nipotent Love which annihilates hate, that Life which

knows no death.

9 "Who hath believed our report?" Who understands

these sayings? He to whom the arm of the Lord is re-

vealed. He loves them from whom divine Science removes

human weakness by divine strength, and who unveil the

Messiah, whose name is Wonderful.

Man has no underived power. That selfhood is false

15 which opposes itself to God, claims another father, and

denies spiritual sonship; but as many as receive the knowl-

edge of God in Science must reflect, in some degree, the

power of Him who gave and giveth man dominion over

all the earth.

As soldiers of the cross we must be brave, and let Science

declare the immortal status of man, and deny the evidence

of the material senses, which testify that man dies.

As the image of God, or Life, man forever reflects and

24 embodies Life, not death. The material senses testify

falsely. They presuppose that God is good and that man

is evil, that Deity is deathless, but that man dies, losing

the divine likeness.

Science and material sense conflict at all points, from

Page 40

1 the revolution of the earth to the fall of a sparrow. It is

mortality only that dies.

3 To say that you and I, as mortals, will not enter this

dark shadow of material sense, called death, is to assert

what we have not proved; but man in Science never dies.

Material sense, or the belief of life in matter, must perish,

in order to prove man deathless.

As Truth supersedes error, and bears the fruits of Love,

9 this understanding of Truth subordinates the belief in

death, and demonstrates Life as imperative in the divine

order of being.

12 Jesus declares that they who believe his sayings will

never die; therefore mortals can no more receive ever-

lasting life by believing in death, than they can become

perfect by believing in imperfection and living imperfectly.

Life is God, and God is good. Hence Life abides in

man, if man abides in good, if he lives in God, who holds

Life by a spiritual and not by a material sense of being.

A sense of death is not requisite to a proper or true

sense of Life, but beclouds it. Death can never alarm or

21 even appear to him who fully understands Life. The

death-penalty comes through our ignorance of Life, - of

that which is without beginning and without end, - and

is the punishment of this ignorance.

Holding a material sense of Life, and lacking the spirit-

ual sense of it, mortals die, in belief, and regard all things

as temporal. A sense material apprehends nothing strictly

belonging to the nature and office of Life. It conceives

Page 41

1 and beholds nothing but mortality, and has but a feeble

concept of immortality.

3 In order to reach the true knowledge and consciousness

of Life, we must learn it of good. Of evil we can never

learn it, because sin shuts out the real sense of Life, and

brings in an unreal sense of suffering and death.

Knowledge of evil, or belief in it, involves a loss of the

true sense of good, God; and to know death, or to believe

in it, involves a temporary loss of God, the infinite and

only Life.

Resurrection from the dead (that is, from the belief in

12 death) must come to all sooner or later; and they who

have part in this resurrection are they upon whom the

second death has no power.

15 The sweet and sacred sense of the permanence of man's

unity with his Maker can illumine our present being with

a continual presence and power of good, opening wide

18 the portal from death into Life; and when this Life shall

appear "we shall be like Him," and we shall go to the

Father, not through death, but through Life; not through

error, but through Truth.

All Life is Spirit, and Spirit can never dwell in its antag-

onist, matter. Life, therefore, is deathless, because God

24 cannot be the opposite of Himself. In Christian Science

there is no matter; hence matter neither lives nor dies.

To the senses, matter appears to both live and die, and

these phenomena appear to go on ad infinitum; but such

a theory implies perpetual disagreement with Spirit.

Page 42

1 Life, God, being everywhere, it must follow that death

can be nowhere; because there is no place left for it.

3 Soul, Spirit, is deathless. Matter, sin, and death are

not the outcome of Spirit, holiness, and Life. What then

are matter, sin, and death ? They can be nothing except

6 the results of material consciousness; but material con-

sciousness can have no real existence, because it is not a

living - that is to say, a divine and intelligent - reality.

9 That man must be vicious before he can be virtuous,

dying before he can be deathless, material before he can

be spiritual, is an error of the senses; for the very opposite

of this error is the genuine Science of being.

Man, in Science, is as perfect and immortal now, as

when "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons

of God shouted for joy."

With Christ, Life was not merely a sense of existence,

but a sense of might and ability to subdue material con-

18 ditions. No wonder "people were astonished at his doc-

trine; for he taught them as one having authority, and

not as the scribes."

21 As defined by Jesus, Life had no beginning; nor was

it the result of organization, or of an infusion of power

into matter. To him, Life was Spirit.

24 Truth, defiant of error or matter, is Science, dispelling

a false sense and leading man into the true sense of self-

hood and Godhood; wherein the mortal does not develop

the immortal, nor the material the spiritual, but wherein

true manhood and womanhood go forth in the radiance

Page 43

1 of eternal being and its perfections, unchanged and

unchangeable.

3 This generation seems too material for any strong dem-

onstration over death, and hence cannot bring out the

infinite reality of Life, - namely, that there is no death,

6 but only Life. The present mortal sense of being is too

finite for anchorage in infinite good, God, because mortals

now believe in the possibility that Life can be evil.

9 The achievement of this ultimatum of Science, com-

plete triumph over death, requires time and immense

spiritual growth.

12 I have by no means spoken of myself, I cannot speak

of myself as "sufficient for these things." I insist only

upon the fact, as it exists in divine Science, that man dies

15 not, and on the words of the Master in support of this

verity, - words which can never "pass away till all be

fulfilled."

18 Because of these profound reasons I urge Christians

to have more faith in living than in dying. I exhort them

to accept Christ's promise, and unite the influence of their

21 own thoughts with the power of his teachings, in the

Science of being. This will interpret the divine power to

human capacity, and enable us to apprehend, or lay hold

24 upon, "that for which," as Paul says in the third chapter

of Philippians, we are also "apprehended of [or grasped

by] Christ Jesus," - the ever-present Life which knows

no death, the omnipresent Spirit which knows no matter.

Page 44

PERSONAL STATEMENTS

1 MANY misrepresentations are made concerning my

doctrines, some of which are as unkind and unjust

as they are untrue; but I can only repeat the Master's

words: "They know not what they do."

The foundations of these assertions, like the structure

raised thereupon, are vain shadows, repeating - if the

popular couplet may be so paraphrased -

The old, old story,

Of Satan and his lie.

In the days of Eden, humanity was misled by a false

personality, - a talking snake, - according to Biblical

12 history. This pretender taught the opposite of Truth.

This abortive ego, this fable of error, is laid bare in

Christian Science.

15 Human theories call, or miscall, this evil a child of God.

Philosophy would multiply and subdivide personality into

everything that exists, whether expressive or not expressive

18 of the Mind which is God. Human wisdom says of evil,

"The Lord knows it!" thus carrying out the serpent's

assurance: "In the day ye eat thereof [when you, lie, get

the floor], then your eyes shall be opened [you shall be

conscious matter], and ye shall be as gods, knowing good

Page 45

1 and evil [you shall believe a lie, and this lie shall seem

truth] ."

3 Bruise the head of this serpent, as Truth and "the

woman" are doing in Christian Science, and it stings

your heel, rears its crest proudly, and goes on saying, "Am

6 I not myself? Am I not mind and matter, person and

thing?" We should answer: "Yes! you are indeed your-

self, and need most of all to be rid of this self, for it is

very far from God's likeness."

The egotist must come down and learn, in humility,

that God never made evil. An evil ego, and his assumed

12 power, are falsities. These falsities need a denial. The

falsity is the teaching that matter can be conscious; and

conscious matter implies pantheism. This pantheism I

15 unveil. I try to show its all-pervading presence in certain

forms of theology and philosophy, where it becomes error's

affirmative to Truth's negative. Anatomy and physiology

18 make mind-matter a habitant of the cerebellum, whence

it telegraphs and telephones over its own body, and goes

forth into an imaginary sphere of its own creation and

21 limitation, until it finally dies in order to better itself.

But Truth never dies, and death is not the goal which

Truth seeks.

24 The evil ego has but the visionary substance of matter.

It lacks the substance of Spirit, - Mind, Life, Soul. Mor-

tal mind is self-creative and self-sustained, until it becomes

non-existent. It has no origin or existence in Spirit, im-

mortal Mind, or good. Matter is not truly conscious; and

Page 46

1 mortal error, called mind, is not Godlike. These are the

shadowy and false, which neither think nor speak.

All Truth is from inspiration and revelation, - from

Spirit, not from flesh.

We do not see much of the real man here, for he is

God's man; while ours is man's man.

I do not deny, I maintain, the individuality and reality

of man; but I do so on a divine Principle, not based on a

9 human conception and birth. The scientific man and his

Maker are here; and you would be none other than this

man, if you would subordinate the fleshly perceptions to

the spiritual sense and source of being.

Jesus said, "I and my Father are one." He taught no

selfhood as existent in matter. In his identity there is no

15 evil. Individuality and Life were real to him only as

spiritual and good, not as material or evil. This incensed

the rabbins against Jesus, because it was an indignity to

18 their personality; and this personality they regarded as

both good and evil, as is still claimed by the worldly-wise.

To them evil was even more the ego than was the good.

21 Sin, sickness, and death were evil's concomitants. This

evil ego they believed must extend throughout the uni-

verse, as being equally identical and self-conscious with

God. This ego was in the earthquake, thunderbolt, and

tempest.

The Pharisees fought Jesus on this issue. It furnished

the battle-ground of the past, as it does of the present.

The fight was an effort to enthrone evil. Jesus assumed

Page 47

1 the burden of disproof by destroying sin, sickness, and

death, to sight and sense.

3 Nowhere in Scripture is evil connected with good, the

being of God, and with every passing hour it is losing its

false claim to existence or consciousness. All that can

exist is God and His idea.

Page 48

CREDO

1 IT is fair to ask of every one a reason for the faith within.

Though it be but to repeat my twice-told tale, - nay,

the tale already told a hundred times, - yet ask, and I

will answer.

Do you believe in God?

6 I believe more in Him than do most Christians, for I

have no faith in any other thing or being. He sustains

my individuality. Nay, more - He is my individuality

9 and my Life. Because He lives, I live. He heals all my

ills, destroys my iniquities, deprives death of its sting, and

robs the grave of its victory.

12 To me God is All. He is best understood as Supreme

Being, as infinite and conscious Life, as the affectionate

Father and Mother of all He creates; but this divine

15 Parent no more enters into His creation than the human

father enters into his child. His creation is not the Ego,

but the reflection of the Ego. The Ego is God Himself,

the infinite Soul.

I believe that of which I am conscious through the

understanding, however faintly able to demonstrate Truth

and Love.

Page 49

Do you believe in man?

I believe in the individual man, for I understand that

3 man is as definite and eternal as God, and that man is

coexistent with God, as being the eternally divine idea.

This is demonstrable by the simple appeal to human

consciousness.

But I believe less in the sinner, wrongly named man.

The more I understand true humanhood, the more I see it

to be sinless, - as ignorant of sin as is the perfect Maker.

To me the reality and substance of being are good, and

nothing else. Through the eternal reality of existence I

12 reach, in thought, a glorified consciousness of the only

living God and the genuine man. So long as I hold evil

in consciousness, I cannot be wholly good.

15 You cannot simultaneously serve the mammon of

materiality and the God of spirituality. There are not

two realities of being, two opposite states of existence.

18 One should appear real to us, and the other unreal, or we

lose the Science of being. Standing in no basic Truth, we

make "the worse appear the better reason," and the un-

real masquerades as the real, in our thought.

Evil is without Principle. Being destitute of Principle,

it is devoid of Science. Hence it is undemonstrable, with-

24 out proof. This gives me a clearer right to call evil a nega-

tion, than to affirm it to be something which God sees and

knows, but which He straightway commands mortals to

shun or relinquish, lest it destroy them. This notion of

Page 50

1 the destructibility of Mind implies the possibility of its

defilement; but how can infinite Mind be defiled?

Do you believe in matter?

I believe in matter only as I believe in evil, that it is

something to be denied and destroyed to human conscious-

6 ness, and is unknown to the Divine. We should watch

and pray that we enter not into the temptation of panthe-

istic belief in matter as sensible mind. We should sub-

jugate it as Jesus did, by a dominant understanding of

Spirit.

At best, matter is only a phenomenon of mortal mind,

12 of which evil is the highest degree; but really there is no

such thing as mortal mind, - though we are compelled

to use the phrase in the endeavor to express the underlying

thought.

In reality there are no material states or stages of con-

sciousness, and matter has neither Mind nor sensation.

Like evil, it is destitute of Mind, for Mind is God.

The less consciousness of evil or matter mortals have,

the easier it is for them to evade sin, sickness, and death,

21 - which are but states of false belief, - and awake from

the troubled dream, a consciousness which is without

Mind or Maker.

24 Matter and evil cannot be conscious, and consciousness

should not be evil. Adopt this rule of Science, and you

will discover the material origin, growth, maturity, and

death of sinners, as the history of man, disappears, and the

Page 51

1 everlasting facts of being appear, wherein man is the re-

flection of immutable good.

3 Reasoning from false premises, - that Life is material,

that immortal Soul is sinful, and hence that sin is eternal,

- the reality of being is neither seen, felt, heard, nor un-

6 derstood. Human philosophy and human reason can

never make one hair white or black, except in belief;

whereas the demonstration of God, as in Christian Science,

is gained through Christ as perfect manhood.

In pantheism the world is bereft of its God, whose

place is ill supplied by the pretentious usurpation, by

matter, of the heavenly sovereignty.

What say you of woman?

Man is the generic term for all humanity. Woman is

15 the highest species of man, and this word is the generic

term for all women; but not one of all these individualities

is an Eve or an Adam. They have none of them lost their

harmonious state, in the economy of God's wisdom and

government.

The Ego is divine consciousness, eternally radiating

21 throughout all space in the idea of God, good, and not of

His opposite, evil. The Ego is revealed as Father, Son,

and Holy Ghost; but the full Truth is found only in

24 divine Science, where we see God as Life, Truth, and

Love. In the scientific relation of man to God, man is

reflected not as human soul, but as the divine ideal, whose

Soul is not in body, but is God, - the divine Principle of

Page 52

1 man. Hence Soul is sinless and immortal, in contradis-

tinction to the supposition that there can be sinful souls or

immortal sinners.

This Science of God and man is the Holy Ghost, which

reveals and sustains the unbroken and eternal harmony

6 of both God and the universe. It is the kingdom of heaven,

the ever-present reign of harmony, already with us. Hence

the need that human consciousness should become divine,

9 in the coincidence of God and man, in contradistinction

to the false consciousness of both good and evil, God and

devil, - of man separated from his Maker. This is the

precious redemption of soul, as mortal sense, through

Christ's immortal sense of Truth, which presents Truth's

spiritual idea, man and woman.

What say you of evil?

God is not the so-called ego of evil; for evil, as a sup-

position, is the father of itself, - of the material world,

18 the flesh, and the devil. From this falsehood arise the

self-destroying elements of this world, its unkind forces,

its tempests, lightnings, earthquakes, poisons, rabid

beasts, fatal reptiles, and mortals.

Why are earth and mortals so elaborate in beauty, color,

and form, if God has no part in them? By the law of

24 opposites. The most beautiful blossom is often poisonous,

and the most beautiful mansion is sometimes the home of

vice. The senses, not God, Soul, form the condition of

beautiful evil, and the supposed modes of self-conscious

Page 53

1 matter, which make a beautiful lie. Now a lie takes its

pattern from Truth, by reversing Truth. So evil and all

3 its forms are inverted good. God never made them; but

the lie must say He made them, or it would not be evil.

Being a lie, it would be truthful to call itself a lie; and by

calling the knowledge of evil good, and greatly to be de-

sired, it constitutes the lie an evil.

The reality and individuality of man are good and God-

made, and they are here to be seen and demonstrated; it

is only the evil belief that renders them obscure.

Matter and evil are anti-Christian, the antipodes of

12 Science. To say that Mind is material, or that evil is

Mind, is a misapprehension of being, - a mistake which

will die of its own delusion; for being self-contradictory,

15 it is also self-destructive. The harmony of man's being is

not built on such false foundations, which are no more

logical, philosophical, or scientific than would be the as-

18 sertion that the rule of addition is the rule of subtraction,

and that sums done under both rules would have one

quotient.

21 Man's individuality is not a mortal mind or sinner; or

else he has lost his true individuality as a perfect child of

God. Man's Father is not a mortal mind and a sinner;

24 or else the immortal and unerring Mind, God, is not his

Father; but God is man's origin and loving Father,

hence that saying of Jesus, "Call no man your father

upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in

heaven."

Page 54

1 The bright gold of Truth is dimmed by the doctrine of

mind in matter.

3 To say there is a false claim, called sickness, is to admit

all there is of sickness; for it is nothing but a false claim.

To be healed, one must lose sight of a false claim. If the

6 claim be present to the thought, then disease becomes as

tangible as any reality. To regard sickness as a false

claim, is to abate the fear of it; but this does not destroy

the so-called fact of the claim. In order to be whole, we

must be insensible to every claim of error.

As with sickness, so is it with sin. To admit that sin

12 has any claim whatever, just or unjust, is to admit a dan-

gerous fact. Hence the fact must be denied; for if sin's

claim be allowed in any degree, then sin destroys the

at-one-ment, or oneness with God, - a unity which sin

recognizes as its most potent and deadly enemy.

If God knows sin, even as a false claimant, then ac-

18 quaintance with that claimant becomes legitimate to

mortals, and this knowledge would not be forbidden; but

God forbade man to know evil at the very beginning,

21 when Satan held it up before man as something desirable

and a distinct addition to human wisdom, because the

knowledge of evil would make man a god, - a representa-

tion that God both knew and admitted the dignity of evil.

Which is right, - God, who condemned the knowledge

of sin and disowned its acquaintance, or the serpent, who

pushed that claim with the glittering audacity of diabolical

and sinuous logic?

Page 55

SUFFERING FROM OTHERS' THOUGHTS

1 JESUS accepted the one fact whereby alone the rule of

Life can be demonstrated, - namely, that there is

no death.

In his real self he bore no infirmities. Though "a man

of sorrows, and acquainted with grief," as Isaiah says of

6 him, he bore not his sins, but ours, "in his own body on

the tree." "He was bruised for our iniquities; . . . and

with his stripes we are healed."

9 He was the Way-shower; and Christian Scientists who

would demonstrate "the way" must keep close to his

path, that they may win the prize. "The way," in the

12 flesh, is the suffering which leads out of the flesh. "The

way," in Spirit, is "the way" of Life, Truth, and Love,

redeeming us from the false sense of the flesh and the

wounds it bears. This threefold Messiah reveals the self-

destroying ways of error and the life-giving way of Truth.

Job's faith and hope gained him the assurance that

19 the so-called sufferings of the flesh are unreal. We shall

learn how false are the pleasures and pains of material

sense, and behold the truth of being, as expressed in his

conviction, "Yet in my flesh shall I see God;" that is,

Now and here shall I behold God, divine Love.

Page 56

1 The chaos of mortal mind is made the stepping-stone

to the cosmos of immortal Mind.

3 If Jesus suffered, as the Scriptures declare, it must have

been from the mentality of others; since all suffering

comes from mind, not from matter, and there could be

6 no sin or suffering in the Mind which is God. Not his

own sins, but the sins of the world, "crucified the Lord

of glory," and "put him to an open shame."

9 Holding a quickened sense of false environment, and

suffering from mentality in opposition to Truth, are signifi-

cant of that state of mind which the actual understanding

of Christian Science first eliminates and then destroys.

In the divine order of Science every follower of Christ

shares his cup of sorrows. He also suffereth in the flesh,

15 and from the mentality which opposes the law of Spirit;

but the divine law is supreme, for it freeth him from the

law of sin and death.

18 Prophets and apostles suffered from the thoughts of

others. Their conscious being was not fully exempt from

physicality and the sense of sin.

21 Until he awakes from his delusion, he suffers least from

sin who is a hardened sinner. The hypocrite's affections

must first be made to fret in their chains; and the pangs

24 of hell must lay hold of him ere he can change from flesh

to Spirit, become acquainted with that Love which is

without dissimulation and endureth all things. Such

mental conditions as ingratitude, lust, malice, hate, con-

stitute the miasma of earth. More obnoxious than

Page 57

1 Chinese stenchpots are these dispositions which offend

the spiritual sense.

3 Anatomically considered, the design of the material

senses is to warn mortals of the approach of danger by

the pain they feel and occasion; but as this sense disap-

6 pears it foresees the impending doom and foretells the

pain. Man's refuge is in spirituality, "under the shadow

of the Almighty."

9 The cross is the central emblem of human history.

Without it there is neither temptation nor glory. When

Jesus turned and said, "Who hath touched me?" he

12 must have felt the influence of the woman's thought; for

it is written that he felt that "virtue had gone out of him."

His pure consciousness was discriminating, and rendered

this infallible verdict; but he neither held her error by

affinity nor by infirmity, for it was detected and dismissed.

This gospel of suffering brought life and bliss. This

is earth's Bethel in stone, - its pillow, supporting the

ladder which reaches heaven.

Suffering was the confirmation of Paul's faith. Through

"a thorn in the flesh" he learned that spiritual grace was

sufficient for him.

Peter rejoiced that he was found worthy to suffer for

Christ; because to suffer with him is to reign with him.

Sorrow is the harbinger of joy. Mortal throes of anguish

forward the birth of immortal being; but divine Science

wipes away all tears.

The only conscious existence in the flesh is error of some

Page 58

1 sort, - sin, pain, death, - a false sense of life and happi-

ness. Mortals, if at ease in so-called existence, are in their

native element of error, and must become dis-eased, dis-

quieted, before error is annihilated.

Jesus walked with bleeding feet the thorny earth-road,

6 treading "the winepress alone." His persecutors said

mockingly, "Save thyself, and come down from the cross."

This was the very thing he was doing, coming down from

9 the cross, saving himself after the manner that he had

taught, by the law of Spirit's supremacy; and this was

done through what is humanly called agony.

12 Even the ice-bound hypocrite melts in fervent heat,

before he apprehends Christ as "the way." The Master's

sublime triumph over all mortal mentality was immortal-

15 ity's goal. He was too wise not to be willing to test the

full compass of human woe, being "in all points tempted

like as we are, yet without sin."

Thus the absolute unreality of sin, sickness, and death

was revealed, - a revelation that beams on mortal sense

as the midnight sun shines over the Polar Sea.

Page 59

THE SAVIOUR'S MISSION

1 IF there is no reality in evil, why did the Messiah come

to the world, and from what evils was it his purpose

to save humankind? How, indeed, is he a Saviour, if

the evils from which he saves are nonentities?

Jesus came to earth; but the Christ (that is, the divine

6 idea of the divine Principle which made heaven and earth)

was never absent from the earth and heaven; hence the

phraseology of Jesus, who spoke of the Christ as one who

9 came down from heaven, yet as "the Son of man which

is in heaven." (John iii. 13.) By this we understand

Christ to be the divine idea brought to the flesh in the son

of Mary.

Salvation is as eternal as God. To mortal thought

Jesus appeared as a child, and grew to manhood, to suffer

15 before Pilate and on Calvary, because he could reach and

teach mankind only through this conformity to mortal

conditions; but Soul never saw the Saviour come and go,

because the divine idea is always present.

Jesus came to rescue men from these very illusions to

which he seemed to conform: from the illusion which

calls sin real, and man a sinner, needing a Saviour; the

illusion which calls sickness real, and man an invalid,

needing a physician; the illusion that death is as real as

Page 60

1 Life. From such thoughts - mortal inventions, one and

all - Christ Jesus came to save men, through ever-present

and eternal good.

Mortal man is a kingdom divided against itself. With

the same breath he articulates truth and error. We say

6 that God is All, and there is none beside Him, and then

talk of sin and sinners as real. We call God omnipotent

and omnipresent, and then conjure up, from the dark

9 abyss of nothingness, a powerful presence named evil. We

say that harmony is real, and inharmony is its opposite,

and therefore unreal; yet we descant upon sickness, sin,

and death as realities.

With the tongue "bless we God, even the Father; and

therewith curse we men, who are made after the simili-

15 tude [human concept] of God. Out of the same mouth

proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these

things ought not so to be." (James iii. 9, 10.) Mortals

18 are free moral agents, to choose whom they would serve.

If God, then let them serve Him, and He will be unto them

All-in-all.

21 If God is ever present, He is neither absent from Him-

self nor from the universe. Without Him, the universe

would disappear, and space, substance, and immortality

24 be lost. St. Paul says, "And if Christ be not raised, your

faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. " (1 Corinthians xv.

17.) Christ cannot come to mortal and material sense,

which sees not God. This false sense of substance must

yield to His eternal presence, and so dissolve. Rising

Page 61

1 above the false, to the true evidence of Life, is the resur-

rection that takes hold of eternal Truth. Coming and

going belong to mortal consciousness. God is "the same

yesterday, and to-day, and forever."

To material sense, Jesus first appeared as a helpless

6 human babe; but to immortal and spiritual vision he was

one with the Father, even the eternal idea of God, that

was - and is - neither young nor old, neither dead nor

9 risen. The mutations of mortal sense are the evening and

the morning of human thought, - the twilight and dawn

of earthly vision, which precedeth the nightless radiance

12 of divine Life. Human perception, advancing toward

the apprehension of its nothingness, halts, retreats, and

again goes forward; but the divine Principle and Spirit

and spiritual man are unchangeable, - neither advancing,

retreating, nor halting.

Our highest sense of infinite good in this mortal sphere

18 is but the sign and symbol, not the substance of good.

Only faith and a feeble understanding make the earthly

acme of human sense. "The life which I now live in the

flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God." (Galatians

ii. 20.)

Christian Science is both demonstration and fruition,

24 but how attenuated are our demonstration and realization

of this Science! Truth, in divine Science, is the stepping-

stone to the understanding of God; but the broken and

contrite heart soonest discerns this truth, even as the help-

less sick are soonest healed by it. Invalids say, "I have

Page 62

1 recovered from sickness;" when the fact really remains,

in divine Science, that they never were sick.

3 The Christian saith, "Christ (God) died for me, and

came to save me;" yet God dies not, and is the ever-

presence that neither comes nor goes, and man is forever

6 His image and likeness. "The things which are seen are

temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal."

(2 Corinthians iv. 18.) This is the mystery of godliness

9 - that God, good, is never absent, and there is none be-

side good. Mortals can understand this only as they reach

the Life of good, and learn that there is no Life in evil.

12 Then shall it appear that the true ideal of omnipotent and

ever-present good is an ideal wherein and wherefor there

is no evil. Sin exists only as a sense, and not as Soul.

15 Destroy this sense of sin, and sin disappears. Sickness,

sin, or death is a false sense of Life and good. Destroy

this trinity of error, and you find Truth.

18 In Science, Christ never died. In material sense Jesus

died, and lived. The fleshly Jesus seemed to die, though

he did not. The Truth or Life in divine Science - un-

21 disturbed by human error, sin, and death - saith forever,

"I am the living God, and man is My idea, never in matter,

nor resurrected from it." "Why seek ye the living among

24 the dead? He is not here, but is risen." (Luke xxiv. 5, 6.)

Mortal sense, confining itself to matter, is all that can be

buried or resurrected.

Mary had risen to discern faintly God's ever-presence,

and that of His idea, man; but her mortal sense, revers-

Page 63

1 ing Science and spiritual understanding, interpreted this

appearing as a risen Christ. The I AM was neither buried

3 nor resurrected. The Way, the Truth, and the Life were

never absent for a moment. This trinity of Love lives

and reigns forever. Its kingdom, not apparent to material

6 sense, never disappeared to spiritual sense, but remained

forever in the Science of being. The so-called appearing,

disappearing, and reappearing of ever-presence, in whom

is no variableness or shadow of turning, is the false human

sense of that light which shineth in darkness, and the

darkness comprehendeth it not.

Page 64

SUMMARY

1 ALL that is God created. If sin has any pretense of

existence, God is responsible therefor; but there is

no reality in sin, for God can no more behold it, or acknowl-

edge it, than the sun can coexist with darkness.

To build the individual spiritual sense, conscious of

6 only health, holiness, and heaven, on the foundations of

an eternal Mind which is conscious of sickness, sin, and

death, is a moral impossibility; for "other foundation

9 can no man lay than that is laid. " ( 1 Corinthians iii. 11.)

The nearer we approximate to such a Mind, even if it were

(or could be) God, the more real those mind-pictures would

12 become to us; until the hope of ever eluding their dread

presence must yield to despair, and the haunting sense

of evil forever accompany our being.

15 Mortals may climb the smooth glaciers, leap the dark

fissures, scale the treacherous ice, and stand on the sum-

mit of Mont Blanc; but they can never turn back what

18 Deity knoweth, nor escape from identification with what

dwelleth in the eternal Mind.

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