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MY CHILDHOOD'S CHURCH HOME

Among the list of blessings infinite I count these dear: Devout orthodox parents; my early culture in the Congregational Church; the daily Bible reading and family prayer; my cradle hymn and the Lord's Prayer, repeated at night; my early association with distinguished Christian clergymen, who held fast to whatever is good, used faithfully God's Word, and yielded up graciously what He took away. It was my fair fortune to be often taught by some grand old divines, among whom where the Rev. Abraham Burnham of Pembroke, N.H., Rev. Nathaniel Bouton, D.D., of Concord, N.H., Congregationalists; Rev. Mr. Boswell, of Bow, N.H., Baptist; Rev. Enoch Corser, and Rev. Corban Curtice, Congregationalists; and Father Hinds, Methodist Elder. I became early a child of the Church, an eager lover and student of vital Christianity. Why I loved Christians of the old sort was I could not help loving them. Full of charity and good works, busy about their Master's business, they had no time or desire to defame their fellow-men. God seemed to shield the whole world in their hearts, and they were willing to renounce all for him. When infidels assailed them, however, the courage of their convictions was seen. They were heroes in the strife; they armed quickly, aimed deadly, and spared no denunciation. Their convictions were honest, and they lived them; and the sermons their lives preached caused me to love their doctrines.

The lives of those old-fashioned leaders of religion explain in a few words a good man. They fill the ecclesiastic measure, that to love God and keep His commandments is the whole duty of man. Such churchmen and the Bible, especially the First Commandment of the Decalogue, and Ninety-first Psalm, the Sermon on the Mount, and St. John's Revelation, educated my thought many years, yea, all the way up to its preparation for and reception of the Science of Christianity. I believe, if those venerable Christians were here to-day, their sanctified souls would take in the spirit and understanding of Christian Science through the flood-gates of Love; with them Love was the governing impulse of every action; their piety was the all-important consideration of their being, the original beauty of holiness that to-day seems to be fading so sensibly from our sight.

To plant for eternity, the "accuser" or "calumniator" must not be admitted to the vineyard of our Lord, and the hand of love must sow the seed. Carlyle writes: "Quackery and dupery do abound in religion; above all, in the more advanced decaying stages of religion, they have fearfully abounded; but quackery was never the originating influence in such things; it was not the health and life of religion, but their disease, the sure precursor that they were about to die."

Christian Scientists first and last ask not to be judged on a doctrinal platform, a creed, or a diploma for scientific guessing. But they do ask to be allowed the rights of conscience and the protection of the constitutional laws of their land; they ask to be known by their works, to be judged (if at all) by their works. We admit that they do not kill people with poisonous drugs, with the lance, or with liquor, in order to heal them. Is it for not killing them thus, or is it for healing them through the might and majesty of divine power after the manner taught by Jesus, and which he enjoined his students to teach and practise, that they are maligned? The richest and most positive proof that a religion in this century is just what it was in the first centuries is that the same reviling it received then it receives now, and from the same motives which actuate one sect to persecute another in advance of it.

Christian Scientists are harmless citizens that do not kill people either by their practice or by preventing the early employment of an M.D. Why? Because the effect of prayer, whereby Christendom saves sinners, is quite as salutary in the healing of all manner of diseases. The Bible is our authority for asserting this, in both cases. The interval that detains the patient from the attendance of an M.D., occupied in prayer and in spiritual obedience to Christ's mode and means of healing, cannot be fatal to the patient, and is proven to be more pathological than the M.D.'s material prescription. If this be not so, where shall we look for the standard of Christianity? Have we misread the evangelical precepts and the canonical writings of the Fathers, or must we have a new Bible and a new system of Christianity, originating not in God, but a creation of the schools -- a material religion, proscriptive, intolerant, wantonly bereft of the Word of God.

Give us, dear God, again on earth the lost chord of Christ; solace us with the song of angels rejoicing with them that rejoice; that sweet charity which seeketh not her own but another's good, yea, which knoweth no evil.

Finally, brethren, wait patiently on God; return blessing for cursing; be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good; be steadfast, abide and abound in faith, understanding, and good works; study the Bible and the textbook of our denomination; obey strictly the laws that be, and follow your Leader only so far as she follows Christ. Godliness or Christianity is a human necessity: man cannot live without it; he has no intelligence, health, hope, nor happiness without godliness. In the words of the Hebrew writers: "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths;" "and He shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday."

The question oft presents itself, Are we willing to sacrifice self for the Cause of Christ, willing to bear our bosom to the blade and lay ourselves upon the altar? Christian Science appeals loudly to those asleep upon the hill-tops of Zion. It is a clarion call to the reign of righteousness, to the kingdom of heaven within us and on earth, and Love is the way alway.

O the Love divine that plucks us

From the human agony!

O the Master's glory won thus,

Doth it dawn on you and me?

And the bliss of blotted-out sin

And the working hitherto --

Shall we share it -- do we walk in

Patient faith the way thereto?