---

Do we not see in the commonly accepted teachings of the day, the Christ-idea mingled with the teachings of John the Baptist? or, rather, Are not the last eighteen centuries but the footsteps of Truth being baptized of John, and coming up straightway out of the ceremonial (or ritualistic) waters to receive the benediction of an honored Father, and afterwards to go up into the wilderness, in order to overcome mortal sense, before it shall go forth into all the cities and towns of Judea, or see many of the people from beyond Jordan? Now, if all this be a fair or correct view of this question, why does not John hear this voice, or see the dove, -- or has not Truth yet reached the shore?

Every individual character, like the individual John the Baptist, at some date must cry in the desert of earthly joy; and his voice be heard divinely and humanly. In the desolation of human understanding, divine Love hears and answers the human call for help; and the voice of Truth utters the divine verities of being which deliver mortals out of the depths of ignorance and vice. This is the Father's benediction. It gives lessons to human life, guides the understanding, peoples the mind with spiritual ideas, reconstructs the Judean religion, and reveals God and man as the Principle and idea of all good.

Understanding this fact in Christian Science, brings the peace symbolized by a dove; and this peace floweth as a river into a shoreless eternity. He who knew the foretelling Truth, beheld the forthcoming Truth, as it came up out of the baptism of Spirit, to enlighten and redeem mortals. Such Christians as John cognize the symbols of God, reach the sure foundations of time, stand upon the shore of eternity, and grasp and gather -- in all glory -- what eye hath not seen.

Is there infinite progression with man after the destruction of mortal mind?

Man is the offspring and idea of the Supreme Being, whose law is perfect and infinite. In obedience to this law, man is forever unfolding the endless beatitudes of Being; for he is the image and likeness of infinite Life, Truth, and Love.

Infinite progression is concrete being, which finite mortals see and comprehend only as abstract glory. As mortal mind, or the material sense of life, is put off, the spiritual sense and Science of being is brought to light.

Mortal mind is a myth; the one Mind is immortal. A mythical or mortal sense of existence is consumed as a moth, in the treacherous glare of its own flame -- the errors which devour it. Immortal Mind is God, immortal good; in whom the Scripture saith "we live, and move, and have our being." This Mind, then, is not subject to growth, change, or diminution, but is the divine intelligence, or Principle, of all real being; holding man forever in the rhythmic round of unfolding bliss, as a living witness to a perpetual idea of inexhaustible good.

In your book, Science and Health, page 181, you say: "Every sin is the author of itself, and every invalid the cause of his own suferings." On page 182 you say: "Sickness is a growth of illusion, springing from a seed of thought, -- either your own thought or another's." Will you please explain this seeming contradiction?

No person can accept another's belief, except it be with the consent of his own belief. If the error which knocks at the door of your own thought originated in another's mind, you are a free moral agent to reject or to accept this error; hence, you are the arbiter of your own fate, and sin is the author of sin. In the words of our Master, you are "a liar, and the father of it [the lie]."

Why did Jesus call himself "the Son of Man"?

In the life of our Lord, meekness was as conspicuous as might. In John xvii. he declared his sonship with God: "These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee." The hour had come for the avowal of this great truth, and for the proof of his eternal Life and sonship. Jesus' wisdom ofttimes was shown by his forbearing to speak, as well as by speaking, the whole truth. Haply he waited for a preparation of the human heart to receive startling announcements. This wisdom, which characterized his sayings, did not prophesy his death, and thereby hasten or permit it.

The disciples and prophets thrust disputed points on minds unprepared for them. This cost them their lives, and the world's temporary esteem; but the prophesies were fulfilled, and their motives were rewarded by growth and more spiritual understanding, which dawns by degrees on mortals. The spiritual Christ was infallible; Jesus, as material manhood, was not Christ. The "man of sorrows" knew that the man of joys, his spiritual self, or Christ, was the Son of God; and that the mortal mind, not the immortal Mind, suffered. The human manifestation of the Son of God was called the Son of man, or Mary's Son.

Please explain Paul's meaning in the text, "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain."

The Science of Life, overshadowing Paul's sense of life in matter, so far extinguished the latter as forever to quench his love for it. The discipline of the flesh is designed to turn one, like a weary traveller, to the home of Love. To lose error thus, is to live in Christ, Truth. A true sense of the falsity of material joys and sorrows, pleasures and pains, takes them away, and teaches Life's lessons aright. The transition from our lower sense of Life to a new and higher sense thereof, even though it be through the door named death, yields a clearer and nearer sense of Life to those who have utilized the present, and are ripe for the harvest-home. To the battle-worn and weary Christian hero, Life eternal brings blessings.

Is a Christian Scientist ever sick, and has he who is sick been regenerated?

The Christian Scientist learns spiritually all that he knows of Life, and demonstrates what he understands. God is recognized as the divine Principle of his being, and of every thought and act leading to good. His purpose must be right, though his power is temporarily limited. Perfection, the goal of existence, is not won in a moment; and regeneration leading thereto is gradual, for it culminates in the fulfillment of this divine rule in Science: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."

The last degree of regeneration rises into the rest of perpetual, spiritual, individual existence. The first feeble flutterings of mortals Christward are infantile and more or less imperfect. The new-born Christian Scientist must mature, and work out his own salvation. Spirit and flesh antagonize. Temptation, that mist of mortal mind which seems to be matter and the environment of mortals, suggests pleasure and pain in matter; and, so long as this temptation lasts, the warfare is not ended and the mortal is not regenerated. The pleasures -- more than the pains -- of sense, retard regeneration; for pain compels human consciousness to escape from sense into the immortality and harmony of Soul. Disease in error, more than ease in it, tends to destroy error: the sick often are thereby led to Christ, Truth, and to learn their way out of both sickness and sin.

The material and physical are imperfect. The individual and spiritual are perfect; these have no fleshly nature. This final degree of regeneration is saving, and the Christian will, must, attain it; but it doth not yet appear. Until this be attained, the Christian Scientist must continue to strive with sickness, sin, and death -- though in lessening degrees -- and manifest growth at every experience.

Is it correct to say of material objects, that they are nothing and exist only in imagination?

Nothing and something are words which need correct definition. They either mean formations of indefinite and vague human opinions, or scientific classifications of the unreal and the real. My sense of the beauty of the universe is, that beauty typifies holiness, and is something to be desired. Earth is more spiritually beautiful to my gaze now than when it was more earthly to the eyes of Eve. The pleasant sensations of human belief, of form and color, must be spiritualized, until we gain the glorified sense of substance as in the new heaven and earth, the harmony of body and Mind.

Even the human conception of beauty, grandeur, and utility is something that defies a sneer. It is more than imagination. It is next to divine beauty and the grandeur of Spirit. It lives with our earth-life, and is the subjective state of high thoughts. The atmosphere of mortal mind constitutes our mortal environment. What mortals hear, see, feel, taste, smell, constitutes their present earth and heaven: but we must grow out of even this pleasing thraldom, and find wings to reach the glory of supersensible Life; then we shall soar above, as the bird in the clear ether of the blue temporal sky.

To take all earth's beauty into one gulp of vacuity and label beauty nothing, is ignorantly to caricature God's creation, which is unjust to human sense and to the divine realism. In our immature sense of spiritual things, let us say of the beauties of the sensuous universe: "I love your promise; and shall know, sometime, the spiritual reality and substance of form, light, and color, of what I now through you discern dimly; and knowing this, I shall be satisfied. Matter is a frail conception of mortal mind; and mortal mind is a poorer representative of the beauty, grandeur, and glory of the immortal Mind."

Please inform us, through your Journal, if you sent Mrs. -- to --. She said that you sent her there to look after the students; and also, that no one there was working in Science, -- which is certainly a mistake.

I never commission any one to teach students of mine. After class teaching, he does best in the investigation of Christian Science who is most reliant on himself and God. My students are taught the divine Principle and rules of the Science of Mind-healing. What they need hereafter is to study thoroughly the Scriptures and "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." To watch and pray, to be honest, earnest, loving, and truthful, is indispensable to the demonstration of the truth they have been taught.

If they are haunted by obsequious helpers, who, uncalled for, imagine they can help anybody and steady God's altar -- this interference prolongs the struggle and tends to blight the fruits of my students. A faithful student may even sometimes feel the need of physical help, and occasionally receive it from others; but the less this is required, the better it is for that student.

Please give us, through your Journal, the name of the author of that genuine critique in the September number, "What Quibus Thinks."

I am pleased to inform this inquirer, that the author of the article in question is a Boston gentleman whose thought is appreciated by many liberals. Patience, observation, intellectual culture, reading, writing, extensive travel, and twenty years in the pulpit, have equipped him as a critic who knows whereof he speaks. His allusion to Christian Science in the following paragraph, glows in the shadow of darkling criticism like a midnight sun. Its manly honesty follows like a benediction after prayer, and closes the task of talking to deaf ears and dull debaters.

"We have always insisted that this Science is natural, spiritually natural; that Jesus was the highest type of real nature; that Christian healing is supernatural, or extra-natural, only to those who do not enter into its sublimity or understand its modes -- as imported ice was miraculous to the equatorial African, who had never seen water freeze."

Is it right for a Scientist to treat with a doctor?

That depends upon what kind of a doctor it is. Mind healing, and healing with drugs, are opposite modes of medicine. As a rule, drop one of these doctors when you employ the other. The Scripture saith, "No man can serve two masters;" and, "Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation."

If Scientists are called upon to care for a member of the family, or a friend in sickness, who is employing a regular physician, would it be right to treat this patient at all; and ought the patient to follow the doctor's directions?

When patients are under material medical treatment, it is advisable in most cases that Scientists do not treat them, or interfere with materia medica. If the patient is in peril, and you save him or alleviate his sufferings, although the medical attendant and friends have no faith in your method, it is humane, and not unchristian, to do him all the good you can; but your good will generally "be evil spoken of." The hazard of casting "pearls before swine" caused our Master to refuse help to some who sought his aid; and he left this precaution for others.

If mortal man is unreal, how can he be saved, and why does he need to be saved? I ask for information, not for controversy, for I am a seeker after Truth.

You will find the proper answer to this question in my published works. Man is immortal. Mortal man is a false concept that is not spared or prolonged by being saved from itself, from whatever is false. This salvation means: saved from error, or error overcome. Immortal man, in God's likeness, is safe in divine Science. Mortal man is saved on this divine Principle, if he will only avail himself of the efficacy of Truth, and recognize his Saviour. He must know that God is omnipotent; hence, that sin is impotent. He must know that the power of sin is the pleasure in sin. Take away this pleasure, and you remove all reality from its power. Jesus demonstrated sin and death to be powerless. This practical Truth saves from sin, and will save all who understand it.

Is it wrong for a wife to have a husband treated for sin, when she knows he is sinning, or for drinking and smoking?

It is always right to act rightly; but sometimes, under circumstances exceptional, it is inexpedient to attack evil. This rule is forever golden: "As ye would that men should do to you, do yea even so to them." Do you desire to be freed from sin? Then help others to be free; but in your measures, obey the Scriptures, "Be ye wise as serpents." Break the yoke of bondage in every wise way. First, be sure that your means for doing good are equal to your motives; then judge them by their fruits.

If not ordained, shall the pastor of the Church of Christ, Scientist, administer the communion, -- and shall members of a church not organized receive the communion?

Our great Master administered to his disciples the Passover, or last Supper, without this prerogative being conferred by a visible organization and ordained priesthood. His spiritually prepared breakfast, after his resurrection, and after his disciples had left their nets to follow him, is the spiritual communion which Christian Scientists celebrate in commemoration of the Christ. This ordinance is significant as a type of the true worship, and it should be observed at present in our churches.

It is not indispensable to organize materially Christ's church. It is not absolutely necessary to ordain pastors and to dedicate churches; but if this be done, let it be done in concession to the period, and not as a perpetual or indispensable ceremonial of the church. If our church is organized, it is to meet the demand, "Suffer it to be so now." The real Christian compact is love for one another. This bond is wholly spiritual and inviolate.

It is imperative, at all times and under every circumstance, to perpetuate no ceremonials except as types of these mental conditions, -- remembrance and love; a real affection for Jesus' character and example. Be it remembered, that all types employed in the service of Christian Science should represent the most spiritual forms of thought and worship that can be made visible.

Should not the teacher of Christian Science have our textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," in his schoolroom and teach from it?

I never dreamed, until informed thereof, that a loyal student did not take his textbook with him into the classroom, ask questions from it, answer them according to it, and, as occasion required, read from the book as authority for what he taught. I supposed that students had followed my example, and that of other teachers, sufficiently to do this, and also to require their pupils to study the lessons before recitations.

To omit these important points is anomalous, considering the necessity for understanding Science, and the present liability of deviating from Christian Science. Centuries will intervene before the statement of the inexhaustible topics of that book become sufficiently understood to be absolutely demonstrated. The teacher of Christian Science needs continually to study this textbook. His work is to replenish thought, and to spiritualize human life, from this open fount of Truth and Love.

He who sees most clearly and enlightens other minds most readily, keeps his own lamp trimmed and burning. He will take the textbook of Christian Science into his class, repeat the questions in the chapter on Recapitulation, and his students will answer them from the same source. Throughout his entire explanations, the teacher should strictly adhere to the questions and answers contained in that chapter of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." It is important to point out the lesson to the class, and to require the students thoroughly to study it before the recitations; for this spiritualizes their thoughts. When closing his class, the teacher should require each member to own a copy of the above-named book and to continue the study of this textbook.

The opinions of men cannot be substituted for God's revelation. It must not be forgotten that in times past, arrogant ignorance and pride, in attempting to steady the ark of Truth, have dimmed the power and glory of the Scriptures, to which this Christian Science textbook is the Key.

That teacher does most for his students who most divests himself of pride and self, spiritualizes his own thought, and by reason thereof is able to empty his students' minds, that they may be filled with Truth.

Beloved students, so teach that posterity shall call you blessed, and the heart of history shall be made glad!

Can fear or sin bring back old beliefs of disease that have been healed by Christian Science?

The Scriptures plainly declare the allness and oneness of God to be the premises of Truth, and that God is good: in Him dwelleth no evil. Christian Science authorizes the logical conclusion drawn from the Scriptures, that there is in reality none besides the eternal, infinite God, good. Evil is temporal: it is the illusion of time and mortality.

This being true, sin has no power; and fear, its coeval, is without divine authority. Science sanctions only what is supported by the unerring Principle of being. Sin can do nothing: all cause and effect are in God. Fear is a belief of sensation in matter: this belief is neither maintained by Science nor supported by facts, and exists only as fable. Your answer is, that neither fear nor sin can bring on disease or bring back disease, since there is in reality no disease.

Bear in mind, however, that human consciousness does not test sin and the fact of its nothingness, by believing that sin is pardoned without repentance and reformation. Sin punishes itself, because it cannot go unpunished either here or hereafter. Nothing is more fatal than to indulge a sinning sense or consciousness for even one moment. Knowing this, obey Christ's Sermon on the Mount, even if you suffer for it in the first instance, -- are misjudged and maligned; in the second, you will reign with him.

I never knew a person who knowingly indulged evil, to be grateful; to understand me, or himself. He must first see himself and the hallucination of sin; then he must repent, and love good in order to understand God. The sinner and the sin are the twain that are one flesh, -- but which God hath not joined together.

---

Miscellaneous Writings by Mary Baker Eddy

CHAPTER II

ONE CAUSE AND EFFECT

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE begins with the First Commandment of the Hebrew Decalogue, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." It goes on in perfect unity with Christ's Sermon on the Mount, and in that age culminates in the Revelation of St. John, who, while on earth and in the flesh, like ourselves, beheld "a new heaven and a new earth," -- the spiritual universe, whereof Christian Science now bears testimony.

Our Master said, "The works that I do shall ye do also," and, "The Kingdom of God is within you." This makes practical all his words and works. As the ages advance in spirituality, Christian Science will be seen to depart from the trend of other Christian denominations in no wise except by increase of spirituality.

My first plank in the platform of Christian Science is as follows: "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual."

I am strictly a theist -- believe in one God, one Christ or Messiah.

Science is neither a law of matter nor of man. It is the unerring manifesto of Mind, the law of God, its divine Principle. Who dare say that matter or mortals can evolve Science? Whence, then, is it, if not from the divine source, and what, but the contemporary of Christianity, so far in advance of human knowledge that mortals must work for the discovery of even a portion of it? Christian Science translates Mind, God, to mortals. It is the infinite calculus defining the line, plane, space, and fourth dimension of Spirit. It absolutely refutes the amalgamation, transmigration, absorption, or annihilation of individuality. It shows the impossibility of transmitting human ills, or evil, from one individual to another; that all true thoughts revolve in God's orbits: they come from God and return to Him, -- and untruths belong not to His creation, therefore these are null and void. It hath no peer, no competitor, for it dwelleth in Him besides whom "there is none other."

That Christian Science is Christian, those who have demonstrated it, according to the rules of its divine Principle, -- together with the sick, the lame, the deaf, and the blind, healed by it, -- have proven to a waiting world. He who has not tested it, is incompetent to condemn it; and he who is a willing sinner, cannot demonstrate it.

A falling apple suggested to Newton more than the simple fact cognized by the senses, to which it seemed to fall by reason of its own ponderosity; but the primal cause, or Mind-force, invisible to material sense, lay concealed in the treasure-troves of Science. True, Newton named it gravitation, having learned so much; but Science, demanding more, pushes the question: Whence or what is the power back of gravitation, -- the intelligence that manifests power? Is pantheism true? Does mind "sleep in the mineral, or dream in the animal, and wake in man"? Christianity answers this question. The prophets, Jesus, and the apostles, demonstrated a divine intelligence that subordinates so-called material laws; and disease, death, winds, and waves, obey this intelligence. Was it Mind or matter that spake in creation, "and it was done"? The answer is self-evident, and the command remains, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

It is plain that the Me spoken of in the First Commandment, must be Mind; for matter is not the Christian's God, and is not intelligent. Matter cannot even talk; and the serpent, Satan, the first talker in its behalf, lied. Reason and revelation declare that God is both noumena and phenomena, -- the first and only cause. The universe, including man, is not a result of atomic action, material force or energy; it is not organized dust. God, Spirit, Mind, are terms synonymous for the one God, whose reflection is creation, and man is His image and likeness. Few there are who comprehend what Christian Science means by the word reflection. God is seen only in that which reflects good, Life, Truth, Love -- yea, which manifests all His attributes and power, even as the human likeness thrown upon the mirror repeats precisely the looks and actions of the object in front of it. All must be Mind and Mind's ideas; since, according to natural science, God, spirit, could not change its species and evolve matter.

These facts enjoin the First Commandment; and knowledge of them makes man spiritually minded. St. Paul writes: "For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." This knowledge came to me in an hour of great need; and I give it to you as death-bed testimony to the daystar that dawned on the night of material sense. This knowledge is practical, for it wrought my immediate recovery from an injury caused by an accident, and pronounced fatal by the physicians. On the third day thereafter, I called for my Bible, and opened it at Matthew ix.2. As I read, the healing Truth dawned upon my sense; and the result was that I rose, dressed myself, and ever after was in better health than I had before enjoyed. That short experience included a glimpse of the great fact that I have since tried to make plain to others, namely, Life in and of Spirit; this Life being the sole reality of existence. I learned that mortal thought evolves a subjective state which it names matter, thereby shutting out the true sense of Spirit. Per contra, Mind and man are immortal; and knowledge gained from mortal sense is illusion, error, the opposite of Truth; therefore it cannot be true. A knowledge of both good and evil (when good is God, and God is All) is impossible. Speaking of the origin of evil, the Master said: "When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it." God warned man not to believe the talking serpent, or rather the allegory describing it. The Nazarene Prophet declared that his followers should handle serpents; that is, put down all subtle falsities or illusions, and thus destroy any supposed effect arising from false claims exercising their supposed power on the mind and body of man, against his holiness and health.

That there is but one God or Life, one cause and one effect, is the multum in parvo of Christian Science; and to my understanding it is the heart of Christianity, the religion that Jesus taught and demonstrated. In divine Science it is found that matter is a phase of error, and that neither one really exists, since God is Truth, and All-in-all. Christ's Sermon on the Mount, in its direct application to human needs, confirms this conclusion.

Science, understood, translates matter into Mind, rejects all other theories of causation, restores the spiritual and original meaning of the Scriptures, and explains the teachings and life of our Lord. It is religion's "new tongue," with "signs following," spoken of by St. Mark. It gives God's infinite meaning to mankind, healing the sick, casting out evil, and raising the spiritually dead. Christianity is Christlike only as it reiterates the word, repeats the works, and manifests the spirit of Christ.

Jesus' only medicine was omnipotent and omniscient Mind. As omni is from the Latin word meaning all, this medicine is all-power; and omniscience means as well, all-science. The sick are more deplorably situated than the sinful, if the sick cannot trust God for help and the sinful can. If God created drugs good, they cannot be harmful; if He could create them otherwise, then they are bad and unfit for man; and if He created drugs for healing the sick, why did not Jesus employ them and recommend them for that purpose?

No human hypotheses, whether in philosophy, medicine, or religion, can survive the wreck of time; but whatever is of God, hath life abiding in it, and ultimately will be known as self-evident truth, as demonstrable as mathematics. Each successive period of progress is a period more humane and spiritual. The only logical conclusion is that all is Mind and its manifestation, from the rolling of worlds, in the most subtle ether, to a potato patch.

The agriculturalist ponders the history of a seed, and believes that his crops come from the seedlings and the loam; even while the Scripture declares He made "every plant of the field before it was in the earth." The Scientist asks, Whence came the first seed, and what made the soil? Was it molecules, or material atoms? Whence came the infinitesimals, -- from infinite Mind, or from matter? If from matter, how did matter originate? Was it self-existent? Matter is not intelligent, and thus able to evolve or create itself: it is the very opposite of Spirit, intelligence, self-creative, and infinite Mind. The belief of mind in matter is pantheism. Natural history shows that neither a genus nor a species produces its opposite. God is All, in all. What can be more than All? Nothing: and this is just what I call matter, nothing. Spirit, God, has no antecedent; and God's consequent is the spiritual cosmos. The phrase, "express image," in the common version of Hebrews i.3, is, in the Greek Testament, character.

The Scriptures name God as good, and the Saxon term for God is also good. From this premise comes the logical conclusion that God is naturally and divinely infinite good. How, then, can this conclusion change, or be changed, to mean that good is evil, or the creator of evil? What can there be besides infinity? Nothing! Therefore the Science of good calls evil nothing. In divine Science the terms God and good, as Spirit, are synonymous. That God, good, creates evil, or aught that can result in evil, -- or that Spirit creates its opposite, named matter,-- are conclusions that destroy their premise and prove themselves invalid. Here is where Christian Science sticks to its text, and other systems of religion abandon their own logic. Here also is found the pith of the basal statement, the cardinal point in Christian Science, that matter and evil (including all in harmony, sin, disease, death) are unreal. Mortals accept natural science, wherein no species ever produces its opposite. Then why not accept divine Science on this ground? since the Scriptures maintain this fact by parable and proof, asking, "Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" "Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?"

According to reason and revelation, evil and matter are negation: for evil signifies the absence of good, God, thought God is ever present; and matter claims something besides God, when God is really All. Creation, evolution, or manifestation, -- being in and of Spirit, Mind, and all that really is, -- must be spiritual and mental. This is Science, and is susceptible of proof.

But, say you, is a stone spiritual?

To erring material sense, No! but to unerring spiritual sense, it is a small manifestation of Mind, a type of spiritual substance. "the substance of things hoped for." Mortals can know a stone as substance, only by first admitting that it is substantial. Take away the mortal sense of substance, and the stone itself would disappear, only to reappear in the spiritual sense thereof. Matter can neither see, hear, feel, taste, nor smell; having no sensation of its own. Perception by the five personal senses is mental, and dependent on the beliefs that mortals entertain. Destroy the belief that you can walk, and volition ceases; for muscles cannot move without mind. Matter takes no cognizance of matter. In dreams, things are only what mortal mind makes them; and the phenomena of mortal life are as dreams; and this so-called life is a dream soon told. In proportion as mortals turn from this mortal and material dream, to the true sense of reality, everlasting Life will be found to be the only Life. The death does not destroy the beliefs of the flesh, our Master proved to his doubting disciple, Thomas. Also, he demonstrated that divine Science alone can overbear materiality and mortality; and this great truth was shown by his ascension after death, whereby he arose above the illusion of matter.

The FIrst Commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" suggests the inquiry, What meaneth this Me, -- Spirit, or matter? It certainly does not signify a graven idol, and must mean Spirit. Then the commandment means, Thou shalt recognize no intelligence nor life in matter; and find neither pleasure nor pain therein. The Master's practical knowledge of this grand verity, together with his divine Love, healed the sick and raised the dead. He literally annulled the claims of physique and of physical law, by the superiority of the higher law; hence his declaration, "These signs shall follow them that believe; . . . if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."

Do you believe his words? I do, and that his promise is perpetual. Had it been applicable only to his immediate disciples, the pronoun would be you, not them. The purpose of his life-work touches universal humanity. At another time he prayed, not for the twelve only, but "for them also which shall believe on me through their word."

The Christ-healing was practised even before the Christian era; "the Word was with God, and the Word was God." There is, however, no analogy between Christian Science and spiritualism, or between it and any speculative theory.

In 1867, I taught the first student in Christian Science. Since that date I have known of but fourteen deaths in the ranks of my about five thousand students. The census since 1875 (the date of the first publication of my work, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures") shows that longevity has increased. Daily letters inform me that a perusal of my volume is healing the writers of chronic and acute diseases that had defied medical skill.

Surely the people of the Occident know that esoteric magic and Oriental barbarisms will neither flavor Christianity nor advance health and length of days.

Miracles are no infraction of God's laws; on the contrary, they fulfill His laws; for they are the signs following Christianity, whereby matter is proven powerless and subordinate to Mind. Christians, like students in mathematics, should be working up to those higher rules of Life which Jesus taught and proved. Do we really understand the divine Principle of Christianity before we prove it, in at least some feeble demonstration thereof, according to Jesus' example in healing the sick? Should we adopt the "simple addition" in Christian Science and doubt its higher rules, or despair of ultimately reaching them, even though failing at first to demonstrate all the possibilities of Christianity?

St. John spiritually discerned and revealed the sum total of transcendentalism. He saw the real earth and heaven. They were spiritual, not material; and they were without pain, sin, or death. Death was not the door to this heaven. The gates thereof he declared were inlaid with pearl, -- likening them to the priceless understanding of man's real existence, to be recognized here and now.

The great Way-shower illustrated Life unconfined, uncontaminated, untrammelled, by matter. He proved the superiority of Mind over the flesh, opened the door to the captive, and enabled man to demonstrate the law of Life, which St. Paul declares "hath made me free from the law of sin and death."

The stale saying the Christian Science "is neither Christian nor science!" is to-day the fossil of wisdomless wit, weakness, and superstition. "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God".

Take courage, dear reader, for any seeming mysticism surrounding realism is explained in the Scripture, "There went up a mist from the earth [matter];" and the mist of materialism will vanish as we approach spirituality, the realm of reality; cleanse our lives in Christ's righteousness; bathe in the baptism of Spirit, and awake in His likeness.

---

MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS

TO

LOYAL CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS

IN THIS AND EVERY LAND

I LOVINGLY DEDICATE THESE PRACTICAL TEACHINGS

INDISPENSABLE TO THE CULTURE AND ACHIEVEMENTS WHICH

CONSTITUTE THE SUCCESS OF A STUDENT

AND DEMONSTRATE THE ETHICS

OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

MARY BAKER EDDY

PRAY thee, take care, that tak'st my book in hand,

To read it well; that is, to understand.

BEN JONSON: Epigram I

WHEN I would know thee . . . my thought looks

Upon thy well made choice of friends and books;

Then do I love thee, and behold thy ends

In making thy friends books, and thy books friends.

BEN JONSON: Epigram 86

IF worlds were formed by matter,

And mankind from the dust;

Till time shall end more timely,

There's nothing here to trust.

Thenceforth to evolution's

Geology, we say, --

Nothing have we gained therefrom,

And nothing have to pray:

My world has sprung from Spirit,

In everlasting day;

Whereof, I've more to glory,

Wherefor, have much to pay.

MARY BAKER EDDY

Preface

A CERTAIN apothegm of a Talmudical philosopher suits my sense of doing good. It reads thus: "The noblest charity is to prevent a man from accepting charity; and the best alms are to show and to enable a man to dispense with alms."

In the early history of Christian Science, among my thousands of students few were wealthy. Now, Christian Scientists are not indigent; and their comfortable fortunes are acquired by healing mankind morally, physically, spiritually. The easel of time presents pictures -- once fragmentary and faint -- now rejuvenated by the touch of God's right hand. Where joy, sorrow, hope, disappointment, sigh, and smile commingled, now hope sits dove-like.

To preserve a long course of years still and uniform, amid the uniform darkness of storm and cloud and tempest, requires strength from above, -- deep draughts from the fount of divine Love. Truly may it be said: There is an old age of the heart, and a youth that never grows old; a Love that is a boy, and a Psyche who is ever a girl. The fleeting freshness of youth, however, is not the evergreen of Soul; the coloring glory of perpetual bloom; the spiritual glow and grandeur of a consecrated life wherein dwelleth peace, sacred and sincere in trial or in triumph.

The opportunity has at length offered itself for me to comply with an oft-repeated request; namely, to collect my miscellaneous writings published in The Christian Science Journal, since April, 1883, and republish them in book form, -- accessible as reference, and reliable as old landmarks. Owing to the manifold demands on my time in the early pioneer days, most of these articles were originally written in haste, without due preparation. To those heretofore in print, a few articles are herein appended. To some articles are affixed data, where these are most requisite, to serve as mile-stones measuring the distance, -- or the difference between then and now, -- in the opinions of men and the progress of our Cause.

My signature has been slightly changed from my Christian name, Mary Morse Baker. Timidity in early years caused me, as an author, to assume various noms de plume. After my first marriage, to Colonel Glover of Charleston, South Carolina, I dropped the name of Morse to retain my maiden name, -- thinking that otherwise the name would be too long.

In 1894, I received from the Daughters of the American Revolution a certificate of membership made out to Mary Baker Eddy, and thereafter adopted that form of signature, except in connection with my published works. The first edition of Science and Health having been copyrighted at the date of its issue, 1875, in my name of Glover, caused me to retain the initial "G" on my subsequent books.

These pages, although a reproduction of what has been written, are still in advance of their time; and are richly rewarded by what they have hitherto achieved for the race. While no offering can liquidate one's debt of gratitude to God, the fervent heart and willing hand are not unknown to nor unrewarded by Him.

May this volume be to the reader a graphic guidebook, pointing the path, dating the unseen, and enabling him to walk the untrodden in the hitherto unexplored field of Science. At each recurring holiday the Christian Scientist will find herein a "canny" crumb; and thus may time's pastimes become footsteps to joys eternal.

Realism will at length be found to surpass imagination, and to suit and savor all literature. The shuttlecock of religious intolerance will fall to the ground, if there be no battledores to fling it back and forth. It is reason for rejoicing that the vox populi is inclined to grant us peace, together with pardon for the preliminary battles that purchased it.

With tender tread, thought sometimes walks in memory, through the dim corridors of years, on to old battlegrounds, there sadly to survey the fields of the slain and the enemy's losses. In compiling this work, I have tried to remove the pioneer signs and ensigns of war, and to retain at this date the privileged armaments of peace.

With armor on, I continue the march, command and countermand; meantime interluding with loving thought this afterpiece of battle. Supported, cheered, I take my pen and pruning-hook, to "learn war no more," and with strong wing to lift my readers above the smoke of conflict into light and liberty.

MARY BAKER EDDY

CONCORD, N. H.

January 1897.

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

PROSPECTUS

THE ancient Greek looked longingly for the Olympiad. The Chaldee watched the appearing of a star; to him, no higher destiny dawned on the dome of being than that foreshadowed by signs in the heavens. The meek Nazarene, the scoffed of all scoffers, said, "Ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?" -- for he forefelt and foresaw the ordeal of a perfect Christianity, hated by sinners.

To kindle all minds with a gleam of gratitude, the new idea that comes welling up from infinite Truth needs to be understood. The seer of this age should be a sage.

Humility is the stepping-stone to a higher recognition of Deity. The mounting sense gathers fresh forms and strange fire from the ashes of dissolving self, and drops the world. Meekness heightens immortal attributes only by removing the dust that dims them. Goodness reveals another scene and another self seemingly rolled up in shades, but brought to light by the evolutions of advancing thought, whereby we discern the power of Truth and Love to heal the sick.

Pride is ignorance; those assume most who have the least wisdom or experience; and they steal from their neighbor, because they have so little of their own.

The signs of these times portend a long and strong determination of mankind to cleave to the world, the flesh and evil, causing great obscuration of Spirit. When we remember that God is just, and admit the total depravity of mortals, alias mortal mind, -- and that this Adam legacy must first be seen, and then must be subdued and recompensed by justice, the eternal attribute of Truth,-- the outlook demands labor, and the laborers seem few. To-day we behold but the first faint view of a more spiritual Christianity, that embraces a deeper and broader philosophy and a more rational and divine healing. The time approaches when divine Life, Truth, and Love will be found alone the remedy for sin, sickness, and death; when God, man's saving Principle, and Christ, the spiritual idea of God, will be revealed.

Man's probation after death is the necessity of his immortality; for good dies not and evil is self-destructive, therefore evil must be mortal and self-destroyed. If man should not progress after death, but should remain in error, he would be inevitably self-annihilated. Those upon whom "the second death hath no power" are those who progress here and hereafter out of evil, their mortal element, and into good that is immortal; thus laying off the material beliefs that war against Spirit, and putting on the spiritual elements in divine Science.

While we entertained decided views as to the best method for elevating the race physically, morally, and spiritually, and shall express these views as duty demands, we shall claim no especial gift from our divine origin, no supernatural power. If we regard good as more natural than evil, and spiritual understanding -- the true knowledge of God -- as imparting the only power to heal the sick and the sinner, we shall demonstrate in our lives the power of Truth and Love.

The lessons we learn in divine Science are applicable to all the needs of man. Jesus taught them for this very purpose; and his demonstration hath taught us that "through his stripes" -- his life-experience -- and divine Science, brought to the understanding through Christ, the Spirit-revelator, is man healed and saved. No opinions of mortals nor human hypotheses enter this line of thought or action. Drugs, inert matter, never are needed to aid spiritual power. Hygiene, manipulation, and mesmerism are not Mind's medicine. The Principle of all cure is God, unerring and immortal Mind. We have learned that the erring or mortal thought holds in itself all sin, sickness, and death, and imparts these states to the body; while the supreme and perfect Mind, as seen in the truth of being, antidotes and destroys these material elements of sin and death.

Because God is supreme and omnipotent, materia medica, hygiene, and animal magnetism are impotent; and their only supposed efficacy is in apparently deluding reason, denying revelation, and dethroning Deity. The tendency of mental healing is to uplift mankind; but this method perverted, is "Satan let loose." Hence the deep demand for the Science of psychology to meet sin, and uncover it; thus to annihilate hallucination.

Thought imbued with purity, Truth, and Love, instructed in the Science of metaphysical healing, is the most potent and desirable remedial agent on the earth. At this period there is a marked tendency of mortal mind to plant mental healing on the basis of hypnotism, calling this method "mental science." All Science is Christian Science; the Science of the Mind that is God, and of the universe as His idea, and their relation to each other. Its only power to heal is its power to do good, not evil. A TIMELY ISSUE

At this date, 1883, a newspaper edited and published by the Christian Scientists has become a necessity. Many questions important to be disposed of come to the College and to the practising students, yet but little time has been devoted to their answer. Further enlightenment is necessary for the age, and a periodical devoted to this work seems alone adequate to meet the requirement. Much interest is awakened and expressed on the subject of metaphysical healing, but in many minds it is confounded with isms, and even infidelity, so that its religious specialty and the vastness of its worth are not understood.

It is often said, "You must have a very strong will-power to heal," or, "It must require a great deal of faith to make your demonstrations." When it is answered that there is no will-power required, and that something more than faith is necessary, we meet with an expression of incredulity. It is not alone the mission of Christian Science to heal the sick, but to destroy sin in mortal thought. This work well done will elevate and purify the race. It cannot fail to do this if we devote our best energies to the work.

Science reveals man as spiritual, harmonious, and eternal. This should be understood. Our College should be crowded with students who are willing to consecrate themselves to this Christian work. Mothers should be able to produce perfect health and perfect morals in their children -- and ministers, to heal the sick -- by studying this scientific method of practising Christianity. Many say, "I should like to study, but have not sufficient faith that I have the power to heal." The healing power is Truth and Love, and these do not fail in the greatest emergencies.

Materia medica says, "I can do no more. I have done all that can be done. There is nothing to build upon. There is no longer any reason for hope." Then metaphysics comes in, armed with the power of Spirit, not matter, takes up the case hopefully and builds on the stone that the builders have rejected, and is successful.

Metaphysical therapeutics can seem a miracle and a mystery to those only who do not understand the grand reality that Mind controls the body. They acknowledge an erring or mortal mind, but believe it to be brain matter. That man is the idea of infinite Mind, always perfect in God, in Truth, Life, and Love, is something not easily accepted, weighed down as is mortal thought with material beliefs. That which never existed, can seem solid substance to this thought. It is much easier for people to believe that the body affects the mind, than that the mind affects the body.

We hear from the pulpits that sickness is sent as a discipline to bring man nearer to God, -- even though sickness often leaves mortals but little time free from complaints and fretfulness, and Jesus cast out disease as evil.

The most of our Christian Science practitioners have plenty to do, and many more are needed for the advancement of the age. At present the majority of the acute cases are given to the M.D.'s, and only those cases that are pronounced incurable are passed over to the Scientist. The healing of such cases should certainly prove to all minds the power of metaphysics over physics; and it surely does, to many thinkers, as the rapid growth of the work shows. At no distant day, Christian healing will rank far in advance of allopathy and homoeopathy; for Truth must ultimately succeed where error fails.

Mind governs all. That we exist in God, perfect, there is no doubt, for the conceptions of Life, Truth, and Love must be perfect; and with that basic truth we conquer sickness, sin, and death. Frequently it requires time to overcome the patient's faith in drugs and material hygiene; but when once convinced of the uselessness of such material methods, the gain is rapid.

It is a noticeable fact, that in families where laws of health are strictly enforced, great caution is observed in regard to diet, and the conversation chiefly confined to the ailments of the body, there is the most sickness. Take a large family of children where the mother has all that she can attend to in keeping them clothed and fed, and health is generally the rule; whereas, in small families of one or two children, sickness is by no means the exception. These children must not be allowed to eat certain food, nor to breathe the cold air, because there is danger in it; when they perspire, they must be loaded down with coverings until their bodies become dry, -- and the mother of one child is often busier than the mother of eight.

Great charity and humility is necessary in this work of healing. The loving patience of Jesus, we must strive to emulate. "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" has daily to be exemplified; and, although skepticism and incredulity prevail in places where one would least expect it, it harms not; for if serving Christ, Truth, of what can mortal opinion avail? Cast not your pearls before swine; but if you cannot bring peace to all, you can to many, if faithful laborers in His vineyard.

Looking over the newspapers of the day, one naturally reflects that it is dangerous to live, so loaded with disease seems the very air. These descriptions carry fears to many minds, to be depicted in some future time upon the body. A periodical of our own will counteract to some extent this public nuisance; for through our paper, at the price at which we shall issue it, we shall be able to reach many homes with healing, purifying thought. A great work already has been done, and a greater work yet remains to be done. Oftentimes we are denied the results of our labors because people do not understand the nature and power of metaphysics, and they think that health and strength would have returned naturally without any assistance. This is not so much from a lack of justice, as it is that the mens populi is not sufficiently enlightened on this great subject. More thought is given to material illusions then to spiritual facts. If we can aid in abating suffering and diminishing sin, we shall have accomplished much; but if we can bring to the general thought this great fact that drugs do not, cannot, produce health and harmony, since "in Him [Mind] we live, and move, and have our being," we shall have done more. LOVE YOUR ENEMIES

Who is thine enemy that thou shouldst love him? Is it a creature or a thing outside thine own creation?

Can you see an enemy, except you first formulate this enemy and then look upon the object of your own conception? What is it that harms you? Can height, or depth, or any other creature separate you from the Love that is omnipresent good, -- that blesses infinitely one and all?

Simply count your enemy to be that which defiles, defaces, and dethrones the Christ-image that you should reflect. Whatever purifies, sanctifies, and consecrates human life, is not an enemy, however much we suffer in the process. Shakespeare writes: "Sweet are the uses of adversity." Jesus said: "Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake;. . . for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you."

The Hebrew law with its "Thou shalt not," its demand and sentence, can only be fulfilled through the gospel's benediction. Then, "Blessed are ye," insomuch as the consciousness of good, grace, and peace, comes through affliction rightly understood, as sanctified by the purification it brings to the flesh, -- to pride, self-ignorance, self-will, self-love, self-justification. Sweet, indeed, are these uses of His rod! Well is it that the Shepherd of Israel passes all His flock under His rod into His fold; thereby numbering them, and giving them refuge at last from the elements of earth.

"Love thine enemies" is identical with "Thou hast no enemies." Wherein is this conclusion relative to those who have hated thee without a cause? Simply, in that those unfortunate individuals are virtually thy best friends. Primarily and ultimately, they are doing thee good far beyond the present sense which thou canst entertain of good.

Whom we call friends seem to sweeten life's cup and to fill it with the nectar of the gods. We lift this cup to our lips; but it slips from our grasp, to fall in fragments before our eyes. Perchance, having tasted its tempting wine, we become intoxicated; become lethargic, dreamy objects of self-satisfaction; else, the contents of this cup of selfish human enjoyment having lost its flavor, we voluntarily set it aside as tasteless and unworthy of human aims.

And wherefore our failure longer to relish this fleeting sense, with its delicious forms of friendship, wherewith mortals become educated to gratification in personal pleasure and trained in treacherous peace? Because it is the great and only danger in the path that winds upward. A false sense of what constitutes happiness is more disastrous to human progress than all that an enemy or enmity can obtrude upon the mind or engraft upon its purposes and achievements wherewith to obstruct life's joys and enhance its sorrows.

We have no enemies. Whatever envy, hatred, revenge -- the most remorseless motives that govern mortal mind -- whatever these try to do, shall "work together for good to them that love God."

Why?

Because He has called His own, armed them, equipped them, and furnished them defenses impregnable. Their God will not let them be lost; and if they fall they shall rise again, stronger than before the stumble. The good cannot lose their God, their help in times of trouble. If they mistake the divine command, they will recover it, countermand their order, retrace their steps, and reinstate His orders, more assured to press on safely. The best lesson of their lives is gained by crossing swords with temptation, with fear and the besetments of evil; insomuch as they thereby have tried their strength and proven it; insomuch as they have found their strength made perfect in weakness, and their fear is self-immolated.

This destruction is a moral chemicalization, wherein old things pass away and all things become new. The worldly or material tendencies of human affections and pursuits are thus annihilated; and this is the advent of spiritualization. Heaven comes down to earth, and mortals learn at last the lesson, "I have no enemies."

Even in belief you have but one (that, not in reality), and this one enemy is yourself -- your erroneous belief that you have enemies; that evil is real; that aught but good exists in Science. Soon or late, your enemy will wake from his delusion to suffer for his evil intent; to find that, though thwarted, its punishment is tenfold.

Love is the fulfilling of the law: it is grace, mercy, and justice. I used to think it sufficiently just to abide by our State statutes; that if a man should aim a ball at my heart, and I by firing first could kill him and save my own life, that this was right. I thought, also, that if I taught indigent students gratuitously, afterwards assisting them pecuniarily, and did not cease teaching the wayward ones at close of the class term, but followed them with precept upon precept; that if my instructions had healed them and shown them the sure way of salvation, -- I had done my whole duty to students.

Love metes not out human justice, but divine mercy. If one's life were attacked, and one could save it only in accordance with common law, by taking another's, would one sooner give up his own? We must love our enemies in all the manifestations wherein and whereby we love our friends; must even try not to expose their faults, but to do them good whenever opportunity occurs. To mete out human justice to those who persecute and despitefully use one, is not leaving all retribution to God and returning blessing for cursing. If special opportunity for doing good to one's enemies occur not, one can include them in his general effort to benefit the race. Because I can do much general good to such as hate me, I do it with earnest, special care-- since they permit me no other way, though with tears have I striven for it. When smitten on one cheek, I have turned the other: I have but two to present.

I would enjoy taking by the hand all who love me not, and saying to them, "I love you, and would not knowingly harm you." Because I thus feel, I say to others: Hate no one; for hatred is a plague-spot that spreads its virus and kills at last. If indulged, it masters us; brings suffering upon suffering to its possessor, throughout time and beyond the grave. If you have been badly wronged, forgive and forget: God will recompense this wrong, and punish, more severely than you could, him who was striven to injure you. Never return evil for evil; and, above all, do not fancy that you have been wronged when you have not been.

The present is ours; the future, big with events. Every man and woman should be to-day a law to himself, herself,-- a law of loyalty to Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. The means for sinning unseen and unpunished have so increased that, unless one be watchful and steadfast in Love, one's temptations to sin are increased a hundredfold. Mortal mind at this period mutely works in the interest of both good and evil in a manner least understood; hence the need of watching, and the danger of yielding to temptation from causes that at former periods in human history were not existent. The action and effects of this so-called human mind in its silent arguments, are yet to be uncovered and summarily dealt with by divine justice.

In Christian Science, the law of Love rejoices the heart; and Love is Life and Truth. Whatever manifests aught else in its effects upon mankind, demonstrably is not Love. We should measure our love for God by our love for man; and our sense of Science will be measured by our obedience to God, -- fulfilling the law of Love, doing good to all; imparting, so far as we reflect them, Truth, Life, and Love to all within the radius of our atmosphere of thought.

The only justice of which I feel at present capable, is mercy and charity toward every one, -- just so far as one and all permit me to exercise these sentiments toward them, -- taking special care to mind my own business.

The falsehood, ingratitude, misjudgment, and sharp return of evil for good -- yea, the real wrongs (if wrong can be real) which I have long endured at the hands of others -- have most happily wrought out for me the law of loving mine enemies. This law I now urge upon the solemn consideration of all Christian Scientists. Jesus said, "If ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them." CHRISTIAN THEISM

Scholastic theology elaborates the proposition that evil is a factor of good, and that to believe in the reality of evil is essential to a rounded sense of the existence of good.

This frail hypothesis is founded upon the basis of material and mortal evidence -- only upon what the shifting mortal senses confirm and frail human reason accepts. The Science of Soul reverses this proposition, overturns the testimony of the five erring senses, and reveals in clearer divinity the existence of good only; that is, of God and His idea.

This postulate of divine Science only needs to be conceded, to afford opportunity for proof of its correctness and the clearer discernment of good.

Seek the Anglo-Saxon term for God, and you will find it to be good; then define good as God, and you will find that good is omnipotence, has all power; it fills all space, being omnipresent; hence, there is neither place nor power left for evil. Divest your thought, then, of the mortal and material view which contradicts the ever presence and all-power of good; take in only the immortal facts which include these, and where will you see or feel evil, or find its existence necessary either to the origin or ultimate of good?

It is urged that, from his original state of perfection, man has fallen into the imperfection that requires evil through which to develop good. Were we to admit this vague proposition, the Science of man could never be learned; for in order to learn Science, we begin with the correct statement, with harmony and its Principle; and if man has lost his Principle and its harmony, from evidences before him he is incapable of knowing the facts of existence and its concomitants: therefore to him evil is as real and eternal as good, God! This awful deception is evil's umpire and empire, that good, God, understood, forcibly destroys.

What appears to mortals from their standpoint to be the necessity for evil, is proven by the law of opposites to be without necessity. Good is the primitive Principle of man; and evil, good's opposite, has no Principle, and is not, and cannot be, the derivative of good. Thus evil is neither a primitive nor a derivative, but is suppositional; in other words, a lie that is incapable of proof -- therefore, wholly problematical.

The Science of Truth annihilates error, deprives evil of all power, and thereby destroys all error, sin, sickness, disease, and death. But the sinner is not sheltered from suffering from sin: he makes a great reality of evil, identifies himself with it, fancies he finds pleasure in it, and will reap what he sows; hence the sinner must endure the effects of his delusion until he awakes from it. THE NEW BIRTH

St. Paul speaks of the new birth as "waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." The great Nazarene Prophet said, "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God." Nothing aside from the spiritualization -- yea, the highest Christianization -- of thought and desire, can give the true perception of God and divine Science, that results in health, happiness, and holiness.

The new birth is not the work of a moment. It begins with moments, and goes on with the years; moments of surrender to God, of childlike trust and joyful adoption of good; moments of self-abnegation, self-consecration, heaven-born hope, and spiritual love.

Time may commence, but it cannot complete, the new birth: eternity does this; for progress is the law of infinity. Only through the sore travail of mortal mind shall soul as sense be satisfied, and man awake in His likeness. What a faith-lighted thought as this! that mortals can lay off the "old man," until man is found to be the image of the infinite good that we name God, and the fulness of the stature of man in Christ appears.

In mortal and material man, goodness seems in embryo. By suffering for sin, and the gradual fading out of the mortal and material sense of man, thought is developed into an infant Christianity; and, feeding at first on the milk of the Word, it drinks in the sweet revealings of a new and more spiritual Life and Love. These nourish the hungry hope, satisfy more the cravings for immortality, and so comfort, cheer, and bless one, that he saith: In mine infancy, this is enough of heaven to come down to earth.

But, as one grows into the manhood or womanhood of Christianity, one finds so much lacking, and so very much requisite to become wholly Christlike, that one saith: The Principle of Christianity is infinite: it is indeed God; and this infinite Principle hath infinite claims on man, and these claims are divine, not human; and man's ability to meet them is from God; for, being His likeness and image, man must reflect the full dominion of Spirit -- even its supremacy over sin, sickness, and death.

Here, then, is the awakening from the dream of life in matter, to the great fact that God is the only Life; that, therefore, we must entertain a higher sense of both God and man. We must learn that God is infinitely more than a person, or finite form, can contain; that God is a divine Whole, and All, and all all-pervading intelligence and Love, a divine, infinite Principle; and that Christianity is a divine Science. This newly awakened consciousness is wholly spiritual; it emanates from Soul instead of body, and is the new birth begun in Christian Science.

Now, dear reader, pause for a moment with me, earnestly to contemplate this new-born spiritual altitude; for this statement demands demonstration.

Here you stand face to face with the laws of infinite Spirit, and behold for the first time the irresistible conflict between the flesh and Spirit. You stand before the awful detonations of Sinai. You hear and record the thunderings of the spiritual laws of Life, as opposed to the material law of death; the spiritual law of Love, as opposed to the material sense of love; the law of omnipotent harmony and good, as opposed to any supposititious law of sin, sickness, or death. And, before the flames have died away on this mount of revelation, like the patriarch of old, you take off your shoes -- lay aside your material appendages, human opinions and doctrines, give up your more material religion with its rites and ceremonies, put off your materia medica and hygiene as worse than useless -- to sit at the feet of Jesus. Then, you meekly bow before the Christ, the spiritual idea that our great Master gave of the power of God to heal and to save. Then it is that you behold for the first time the divine Principle that redeems man from under the curse of materialism, -- sin, disease and death. This spiritual birth opens to the enraptured understanding a much higher and holier conception of the supremacy of Spirit, and of man as His likeness, whereby man reflects the divine power to heal the sick.

A material or human birth is the appearing of a mortal, not the immortal man. This birth is more or less prolonged and painful, according to the timely or untimely circumstances, the normal or abnormal material conditions attending it.

With this spiritual birth, man's primitive, sinless, spiritual existence dawns on human thought, -- through the travail of mortal mind, hope deferred, the perishing pleasure and accumulating pains of sense, -- by which one loses himself as matter, and gains a truer sense of Spirit and spiritual man.

The purification or baptismals that come from Spirit, develop, step by step, the original likeness of perfect man, and efface the mark of the beast. "Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth;" therefore rejoice in tribulation, and welcome these spiritual signs of the new birth under the law and gospel of Christ, Truth.

The prominent laws which forward birth in the divine order of Science, are these: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me;" "Love thy neighbor as thyself." These commands of infinite wisdom, translated into the new tongue, their spiritual meaning, signify: Thou shalt love Spirit only, not its opposite, in every God quality, even in substance; thou shalt recognize thyself as God's spiritual child only, and the true man and true woman, the all-harmonious "male and female," as of spiritual origin, God's reflection, -- thus as children of one common Parent, -- wherein and whereby, Father, Mother, and child are the divine Principle and divine idea, even the divine "Us" -- one in good, and good in One.

With this recognition man could never separation himself from good, God; and he would necessarily entertain habitual love for his fellow-man. Only by admitting evil as a reality, and entering into a state of evil thoughts, can we in belief separate one man's interests from those of the whole human family, or thus attempt to separate Life from God. This is the mistake that causes much that must be repented of and overcome. Not to know what is blessing you, but to believe that aught that God sends is unjust, -- or that those whom He commissions bring to you at His demand that which is unjust, -- is wrong and cruel. Envy, evil thinking, evil speaking, covetousness, lust, hatred, malice, are always wrong, and will break the rule of Christian Science and prevent its demonstration; but the rod of God, and the obedience demanded of His servants in carrying out what He teaches them, -- these are never unmerciful, never unwise.

The task of healing the sick is far lighter than that of so teaching the divine Principle and rules of Christian Science as to lift the affections and motives of men to adopt them and bring them out in human lives. He who has named the name of Christ, who has virtually accepted the divine claims of Truth and Love in divine Science, is daily departing from evil; and all the wicked endeavors of suppositional demons can never change the current of that life from steadfastly flowing on to God, its divine source.

But, taking the livery of heaven wherewith to cover iniquity, is the most fearful sin that mortals can commit. I should have more faith in an honest drugging-doctor, one who abides by his statements and works upon as high a basis as he understands, healing me, than I could or would have in a smooth-tongued hypocrite or mental malpractitioner.

Between the centripetal and centrifugal mental forces of material and spiritual gravitations, we go into or we go out of materialism or sin, and choose our course and its results. Which, then, shall be our choice, -- the sinful, material, and perishable, or the spiritual, joy-giving, and eternal?

The spiritual sense of Life and its grand pursuits is of itself a bliss, health-giving and joy-inspiring. This sense of Life illumes our pathway with the radiance of divine Love; heals man spontaneously, morally, and physically, -- exhaling the aroma of Jesus' own words, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

---

Message for 1902 by Mary Baker Eddy

THE OLD AND THE NEW COMMANDMENT

BELOVED brethren, another year of God's loving providence for His people in times of persecution has marked the history of Christian Science. With no special effort to achieve this result, our church communicants constantly increase in number, unity, steadfastness. Two thousand seven hundred and eighty-four members have been added to our church during the year ending June, 1902, making total twenty-four thousand two hundred and seventy-eight members; while our branch churches are multiplying everywhere and blossoming as the rose. Evil, though combined in formidable conspiracy, is made to glorify God. The Scripture declares, "The wrath of man shall praise Thee: the remainder of wrath shalt Thou restrain."

Whatever seems calculated to displace or discredit the ordinary systems of religious beliefs and opinions wrestling only with material observation, has always met with opposition and detraction; this ought not so to be, for a system that honors God and benefits mankind should be welcomed and sustained. While Christian Science, engaging the attention of philosopher and sage, is circling the globe, only the earnest, honest investigator sees through the mist of mortal strife this daystar, and whither it guides.

To live and let live, without clamor for distinction or recognition; to wait on divine Love; to write truth first on the tablet of one's own heart, -- this is the sanity and perfection of living, and my human ideal. The Science of man and the universe, in contradistinction to all error, is on the way, and Truth makes haste to meet and to welcome it. It is purifying all peoples, religions, ethics, and learning, and making the children our teachers.

Within the last decade religion in the United States has passed from stern Protestantism to doubtful liberalism. God speed the right! The wise builders will build on the stone at the head of the corner; and so Christian Science, the little leaven hid in three measures of meal, -- ethics, medicine, and religion, -- is rapidly fermenting, and enlightening the world with the glory of untrammelled truth. The present modifications in ecclesiasticism are an outcome of progress; dogmatism, relegated to the past, gives place to a more spiritual manifestation, wherein Christ is Alpha and Omega. It was an inherent characteristic of my nature, a kind of birthmark, to love the Church; and the Church once loved me. Then why not remain friends, or at least agree to disagree, in love, -- part fair foes. I never left the Church, either in heart or in doctrine; I but began where the Church left off. When the churches and I round the gospel of grace, in the circle of love, we shall meet again, never to part. I have always taught the student to overcome evil with good, used no other means myself; and ten thousand loyal Christian Scientists to one disloyal, bear testimony to this fact.

The loosening cords of non-Christian religions in the Orient are apparent. It is cause for joy that among the educated classes Buddhism and Shintoism are said to be regarded now more as a philosophy than as a religion.

I rejoice that the President of the United States has put an end, at Charleston, to any lingering sense of the North's half-hostility to the South, thus reinstating the old national family pride and joy in the sisterhood of States.

Our nation's forward step was the inauguration of home rule in Cuba, -- our military forces withdrawing, and leaving her in the enjoyment of self-government under improved laws. It is well that our government, in its brief occupation of that pearl of the ocean, has so improved her public school system that her dusky children are learning to read and write.

The world rejoices with our sister nation over the close of the conflict in South Africa; now, British and Boer may prosper in peace, wiser at the close than the beginning of war. The dazzling diadem of royalty will sit easier on the brow of good King Edward, -- the muffled fear of death and triumph canker not his coronation, and woman's thoughts -- the joy of the sainted Queen, and the lay of angels -- hallow the ring of state.

It does not follow that power must mature into oppression; indeed, right is the only real potency; and the only true ambition is to serve God and to help the race. Envy is the atmosphere of hell. According to Holy Writ, the first lie and leap into perdition began with "Believe in me." Competition in commerce, deceit in councils, dishonor in nations, dishonesty in trusts, begin with "Who shall be greatest?" I again repeat, Follow your Leader, only so far as she follows Christ.

I cordially congratulate our Board of Lectureship, and Publication Committee, on their adequacy and correct analysis of Christian Science. Let us all pray at this Communion season for more grace, a more fulfilled life and spiritual understanding, bringing music to the ear, rapture to the heart -- a fathomless peace between Soul and sense -- and that our works be as worthy as our words.

My subject to-day embraces the First Commandment in the Hebrew Decalogue, and the new commandment in the gospel of peace, both ringing like soft vesper chimes adown the corridors of time, and echoing and reechoing through the measureless rounds of eternity. GOD AS LOVE

The First Commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," is a law never to be abrogated -- a divine statute for yesterday, and to-day, and forever. I shall briefly consider these two commandments in a few of their infinite meanings, applicable to all periods -- past, present and future.

Alternately transported and alarmed by abstruse problems of Scripture, we are liable to turn from them as impractical, or beyond the ken of mortals, -- and past finding out. Our thoughts of the Bible utter our lives. As silent night foretells the dawn and din of morn; as the dullness of to-day prophesies renewed energy for to-morrow, -- so the pagan philosophies and tribal religions of yesterday but foreshadowed the spiritual dawn of the twentieth century -- religion parting with its materiality.

Christian Science stills all distress over doubtful interpretations of the Bible; it lights the fires of the Holy Ghost, and floods the world with the baptism of Jesus. It is this ethereal flame, this almost unconceived light of divine Love, that heaven husbands in the First Commandment.

For man to be thoroughly subordinated to this commandment, God must be intelligently considered and understood. The ever-recurring human question and wonder, What is God? can never be answered satisfactorily by human hypotheses or philosophy. Divine metaphysics and St. John have answered this great question forever in these words: "God is Love." This absolute definition of Deity is the theme for time and for eternity; it is iterated in the law of God, reiterated in the gospel of Christ, voiced in the thunder of Sinai, and breathed in the Sermon on the Mount. Hence our Master's saying, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil."

Since God is Love, and infinite, why should mortals conceive of a law, propound a question, formulate a doctrine, or speculate on the existence of anything which is an antipode of infinite Love and the manifestation thereof? The sacred command, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," silences all questions on this subject, and forever forbids the thought of any other reality, since it is impossible to have aught unlike the infinite.

The knowledge of life, substance, or law, apart or other than God -- good -- is forbidden. The curse of Love and Truth was pronounced upon a lie, upon false knowledge, the fruits of the flesh not Spirit. Since knowledge of evil, of something besides God, good, brought death into the world on the basis of a lie, Love and Truth destroy this knowledge, -- and Christ, Truth, demonstrated and continues to demonstrate this grand verity, saving the sinner and healing the sick. Jesus said a lie fathers itself, thereby showing that God made neither evil nor its consequences. Here all human woe is seen to obtain in a false claim, an untrue consciousness, an impossible creation, yea, something that is not of God. The Christianization of mortals, whereby the mortal concept and all it includes is obliterated, lets in the divine sense of being, fulfils the law in righteousness, and consummates the First Commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." All Christian faith, hope, and prayer, all devout desire, virtually petition, Make me the image and likeness of divine Love.

Through Christ, Truth, divine metaphysics points the way, demonstrates heaven here, -- the struggle over, and victory on the side of Truth. In the degree that man becomes spiritually minded he becomes Godlike. St. Paul writes: "For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." Divine Science fulfils the law and the gospel, wherein God is infinite Love, including nothing unlovely, producing nothing unlike Himself, the true nature of Love intact and eternal. Divine metaphysics concedes no origin or causation apart from God. It accords all to God, Spirit, and His infinite manifestations of love -- man and the universe.

In the first chapter of Genesis, matter, sin, disease, and death enter not into the category of creation or consciousness. Minus this spiritual understanding of Scripture, of God and His creation, neither philosophy, nature, nor grace can give man the true idea of God -- divine Love -- sufficiently to fulfil the First Commandment.

The Latin omni, which signifies all, used as an English prefix to the words potence, presence, science, signifies all-power, all-presence, all-science. Use these words to define God, and nothing is left to consciousness but Love, without beginning and without end, even the forever I AM, and All, than which there is naught else. Thus we have Scriptural authority for divine metaphysics -- spiritual man and the universe coexistent with God. No other logical conclusion can be drawn from the premises, and no other scientific proposition can be Christianly entertained. LOVE ONE ANOTHER

Here we proceed to another Scriptural passage which serves to confirm Christian Science. Christ Jesus saith, "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you." It is obvious that he called his disciples' special attention to his new commandment. And wherefore? Because it emphasizes the apostle's declaration, "God is Love," -- it elucidates Christianity, illustrates God, and man as His likeness, and commands man to love as Jesus loved.

The law and the gospel concur, and both will be fulfilled. Is it necessary to say that the likeness of God, Spirit, is spiritual, and the likeness of Love is loving? When loving, we learn that "God is Love;" mortals hating, or unloving, are neither Christians nor Scientists. The new commandment of Christ Jesus shows what true spirituality is, and its harmonious effects on the sick and the sinner. No person can heal or reform mankind unless he is actuated by love and good will towards men. The coincidence between the law and the gospel, between the old and the new commandment, confirms the fact that God and Love are one. The spiritually minded are inspired with tenderness, Truth, and Love. The life of Christ Jesus, his words and his deeds, demonstrate Love. We have no evidence of being Christian Scientists except we possess this inspiration, and its power to heal and to save. The energy that saves sinners and heals the sick is divine: and Love is the Principle thereof. Scientific Christianity works out the rule of spiritual love; it makes man active, it prompts perpetual goodness, for the ego, or I, goes to the Father, whereby man is Godlike. Love, purity, meekness, coexist in divine Science. Lust, hatred, revenge, coincide in material sense. Christ Jesus reckoned man in Science, having the kingdom of heaven within him. He spake of man not as the offspring of Adam, a departure from God, or His lost likeness, but as God's child. Spiritual love makes man conscious that God is his Father, and the consciousness of God as Love gives man power with untold furtherance. Then God becomes to him the All-presence -- quenching sin; the All-power -- giving life, health, holiness; the All-science -- all law and gospel.

Jesus commanded, "Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead;" in other words, Let the world, popularity, pride, and ease concern you less, and love thou. When the full significance of this saying is understood, we shall have better practitioners, and Truth will arise in human thought with healing in its wings, regenerating mankind and fulfilling the apostle's saying: "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." Loving chords set discords in harmony. Every condition implied by the great Master, every promise fulfilled, was loving and spiritual, urging a state of consciousness that leaves the minor tones of so-called material life and abides in Christlikeness.

The unity of God and man is not the dream of a heated brain; it is the spirit of the healing Christ, that dwelt forever in the bosom of the Father, and should abide forever in man. When first I heard the life-giving sound thereof, and knew not whence it came nor whither it tended, it was the proof of its divine origin, and healing power, that opened my closed eyes.

Did the age's thinkers laugh long over Morse's discovery of telegraphy? Did they quarrel long with the inventor of a steam engine? Is it cause for bitter comment and personal abuse that an individual has met the need of mankind with some new-old truth that counteracts ignorance and superstition? Whatever enlarges man's facilities for knowing and doing good, and subjugates matter, has a fight with the flesh. Utilizing the capacities of the human mind uncovers new ideas, unfolds spiritual forces, the divine energies, and their power over matter, molecule, space, time, mortality; and mortals cry out, "Art thou come hither to torment us before the time?" then dispute the facts, call them false or in advance of the time, and reiterate, Let me alone. Hence the footprints of a reformer are stained with blood. Rev. Hugh Black writes truly: "The birthplace of civilization is not Athens, but Calvary."

When the human mind is advancing above itself towards the Divine, it is subjugating the body, subduing matter, taking steps outward and upwards. This upward tendency of humanity will finally gain the scope of Jacob's vision, and rise from sense to Soul, from earth to heaven.

Religions in general admit that man becomes finally spiritual. If such is man's ultimate, his predicate tending thereto is correct, and inevitably spiritual. Wherefore, then, smite the reformer who finds the more spiritual way, shortens the distance, discharges burdensome baggage, and increases the speed of mortals' transit from matter to Spirit -- yea, from sin to holiness? This is indeed our sole proof that Christ, Truth, is the way. The old and recurring martyrdom of God's best witnesses is the infirmity of evil, the modus operandi of human error, carnality, opposition to God and His power in man. Persecuting a reformer is like sentencing a man for communicating with foreign nations in other ways than by walking every step over the land route, and swimming the ocean with a letter in his hand to leave on a foreign shore. Our heavenly Father never destined mortals who seek for a better country to wander on the shores of time disappointed travellers, tossed to and fro by adverse circumstances, inevitably subject to sin, disease, and death. Divine Love waits and pleads to save mankind -- and awaits with warrant and welcome, grace and glory, the earth-weary and heavy-laden who find and point the path to heaven.

Envy or abuse of him who, having a new idea or a more spiritual understanding of God, hastens to help on his fellow-mortals, is neither Christian nor Science. If a postal service, a steam engine, a submarine cable, a wireless telegraph, each in turn has helped mankind, how much more is accomplished when the race is helped onward by a new-old message from God, even the knowledge of salvation from sin, disease, and death.

The world's wickedness gave our glorified Master a bitter cup -- which he drank, giving thanks, then gave it to his followers to drink. Therefore it is thine, advancing Christian, and this is thy Lord's benediction upon it: "Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you."

Of old the Jews put to death the Galilean Prophet, the best Christian on earth, for the truths he said and did: while to-day Jew and Christian can unite in doctrine and in practice on the very basis of his words and works. The Jew believes that the Messiah or the Christ has not yet come; the Christian believes that Christ is come and is God. Here Christian Science intervenes, explains these doctrinal points, cancels the disagreement, and settles the whole question on the basis that Christ is the Messiah, the true spiritual idea, and this ideal of God is now and forever, here and everywhere. The Jew who believes in the First Commandment is a monotheist, he has one omnipresent God: thus the Jew unites with the Christian idea that God is come, and is ever present. The Christian who believes in the First Commandment is a monotheist: thus he virtually unites with the Jew's believe in one God, and that Jesus Christ is not God, as he himself declared, but is the Son of God. This declaration of Christ, understood, conflicts not at all with another of his sayings: "I and my Father are one," -- that is, one in quality, not in quantity. As a drop of water is one with the ocean, a ray of light one with the sun, even so God and man, Father and son, are one in being. The Scripture reads: "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being."

Here allow me to interpolate some matters of business that ordinarily find no place in my Message. It is a privilege to acquaint communicants with the financial transactions of this church, so far as I know them, and especially before making another united effort to purchase more land and enlarge our church edifice so as to seat the large number who annually favor us with their presence on Communion Sunday.

When founding the institutions and early movements of the Cause of Christian Science, I furnished the money from my own private earnings to meet the expenses involved. In this endeavor self was forgotten, peace sacrificed, Christ and our Cause my only incentives, and each success incurred a sharper fire from enmity.

During the last seven years I have transferred to The Mother Church, of my personal property and funds, to the value of about one hundred and twenty thousand dollars; and the net profits from the business of The Christian Science Publishing Society (which was a part of this transfer) yield this church a liberal income. I receive no personal benefit therefrom except the privilege of publishing my books in their publishing house, and desire none other.

The land on which to build The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, had been negotiated for, and about one half the price paid, when a loss of funds occurred, and I came to the rescue, purchased the mortgage on the lot corner of Falmouth and Caledonia (now Norway) Streets; paying for it the sum of ,963.50 and interest, through my legal counsel. After the mortgage had expired and the note therewith became due, legal proceedings were instituted by my counsel advertising the property in the Boston newspapers, and giving opportunity for those who had previously negotiated for the property to redeem the land by paying the amount due on the mortgage. But no one offering the price I had paid for it, nor to take the property off my hands, the mortgage was foreclosed, and the land legally conveyed to me, by my counsel. This land, now valued at twenty thousand dollars, I afterwards gave to my church through trustees, who were to be known as "The Christian Science Board of Directors." A copy of this deed is published in our Church Manual. About five thousand dollars had been paid on the land when I redeemed it. The only interest I retain in this property is to save it for my church. I can neither rent, mortgage, nor sell this church edifice nor the land whereon it stands.

I suggest as a motto for every Christian Scientist, -- a living and life-giving spiritual shield against the powers of darkness, --

"Great not like Caesar, stained with blood,

But only great as I am good."

The only genuine success possible for any Christian -- and the only success I have ever achieved -- has been accomplished on this solid basis. The remarkable growth and prosperity of Christian Science are its legitimate fruit. A successful end could never have been compassed on any other foundation, -- with truths so counter to the common convictions of mankind to present to the world. From the beginning of the great battle every forward step has been met (not by mankind, but by a kind of men) with mockery, envy, rivalry, and falsehood -- as achievement after achievement has been blazoned on the forefront of the world and recorded in heaven. The popular philosophies and religions have afforded me neither favor nor protection in the great struggle. Therefore, I ask: What has shielded and prospered preeminently our great Cause, but the outstretched arm of infinite Love? This pregnant question, answered frankly and honestly, should forever silence all private criticisms, all unjust public aspersions, and afford an open field and fair play.

In the eighties, anonymous letters mailed to me contained threats to blow up the hall where I preached; yet I never lost my faith in God, and neither informed the police of these letters nor sought the protection of the laws of my country. I leaned on God, and was safe.

Healing all manner of diseases without charge, keeping a free institute, rooming and boarding indigent students that I taught "without money and without price," I struggled on through many years; and while dependent on the income from the sale of Science and Health, my publisher paid me not one dollar of royalty on its first edition. Those were days wherein the connection between justice and being approached the mythical. Before entering upon my great life-work, my income from literary sources was ample, until, declining dictation as to what I should write, I became poor for Christ's sake. My husband, Colonel Glover, of Charleston, South Carolina, was considered wealthy, but much of his property was in slaves, and I declined to sell them at his decease in 1844, for I could never believe that a human being was my property.

Six weeks I waited on God to suggest a name for the book I had been writing. Its title, Science and Health, came to me in the silence of night, when the steadfast stars watched over the world, -- when slumber had fled, -- and I rose and recorded the hallowed suggestion. The following day I showed it to my literary friends, who advised me to drop both the book and the title. To this, however, I gave no heed, feeling sure that God had led me to write that book, and had whispered that name to my waiting hope and prayer. It was to me the "still, small voice" that came to Elijah after the earthquake and the fire. Six months thereafter Miss Dorcas Rawson of Lynn brought to me Wyclif's translation of the New Testament, and pointed out that identical phrase, "Science and Health," which is rendered in the Authorized Version "knowledge of salvation." This was my first inkling of Wyclif's use of that combination of words, or of their rendering. To-day I am the happy possessor of a copy of Wyclif, the invaluable gift of two Christian Scientists, -- Mr. W. Nicholas Miller, K. C., and Mrs. F. L. Miller, of London, England. GODLIKENESS St. Paul writes: "Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord." To attain peace and holiness is to recognize the divine presence and allness. Jesus said: "I am the way." Kindle the watch-fires of unselfed love, and they throw a light upon the uncomplaining agony in the life of our Lord; they open the enigmatical seals of the angel, standing in the sun, a glorified spiritual idea of the ever-present God -- in whom there is no darkness, but all is light, and man's immortal being. The meek might, sublime patience, wonderful works, and opening not his mouth in self-defense against false witnesses, express the life of Godlikeness. Fasting, feasting, or penance, -- merely outside forms of religion, -- fail to elucidate Christianity: they reach not the heart nor renovate it; they never destroy one iota of hypocrisy, pride, self-will, envy, or hate. The mere form of godliness, coupled with selfishness, worldliness, hatred, and lust, are knells tolling the burial of Christ.

Jesus said, "If ye love me, keep my commandments." He knew that obedience is the test of love; that one gladly obeys when obedience gives him happiness. Selfishly, or otherwise, all are ready to seek and obey what they love. When mortals learn to love aright; when they learn that man's highest happiness, that which has most of heaven in it, is in blessing others, and self-immolation -- they will obey both the old and the new commandment, and receive the reward of obedience.

Many sleep who should keep themselves awake and waken the world. Earth's actors change earth's scenes; and the curtain of human life should be lifted on reality, on that which outweighs time; on duty done and life perfected, wherein joy is real and fadeless. Who of the world's lovers ever found her true? It is wise to be willing to wait on God, and to be wiser than serpents; to hate no man, to love one's enemies, and to square accounts with each passing hour. Then thy gain outlives the sun, for the sun shines but to show man the beauty of holiness and the wealth of love. Happiness consists in being and in doing good; only what God gives, and what we give ourselves and others through His tenure, confers happiness: conscious worth satisfies the hungry heart, and nothing else can. Consult thy everyday life; take its answer as to thy aims, motives, fondest purposes, and this oracle of years will put to flight all care for the world's soft flattery or its frown. Patience and resignation are the pillars of peace that, like the sun beneath the horizon, cheer the heart susceptible of light with promised joy. Be faithful at the temple gate of conscience, wakefully guard it; then thou wilt know when the thief cometh.

The constant spectacle of sin thrust upon the pure sense of the immaculate Jesus made him a man of sorrows. He lived when mortals looked ignorantly, as now, on the might of divine power manifested through man; only to mock, wonder, and perish. Sad to say, the cowardice and self-seeking of his disciples helped crown with thorns the life of him who broke not the bruised reed and quenched not the smoking flax, -- who caused not the feeble to fall, nor spared through false pity the consuming tares. Jesus was compassionate, true, faithful to rebuke, ready to forgive. He said, " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." "Love one another, as I have loved you." No estrangement, no emulation, no deceit, enters into the heart that loves as Jesus loved. It is a false sense of love that, like the summer brook, soon gets dry. Jesus laid down his life for mankind; what more could he do? Beloved, how much of what he did are we doing? Yet he said, "The works that I do shall he do." When this prophecy of the great Teacher is fulfilled we shall have more effective healers and less theorizing; faith without proof loses its life, and it should be buried. The ignoble conduct of his disciples towards their Master, showing their unfitness to follow him, ended in the downfall of genuine Christianity, about the year 325, and the violent death of all his disciples save one.

The nature of Jesus made him keenly alive to the injustice, ingratitude, treachery, and brutality that he received. Yet behold his love! So soon as he burst the bonds of the tomb he hastened to console his unfaithful followers and to disarm their fears. Again: True to his divine nature, he rebuked them on the eve of his ascension, called one a "fool" -- then, lifting up his hands and blessing them, he rose from earth to heaven.

The Christian Scientist cherishes no resentment; he knows that that would harm him more than all the malice of his foes. Brethren, even as Jesus forgave, forgive thou. I say it with joy, -- no person can commit an offense against me that I cannot forgive. Meekness is the armor of a Christian, his shield and his buckler. He entertains angels who listens to the lispings of repentance seen in a tear -- happier than the conqueror of a world. To the burdened and weary, Jesus saith: "Come unto me." O glorious hope! there remaineth a rest for the righteous, a rest in Christ, a peace in Love. The thought of it stills complaint; the heaving surf of life's troubled sea foams itself away, and underneath is a deep-settled calm.

Are earth's pleasures, its ties, and its treasures, taken away from you? It is divine Love that doeth it, and sayeth, "Ye have need of all these things." A danger besets thy path? -- a spiritual behest, in reversion, awaits you.

The great Master triumphed in furnace fires. Then, Christian Scientists, trust, and trusting, you will find divine Science glorifies the cross and crowns the association with our Saviour in his life of love. There is no redundant drop in the cup that our Father permits us. Christ walketh over the wave; on the ocean of events, mounting the billow or going down into the deep, the voice of him who still the tempest saith, "It is I; be not afraid." Thus he bringeth us into the desired haven, the kingdom of Spirit; and the hues of heaven, tipping the dawn of everlasting day, joyfully whisper, "No drunkards within, no sorrow, no pain; and the glory of earth's woes is risen upon you, rewarding, satisfying, glorifying thy unfaltering faith and good works with the fulness of divine Love."

'T was God who gave that word of might

Which swelled creation's lay, --

"Let there be light, and there was light," --

That swept the clouds away;

'T was Love whose finger traced aloud

A bow of promise on the cloud.

Beloved brethren, are you ready to join me in this proposition, namely, in 1902 to begin ommitting our annual gathering at Pleasant View, -- thus breaking any seeming connection between the sacrament in our church and a pilgrimage to Concord? I shall be the loser by this change, for it gives me great joy to look into the faces of my dear church-members; but in this, as all else, I can bear the cross, while gratefully appreciating the privilege of meeting you all occasionally in the metropolis of my native State, whose good people welcome Christian Scientists.

---

MESSAGE FOR 1901, by Mary Baker Eddy.

BELOVED brethren, to-day I extend my heart-and-hand-fellowship to the faithful, to those whose hearts have been beating through the mental avenues of mankind for God and humanity; and rest assured you can never lack God's outstretched arm so long as you are in His service. Our first communion in the new century finds Christian Science more extended, more rapidly advancing, better appreciated, than ever before, and nearer the whole world's acceptance.

To-day you meet to commemorate in unity the life of our Lord, and to rise higher and still higher in the individual consciousness most essential to your growth and usefulness; to add to your treasures of thought the great realities of being, which constitute mental and physical perfection. The baptism of the Spirit, and the refreshment and invigoration of the human in communion with the Divine, have brought you hither.

All that is true is a sort of necessity, a portion of the primal reality of things. Truth comes from a deep sincerity that must always characterize heroic hearts; it is the better side of man's nature developing itself.

As Christian Scientists you seek to define God to your own consciousness by feeling and applying the nature and practical possibilities of divine Love: to gain the absolute and supreme certainty that Christianity is now what Christ Jesus taught and demonstrated -- health, holiness, immortality. The highest spiritual Christianity in individual lives is indispensable to the acquiring of greater power in the perfected Science of healing all manner of diseases.

We know the healing standard of Christian Science was and is traduced by trying to put into the old garment the new-old cloth of Christian healing. To attempt to twist the fatal magnetic element of human will into harmony with divine power, or to substitute good words for good deeds, a fair seeming for right being, may suit the weak or the worldly who find the standard of Christ's healing too high for them. Absolute certainty in the practice of divine metaphysics constitutes its utility, since it has a divine and demonstrable Principle and rule -- if some fall short of Truth, others will attain it, and these are they who will adhere to it. The feverish pride of sects and systems is the death's-head at the feast of Love, but Christianity is ever storming sin in its citadels, blessing the poor in spirit and keeping peace with God.

What Jesus' disciples of old experienced, his followers of to-day will prove, namely, that a departure from the direct line in Christ costs a return under difficulties; darkness, doubt, and unrequited toil will beset all their returning footsteps. Only a firm foundation in Truth can give a fearless wing and a sure reward.

The history of Christian Science explains its rapid growth. In my church of over twenty-one thousand six hundred and thirty-one communicants (two thousand four hundred and ninety-six of whom have been added since last November) there spring spontaneously the higher hope, and increasing virtue, fervor, and fidelity. The special benediction of our Father-Mother God rests upon this hour: "Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake." GOD IS THE INFINITE PERSON

We hear it said that Christian Scientists have no God because their God is not a person. Let us examine this. The loyal Christian Scientists absolutely adopt Webster's definition of God, "A Supreme Being," and the Standard dictionary's definition of God, "The one Supreme Being, self-existent and eternal." Also, we accept God, emphatically, in the higher definition derived from the Bible, and this accords with the literal sense of the lexicons: "God is Spirit," "God is Love." Then, to define Love in divine Science we use this phrase for God -- divine Principle. By this we mean Mind, a permanent, fundamental, intelligent, divine Being, called in Scripture, Spirit, Love.

It is sometimes said: "God is Love, but this is no argument that Love is God; for God is light, but light is not God." The first proposition is correct, and is not lost by the conclusion, for Love expresses the nature of God; but the last proposition does not illustrate the first, as light, being matter, loses the nature of God, Spirit, deserts its premise, and expresses God only in metaphor, therefore it is illogical and the conclusion is not properly drawn. It is logical that because God is Love, Love is divine Principle; then Love as either divine Principle or Person stands for God -- for both have the nature of God. In logic the major premise must be convertible to the minor.

In mathematics four times three is twelve, and three times four is twelve. To depart from the rule of mathematics destroys the proof of mathematics; just as a departure from the Principle and rule of divine Science destroys the ability to demonstrate Love according to Christ, healing the sick; and you lose its susceptibility of scientific proof.

God is the author of Science -- neither man nor matter can be. The Science of God must be, is, divine, predicated of Principle and demonstrated as divine Love; and Christianity is divine Science, else there is no Science and no Christianity.

We understand that God is personal in a scientific sense, but is not corporeal nor anthropomorphic. We understand that God is not finite; He is the infinite Person, but not three persons in one person. Christian Scientists are theists and monotheists. Those who misjudge us because we understand that God is the infinite One instead of three, should be able to explain God's personality rationally. Christian Scientists consistently conceive of God as One because He is infinite; and as triune, because He is Life, Truth, Love, and these three are one in essence and in office.

If in calling God "divine Principle," meaning divine Love, more frequently than Person, we merit the epithet "godless," we naturally conclude that he breaks faith with his creed, or has no possible conception of ours, who believes that three persons are defined strictly by the word Person, or as One; for if Person is God, and he believes three persons constitute the Godhead, does not Person here lose the nature of one God, lose monotheism, and become less coherent than the Christian Scientist's sense of Person as one divine infinite triune Principle, named in the Bible Life, Truth, Love? -- for each of these possesses the nature of all, and God omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient.

Man is person; therefore divine metaphysics discriminates between God and man, the creator and the created, by calling one the divine Principle of all. This suggests another query: Do Christian Scientists believe in personality? They do, but their personality is defined spiritually, not materially -- by Mind, not by matter. We do not blot out the material race of Adam, but leave all sin to God's fiat -- self-extinction, and to the final manifestation of the real spiritual man and universe. We believe, according to the Scriptures, that God is infinite Spirit or Person, and man is His image and likeness: therefore man reflects Spirit, not matter.

We are not transcendentalists to the extent of extinguishing anything that is real, good, or true; for God and man in divine Science, or the logic of Truth, are coexistent and eternal, and the nature of God must be seen in man, who is His eternal image and likeness.

The theological God as a Person necessitates a creed to explain both His person and nature, whereas God explains Himself in Christian Science. Is the human person, as defined by Christian Science, more transcendental than theology's three divine persons, that live in the Father and have no separate identity? Who says the God of theology is a Person, and the God of Christian Science is not a person, hence no God? Here is the departure. Person is defined differently by theology, which reckons three as one and the infinite in a finite form, and Christian Science, which reckons one as one and this one infinite.

Can the infinite Mind inhabit a finite form? Is the God of theology a finite or an infinite Person? Is He one Person, or three persons? Who can conceive either of three persons as one person, or of three infinites? We hear that God is not God except He be a Person, and this Person contains three persons: yet God must be One although He is three. Is this pure, specific Christianity? and is God in Christian Science no God because He is not after this model of personality?

The logic of divine Science being faultless, its consequent Christianity is consistent with Christ's hillside sermon, which is set aside to some degree, regarded as impracticable for human use, its theory even seldom named.

God is Person in the infinite scientific sense of Him, but He can neither be one nor infinite in the corporeal or anthropomorphic sense.

Our departure from theological personality is, that God's personality must be as infinite as Mind is. We believe in God as the infinite Person; but lose all conceivable idea of Him as a finite Person with an infinite Mind. That God is either inconceivable, or is manlike, is not my sense of Him. In divine Science He is "altogether lovely," and consistently conceivable as the personality of infinite Love, infinite Spirit, than whom there is none other.

Scholastic theology makes God manlike; Christian Science makes man Godlike. The trinity of the Godhead in Christian Science being Life, Truth, Love, constitutes the individuality of the infinite Person or divine intelligence called God.

Again, God being infinite Mind, He is the all-wise, all-knowing, all-loving Father-Mother, for God made man in His own image and likeness, and made them male and female as the Scriptures declare; then does not our heavenly Parent -- the divine Mind -- include within this Mind the thoughts that express the different mentalities of man and woman, whereby we may consistently say, "Our Father-Mother God"? And does not this heavenly Parent know and supply the differing needs of the individual mind even as the Scriptures declare He will?

Because Christian Scientists call their God "divine Principle," as well as infinite Person, they have not taken away their Lord, and know not where they have laid Him. They do not believe there must be something tangible to the personal material senses in order that belief may attend their petitions to divine Love. The God whom all Christians now claim to believe in and worship cannot be conceived of on that basis; He cannot be apprehended through the material senses, nor can they gain any evidence of His presence thereby. Jesus said, "Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." CHRIST IS ONE AND DIVINE

Again I reiterate this cardinal point: There is but one Christ, and Christ is divine -- the Holy Ghost, or spiritual idea of the divine Principle, Love. Is this scientific statement more transcendental than the belief of our brethren, who regard Jesus as God and the Holy Ghost as the third person in the Godhead? When Jesus said, "I and my Father are one," and "my Father is greater than I," this was said in the sense that one ray of light is light, and it is one with light, but it is not the full-orbed sun. Therefore we have the authority of Jesus for saying Christ is not God, but an impartation of Him.

Again: Is man, according to Christian Science, more transcendental than God made him? Can he be too spiritual, since Jesus said, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect"? Is God Spirit? He is. Then is man His image and likeness, according to Holy Writ? He is. Then can man be material, or less than spiritual? As God made man, is he not wholly spiritual? The reflex image of Spirit is not unlike Spirit. The logic of divine metaphysics makes man none too transcendental, if we follow the teachings of the Bible.

The Christ was Jesus' spiritual selfhood; therefore Christ existed prior to Jesus, who said, "Before Abraham was, I am." Jesus, the only immaculate, was born of a virgin mother, and Christian Science explains that mystic saying of the Master as to his dual personality, or the spiritual and material Christ Jesus, called in Scripture the Son of God and the Son of man -- explains it as referring to his eternal spiritual selfhood and his temporal manhood. Christian Science shows clearly that God is the only generating or regenerating power.

The ancient worthies caught glorious glimpses of the Messiah or Christ, and their truer sense of Christ baptized them in Spirit -- submerged them in a sense so pure it made seers of men, and Christian healers. This is the "Spirit of life in Christ Jesus," spoken of by St. Paul. It is also the mysticism complained of by the rabbis, who crucified Jesus and called him a "deceiver." Yea, it is the healing power of Truth that is persecuted to-day, the spirit of divine Love, and Christ Jesus possessed it, practised it, and taught his followers to do likewise. This spirit of God is made manifest in the flesh, healing and saving men, -- it is the Christ, Comforter, "which taketh away the sin of the world;" and yet Christ is rejected of men!

The evil in human nature foams at the touch of good; it crieth out, "Let us alone; what have we to do with thee,... ? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art; the Holy One of God." The Holy Spirit takes of the things of God and showeth them unto the creature; and these things being spiritual, they disturb the carnal and destroy it; they are revolutionary, reformatory, and -- now, as aforetime -- they cast out evils and heal the sick. He of God's household who loveth and liveth most the things of Spirit, receiveth them most; he speaketh wisely, for the spirit of his Father speaketh through him; he worketh well and healeth quickly, for the spirit giveth him liberty: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

Jesus said, "For all these things they will deliver you up to the councils" and "If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household? Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed."

Christ being the Son of God, a spiritual, divine emanation, Christ must be spiritual, not material. Jesus was the son of Mary, therefore the son of man only in the sense that man is the generic term for both male and female. The Christ was not human. Jesus was human, but the Christ Jesus represented both the divine and the human, God and man. The Science of divine metaphysics removes the mysticism that used to enthrall my sense of the Godhead, and of Jesus as the Son of God and the son of man. Christian Science explains the nature of God as both Father and Mother.

Theoretically and practically man's salvation comes through "the riches of His grace" in Christ Jesus. Divine Love spans the dark passage of sin, disease, and death with Christ's righteousness, -- the atonement of Christ, whereby good destroys evil, -- and the victory over self, sin, disease, and death, is won after the pattern of the mount. This is working out our own salvation, for God worketh with us, until there shall be nothing left to perish or to be punished, and we emerge gently into Life everlasting. This is what the Scriptures demand -- faith according to works.

After Jesus had fulfilled his mission in the flesh as the Son of man, he rose to the fulness of his stature in Christ, the eternal Son of God, that never suffered and never died. And because of Jesus' great work on earth, his demonstration over sin, disease, and death, the divine nature of Christ Jesus has risen to human apprehension, and we see the Son of man in divine Science; and he is no longer a material man, and mind is no longer in matter. Through this redemptive Christ, Truth, we are healed and saved, and that not of our selves, it is the gift of God; we are saved from the sins and sufferings of the flesh, and are the redeemed of the Lord. THE CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS' PASTOR

True, I have made the Bible and "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," the pastor for all the churches of the Christian Science denomination, but that does not make it impossible for this pastor of ours to preach! To my sense the Sermon on the Mount, read each Sunday without comment and obeyed throughout the week, would be enough for Christian practice. The Word of God is a powerful preacher, and it is not too spiritual to be practical, nor too transcendental to be heard and understood. Whosoever saith there is no sermon without personal preaching, forgets what Christian Scientists do not, namely, that God is a Person, and that he should be willing to hear a sermon from his personal God!

But, my brethren, the Scripture saith, "Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him." St. Paul complains of him whose god is his belly: to such a one our mode of worship may be intangible, for it is not felt with the fingers; but the spiritual sense drinks it in, and it corrects the material sense and heals the sinning and the sick. If St. John should tell that man that Jesus came neither eating nor drinking, and that he baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire, he would naturally reply, "That is too transcendental for me to believe, or for my worship. That is Johnism, and only Johnites would be seen in such company." But this is human: even the word Christian was anciently an opprobrium; -- hence the Scripture, "When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?"

Though a man were begirt with the Urim and Thummim of priestly office, yet should not have charity, or should deny the validity and permanence of Christ's command to heal in all ages, he would dishonor that office and misinterpret evangelical religion. Divine Science is not an interpolation of the Scriptures, it is redolent with health, holiness, and love. It only needs the prism of divine Science, which scholastic theology has obscured, to divide the rays of Truth, and bring out the entire hues of God. The lens of Science magnifies the divine power to human sight; and we then see the allness of Spirit, therefore the nothingness of matter. NO REALITY IN EVIL OR SIN

Incorporeal evil embodies itself in the so-called corporeal, and thus is manifest in the flesh. Evil is neither quality nor quantity: it is not intelligence, a person or a principle, a man or a woman, a place or a thing, and God never made it. The outcome of evil, called sin, is another nonentity that belittles itself until it annihilates its own embodiment: this is the only annihilation. The visible sin should be invisible: it ought not to be seen, felt, or acted: and because it ought not, we must know it is not, and that sin is a lie from the beginning, -- an illusion, nothing, and only an assumption that nothing is something. It is not well to maintain the position that sin is sin and can take possession of us and destroy us, but well that we take possession of sin with such a sense of its nullity as destroys it. Sin can have neither entity, verity, nor power thus regarded, and we verify Jesus' words, that evil, alias devil, sin, is a lie -- therefore is nothing and the father of nothingness. Christian Science lays the axe at the root of sin, and destroys it on the very basis of nothingness. When man makes something of sin it is either because he fears it or loves it. Now, destroy the conception of sin as something, a reality, and you destroy the fear and the love of it; and sin disappears. The man's fear, unconquered, conquers him, in whatever direction.

In Christian Science it is plain that God removes the punishment for sin only as the sin is removed -- never punishes it only as it is destroyed, and never afterwards; hence the hope of universal salvation. It is a sense of sin, and not a sinful soul, that is lost. Soul is immortal, but sin is mortal. To lose the sense of sin we must first detect the claim of sin; hold it invalid, give it the lie, and then we get the victory, sin disappears, and its unreality is proven. So long as we indulge the presence or believe in the power of sin, it sticks to us and has power over us. Again: To assume there is no reality in sin, and yet commit sin, is sin itself, that clings fast to iniquity. The Publican's wail won his humble desire, while the Pharisee's self-righteousness crucified Jesus.

Do Christian Scientists believe that evil exists? We answer, Yes and No! Yes, inasmuch as we do know that evil, as a false claim, false entity, and utter falsity, does exist in thought; and No, as something that enjoys, suffers, or is real. Our only departure from ecclesiasticism on this subject is, that our faith takes hold of the fact that evil cannot be made so real as to frighten us and so master us, or to make us love it and so hinder our way to holiness. We regard evil as a lie, an illusion, therefore as unreal as a mirage that misleads the traveller on his way home.

It is self-evident that error is not Truth; then it follows that it is untrue; and if untrue, unreal; and if unreal, to conceive of error as either right or real is sin in itself. To be delivered from believing in what is unreal, from fearing it, following it, or loving it, one must watch and pray that he enter not into temptation -- even as one guards his door against the approach of thieves. Wrong is thought before it is acted; you must control it in the first instance, or it will control you in the second. To overcome all wrong, it must become unreal to us: and it is good to know that wrong has no divine authority; therefore man is its master. I rejoice in the scientific apprehension of this grand verity.

The evil-doer receives no encouragement from my declaration that evil is unreal, when I declare that he must awake from his belief in this awful unreality, repent and forsake it, in order to understand and demonstrate its unreality. Error uncondemned is not nullified. We must condemn the claim of error in every phase in order to prove it false, therefore unreal.

The Christian Scientist has enlisted to lessen sin, disease, and death, and he overcomes them through Christ, Truth, teaching him that they cannot overcome us. The resistance to Christian Science weakens in proportion as one understands it and demonstrates the Science of Christianity.

A sinner ought not to be at ease, or he would never quit sinning. The most deplorable sight is to contemplate the infinite blessings that divine Love bestows on mortals, and their ingratitude and hate, filling up the measure of wickedness against all light. I can conceive of little short of the old orthodox hell to waken such a one from his deluded sense; for all sin is a deluded sense, and dis-ease in sin is better than ease. Some mortals may even need to hear the following thunderbolt of Jonathan Edwards: --

"It is nothing but God's mere pleasure that keeps you from being this moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction. He is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in His sight. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking His pure eyes by your sinful, wicked manner of attending His solemn worship. Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not at this moment drop down into hell, but that God's hand has held you up." FUTURE PUNISHMENT OF SIN

My views of a future and eternal punishment take in a poignant present sense of sin and its suffering, punishing itself here and hereafter till the sin is destroyed. St. John's types of sin scarcely equal the modern nondescripts, whereby the demon of this world, its lusts, falsities, envy, and hate, supply sacrilegious gossip with the verbiage of hades. But hatred gone mad becomes imbecile -- outdoes itself and commits suicide. Then let the dead bury its dead, and surviving defamers share our pity.

In the Greek devil is named serpent -- liar -- the god of this world; and St. Paul defines this world's god as dishonesty, craftiness, handling the word of God deceitfully. The original text defines devil as accuser, calumniator; therefore, according to Holy Writ these qualities are objectionable, and ought not to proceed from the individual, the pulpit, or the press. The Scriptures once refer to an evil spirit as dumb, but in its origin evil was loquacious, and was supposed to outtalk Truth and to carry a most vital point. Alas! if now it is permitted license, under sanction of the gown, to handle with garrulity age and Christianity! Shall it be said of this century that its greatest discoverer is a woman to whom men go to mock, and go away to pray? Shall the hope for our race commence with one truth told and one hundred falsehoods told about it?

The present self-inflicted sufferings of mortals from sin, disease, and death should suffice so to awaken the sufferer from the mortal sense of sin and mind in matter as to cause him to return to the Father's house penitent and saved; yea, quickly to return to divine Love, the author and finisher of our faith, who so loves even the repentant prodigal -- departed from his better self and struggling to return -- as to meet the sad sinner on his way and to welcome him home.