Trustees under the Will of Mary Baker G. Eddy
Boston, U.S.A.
| 1 |
BELOVED brethren, another year of God's loving
providence
for His people in times of persecution has |
| 3 |
marked the history of Christian Science. With no special
effort to achieve this result, our church communicants
constantly increase
in number, unity, steadfastness. Two |
| 6 |
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 |
| 9 |
seventy-eight members; while our branch churches are
multiplying everywhere and blossoming as the rose. Evil,
though combined in
formidable conspiracy, is made to |
| 12 |
glorify God. The Scripture declares, "The wrath of man
shall praise Thee: the remainder of wrath shalt Thou
restrain."
|
| 15 |
Whatever seems calculated to displace or discredit the
ordinary systems of religious beliefs and opinions wrest-
ling only with
material observation, has always met with |
| 18 |
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
Page 2
|
| 1 |
the globe, only the earnest, honest investigator sees
through the mist of mortal strife this daystar, and whither |
| 3 |
it guides.
To live and let live, without clamor
for distinction or
recognition; to wait on divine Love; to write truth
first |
| 6 |
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, |
| 9 |
is on the way, and Truth makes haste to meet and to wel-
come it. It is purifying all peoples, religions, ethics, and
learning, and
making the children our teachers.
|
| 2 |
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 |
| 5 |
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 en- |
| 8 |
lightening the world with the glory of untrammelled
truth.
The present modifications in ecclesiasticism are an out-
come of
progress; dogmatism, relegated to the past, gives |
| 21 |
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; |
| 24 |
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 doc- |
| 27 |
trine; 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 |
| 30 |
taught the student to overcome evil with good, used no
Page 3
|
| 1 |
other means myself; and ten thousand loyal Christian
Scientists to one disloyal, bear testimony to this fact.
|
| 3 |
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 |
| 6 |
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 |
| 9 |
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 |
| 12 |
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 |
| 15 |
occupation of that pearl of the ocean, has so improved her
public school system that her dusky children are learning
to read and
write.
|
| 18 |
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 |
| 21 |
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 |
| 24 |
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 oppres- |
| 27 |
sion; 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 |
| 30 |
first lie and leap into perdition began with "Believe in
Page 4
|
| 1 |
me." Competition in commerce, deceit in councils, dis-
honor in nations, dishonesty in trusts, begin with "Who |
| 3 |
shall be greatest?" I again repeat, Follow your Leader,
only so far as she follows Christ.
I cordially congratulate our Board of
Lectureship, and |
| 6 |
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 |
| 9 |
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 |
| 12 |
our words.
My subject to-day embraces the First
Commandment
in the Hebrew Decalogue, and the new commandment in
|
| 15 |
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 |
| 21 |
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, |
| 24 |
and future.
Alternately transported and alarmed by
abstruse
problems of Scripture, we are liable to turn from them
as |
| 27 |
impractical, or beyond the ken of mortals, - and past
finding out. Our thoughts of the Bible utter our lives.
Page 5
|
| 1 |
As silent night foretells the dawn and din of morn; as the
dulness of to-day prophesies renewed energy for to-morrow, |
| 3 |
- so the pagan philosophies and tribal religions of yester-
day but foreshadowed the spiritual dawn of the twentieth
century -
religion parting with its materiality.
|
| 6 |
Christian Science stills all distress over doubtful
inter-
pretations of the Bible; it lights the fires of the Holy
Ghost,
and floods the world with the baptism of Jesus. |
| 9 |
It is this ethereal flame, this almost unconceived light of
divine Love, that heaven husbands in the First Com-
mandment.
|
| 12 |
For man to be thoroughly subordinated to this com-
mandment, God must be intelligently considered and
understood. The
ever-recurring human question and |
| 15 |
wonder, What is God? can never be answered satisfac-
torily by human hypotheses or philosophy. Divine meta-
physics and St. John
have answered this great question |
| 18 |
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 |
| 21 |
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 |
| 24 |
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
doc- |
| 27 |
trine, 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 |
| 30 |
before me," silences all questions on this subject, and for-
Page 6
|
| 1 |
ever forbids the thought of any other reality, since it is
im-
possible to have aught unlike the infinite.
|
| 3 |
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 knowl- |
| 6 |
edge, 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 de- |
| 9 |
stroy 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 |
| 12 |
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 |
| 15 |
creation, yea, something that is not of God. The Chris-
tianization of mortals, whereby the mortal concept and
all it includes is
obliterated, lets in the divine sense of |
| 18 |
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 |
| 21 |
devout desire, virtually petition, Make me the image and
likeness of divine Love.
Through Christ, Truth, divine
metaphysics points the |
| 24 |
way, demonstrates heaven here, - the struggle over, and
victory on the side of Truth. In the degree that man be-
comes spiritually
minded he becomes Godlike. St. Paul |
| 27 |
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, |
| 30 |
including nothing unlovely, producing nothing unlike
Page 7
|
| 1 |
Himself, the true nature of Love intact and eternal.
Divine
metaphysics concedes no origin or causation apart from |
| 3 |
God. It accords all to God, Spirit, and His infinite
mani-
festations of love - man and the universe.
In the first chapter of Genesis,
matter, sin, disease, and |
| 6 |
death enter not into the category of creation or
conscious-
ness. Minus this spiritual understanding of Scripture, of
God and His creation, neither philosophy, nature, nor |
| 9 |
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 |
| 12 |
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 |
| 15 |
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 |
| 18 |
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 |
| 21 |
entertained.
LOVE ONE ANOTHER
Here we proceed to another Scriptural
passage which |
| 24 |
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 |
| 27 |
called his disciples' special attention to his new
command-
ment. And wherefore? Because it emphasizes the
Page 8
|
| 1 |
apostle's declaration, "God is Love," - it elucidates
Christianity, illustrates God, and man as His likeness, and |
| 3 |
commands man to love as Jesus loved.
The law and the gospel concur, and
both will be ful-
filled. Is it necessary to say that the likeness of God,
Spirit, |
| 6 |
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 |
| 9 |
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 |
| 12 |
by love and good will towards men. The coincidence be-
tween the law and the gospel, between the old and the new
commandment,
confirms the fact that God and Love are |
| 5 |
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 |
| 18 |
being Christian Scientists except we possess this
inspira-
tion, and its power to heal and to save. The energy that
saves
sinners and heals the sick is divine: and Love is the |
| 21 |
Principle thereof. Scientific Christianity works out the
rule of spiritual love; it makes man active, it prompts per-
petual
goodness, for the ego, or I, goes to the Father, |
| 24 |
whereby man is Godlike. Love, purity, meekness,
co-
exist in divine Science. Lust, hatred, revenge, coincide in
material sense. Christ Jesus reckoned man in Science, |
| 27 |
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 |
| 30 |
makes man conscious that God is his Father, and the con-
Page 9
|
| 1 |
sciousness of God as Love gives man power with untold
furtherance. Then God becomes to him the All-presence |
| 3 |
- 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 |
| 6 |
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 |
| 9 |
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 |
| 12 |
Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the
law of sin and death." Loving chords set discords in har-
mony. Every
condition implied by the great Master, |
| 15 |
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.
|
| 18 |
The unity of God and man is not the dream of a heated
brain; it is the spirit of the healing Christ, that dwelt for-
ever in the
bosom of the Father, and should abide forever |
| 21 |
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 |
| 24 |
opened my closed eyes.
Did the age's thinkers laugh long over
Morse's dis-
covery of telegraphy? Did they quarrel long with
the |
| 27 |
inventor of a steam engine? Is it cause for bitter com-
ment and personal abuse that an individual has met the
need of mankind with
some new-old truth that counteracts |
| 30 |
ignorance and superstition? Whatever enlarges man's
Page 10
|
| 1 |
facilities for knowing and doing good, and subjugates
matter, has a fight with the flesh. Utilizing the capacities |
| 3 |
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, |
| 6 |
"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 foot- |
| 9 |
prints of a reformer are stained with blood. Rev. Hugh
Black writes truly: "The birthplace of civilization is not
Athens, but
Calvary."
|
| 12 |
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 ten- |
| 5 |
dency 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 |
| 18 |
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, |
| 21 |
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 |
| 24 |
sole proof that Christ, Truth, is the way. The old and
recurring martyrdom of God's best witnesses is the in-
firmity of evil, the
modus operandi of human error, |
| 27 |
carnality, opposition to God and His power in man.
Persecuting a reformer is like sentencing a man for com-
municating with
foreign nations in other ways than by |
| 30 |
walking every step over the land route, and swimming the
Page 11
|
| 1 |
ocean with a letter in his hand to leave on a foreign
shore.
Our heavenly Father never destined mortals who seek |
| 3 |
for a better country to wander on the shores of time dis-
appointed travellers, tossed to and fro by adverse circum-
stances,
inevitably subject to sin, disease, and death. |
| 6 |
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 |
| 9 |
to heaven.
Envy or abuse of him who, having a new
idea or a more
spiritual understanding of God, hastens to help on
his |
| 12 |
fellow-mortals, is neither Christian nor Science. If a
postal service, a steam engine, a submarine cable, a wire-
less telegraph,
each in turn has helped mankind, how |
| 15 |
much more is accomplished when the race is helped on-
ward by a new-old message from God, even the knowl-
edge of salvation from
sin, disease, and death.
|
| 18 |
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, advanc- |
| 21 |
ing Christian, and this is thy Lord's benediction upon
it: "Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and per-
secute you, and
shall say all manner of evil against you |
| 24 |
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."
|
| 27 |
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 |
| 30 |
practice on the very basis of his words and works. The Jew
Page 12
|
| 1 |
believes that the Messiah or the Christ has not yet come;
the Christian believes that Christ is come and is God. |
| 3 |
Here Christian Science intervenes, explains these
doctrinal
points, cancels the disagreement, and settles the whole ques-
tion on the basis that Christ is the Messiah, the true spir- |
| 6 |
itual idea, and this ideal of God is now and
forever, here and
everywhere. The Jew who believes in
the First Command-
ment is a monotheist, he has one omnipresent God:
thus |
| 9 |
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 |
| 12 |
unites with the Jew's belief 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 |
| 15 |
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 |
| 18 |
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."
|
| 21 |
Here allow me to interpolate some matters of business
that ordinarily find no place in my Message. It is a privi-
lege to
acquaint communicants with the financial transac- |
| 24 |
tions 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 |
| 27 |
who annually favor us with their presence on Communion
Sunday.
When founding the institutions and
early movements of |
| 30 |
the Cause of Christian Science, I furnished the money
from
Page 13
|
| 1 |
my own private earnings to meet the expenses involved.
In this endeavor self was forgotten, peace sacrificed, Christ |
| 3 |
and our Cause my only incentives, and each success in-
curred a sharper fire from enmity.
During the last seven years I have
transferred to The |
| 6 |
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 Sci- |
| 9 |
ence 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 |
| 12 |
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 |
| 15 |
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; |
| 18 |
paying for it the sum of $4,963.50 and interest, through my
legal counsel. After the mortgage had expired and the note
therewith
became due, legal proceedings were instituted by |
| 21 |
my counsel advertising the property in the Boston news-
papers,and giving opportunity for those who had previously
negotiated for
the property to redeem the land by paying |
| 24 |
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 |
| 27 |
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 |
| 30 |
Science Board of Directors." A copy of this deed is pub-
Page 14
|
| 1 |
lished in our Church Manual. About five thousand dollars
had been paid on the land when I redeemed it. The only |
| 3 |
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.
|
| 6 |
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 |
| 12 |
the only success I have ever achieved - has been accom-
plished on this solid basis. The remarkable growth and
prosperity of
Christian Science are its legitimate fruit. A |
| 15 |
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 |
| 18 |
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 achieve- |
| 21 |
ment has been blazoned on the forefront of the world and
recorded in heaven. The popular philosophies and reli-
gions have afforded
me neither favor nor protection in the |
| 24 |
great struggle. Therefore, I ask: What has shielded and
prospered preeminently our great Cause, but the out-
stretched arm of
infinite Love? This pregnant question, |
| 27 |
answered frankly and honestly, should forever silence
all
private criticisms, all unjust public aspersions, and afford
an
open field and fair play.
Page 15
|
| 1 |
In the eighties, anonymous letters mailed to me con-
tained threats to blow up the hall where I preached; yet I |
| 3 |
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.
|
| 6 |
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 strug- |
| 9 |
gled 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 |
| 12 |
were days wherein the connection between justice and be-
ing approached the mythical. Before entering upon my
great life-work, my
income from literary sources was ample, |
| 15 |
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 |
| 18 |
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.
|
| 21 |
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 |
| 24 |
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 |
| 27 |
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 |
| 30 |
prayer. It was to me the "still, small voice" that came to
Page 16
|
| 1 |
Elijah after the earthquake and the fire. Six months
there-
after Miss Dorcas Rawson of Lynn brought to me Wyclif's |
| 3 |
translation of the New Testament, and pointed out that
identical phrase, "Science and Health," which is rendered
in the
Authorized Version "knowledge of salvation." |
| 6 |
This was my first inkling of Wyclif's use of that
combina-
tion of words, or of their rendering. To-day I am the happy
possessor of a copy of Wyclif, the invaluable gift of two |
| 9 |
Christian Scientists, - Mr. W. Nicholas Miller, K. C.,
and
Mrs. F. L. Miller, of London, England.
GODLIKENESS
|
| 12 |
St. Paul writes: "Follow peace with all men, and holi-
ness, without which no man shall see the Lord." To attain
peace and
holiness is to recognize the divine presence and |
| 15 |
allness. Jesus said: "I am the way." Kindle the watch-
fires of unselfed love, and they throw a light upon the un-
complaining
agony in the life of our Lord; they open the |
| 18 |
enigmatical seals of the angel, standing in the sun, a
glori-
fied spiritual idea of the ever-present God - in whom there
is
no darkness, but all is light, and man's immortal being. |
| 21 |
The meek might, sublime patience, wonderful works, and
opening not his mouth in self-defense against false wit-
nesses, express
the life of Godlikeness. Fasting, feasting, |
| 24 |
or penance, - merely outside forms of religion, - fail to
elucidate Christianity: they reach not the heart nor reno-
vate it; they
never destroy one iota of hypocrisy, pride, |
| 27 |
self-will, envy, or hate. The mere form of godliness,
Page 17
|
| 1 |
coupled with selfishness, worldliness, hatred, and lust,
are
knells tolling the burial of Christ.
|
| 3 |
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 |
| 6 |
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 |
| 9 |
it, is in blessing others, and self-immolation - they
will
obey both the old and the new commandment, and receive
the reward
of obedience.
|
| 12 |
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 |
| 15 |
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, |
| 18 |
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 |
| 21 |
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 |
| 24 |
His tenure, confers happiness: conscious worth satisfies
the hungry heart, and nothing else can. Consult thy every-
day life; take
its answer as to thy aims, motives, fondest |
| 27 |
purposes, and this oracle of years will put to flight all
care
for the world's soft flattery or its frown. Patience and res-
ignation are the pillars of peace that, like the sun beneath |
| 30 |
the horizon, cheer the heart susceptible of light with prom-
Page 18
|
| 1 |
ised joy. Be faithful at the temple gate of conscience,
wakefully guard it; then thou wilt know when the thief |
| 3 |
cometh.
The constant spectacle of sin thrust
upon the pure sense
of the immaculate Jesus made him a man of sorrows.
He |
| 6 |
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- |
| 9 |
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 |
| 12 |
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 |
| 15 |
least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."
"Love one another, as I have loved you." No estrange-
ment, no emulation,
no deceit, enters into the heart that |
| 18 |
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 |
| 21 |
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 |
| 24 |
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 |
| 27 |
him, ended in the downfall of genuine Christianity, about
the year 325, and the violent death of all his disciples save
one.
|
| 30 |
The nature of Jesus made him keenly alive to the
Page 19
|
| 1 |
injustice, ingratitude, treachery, and brutality that he
received. Yet behold his love! So soon as he burst the |
| 3 |
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, |
| 6 |
called one a "fool" - then, lifting up his hands and bless-
ing them, he rose from earth to heaven.
The Christian Scientist cherishes no
resentment; he |
| 9 |
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 |
| 12 |
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 |
| 15 |
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, |
| 18 |
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.
|
| 21 |
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 |
| 24 |
besets thy path? - a spiritual behest, in reversion,
awaits
you.
The great Master triumphed in furnace
fires. Then, |
| 27 |
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 |
| 30 |
drop in the cup that our Father permits us. Christ
Page 20
|
| 1 |
walketh over the wave; on the ocean of events, mounting
the billow or going down into the deep, the voice of him |
| 3 |
who stilled 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 |
| 6 |
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 |
| 9 |
faith and good works with the fulness of divine Love."
'T was God who gave that
word of might
Which swelled creation's lay, - |
| 12 |
"Let there be light, and
there was light," -
That swept the clouds away;
'T was Love whose
finger traced aloud |
| 15 |
A bow of promise on the
cloud.
Beloved brethren, are you ready to
join me in this prop-
osition, namely, in 1902 to begin omitting our
annual |
| 18 |
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, |
| 21 |
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 meet- |
| 24 |
ing you all occasionally in the metropolis of my
native
State, whose good people welcome Christian Scientists. |