120:1is God. We look for the sainted Revelator in his writings, and there we find him. Those who look for me in 3person, or elsewhere than in my writings, lose me instead of find me. I hope and trust that you and I may meet in truth and know each other there, and know 6as we are known of God.
Accept my gratitude for the chance you give me to answer your excellent letter. Forgive, if it needs forgive9ness, my honest position. Bear with me the burden of discovery and share with me the bliss of seeing the risen Christ, God’s spiritual idea that takes away all sin, disease, 12and death, and gives to soul its native freedom.
My Beloved Brethren: — I have suggested a 3change in the time for holding our semi-annual church meetings, in order to separate these sessions from the excitement and commotion of the season’s 6holidays.
In metaphysics we learn that the strength of peace and of suffering is sublime, a true, tried mental convic9tion that is neither tremulous nor relapsing. This strength is like the ocean, able to carry navies, yet yielding to the touch of a finger. This peace is spiritual; 12never selfish, stony, nor stormy, but generous, reliable, helpful, and always at hand.
Peace, like plain dealing, is somewhat out of fashion.
15Yet peace is desirable, and plain dealing is a jewel as beautiful as the gems that adorn the Christmas ring presented to me by my students in 1897. Few blemishes can be 18found in a true character, for it is always a diamond of the first water; but external gentility and good humor may be used to disguise internal vulgarity and villainy. No 21deformity exists in honesty, and no vulgarity in kindness.
Christian Science, however, adds to these graces, and reflects the divine likeness.
24Self-denial is practical, and is not only polite to all but is pleasant to those who practise it. If one would 122:1follow the advice that one gratuitously bestows on others, this would create for one’s self and for the world 3a destiny more grand than can issue from the brain of a dreamer.
Sin is like a dock root. To cut off the top of a plant does no good; the roots must be eradicated or the plant 9will continue to grow. Now I am done with homilies and, you may add, with tedious prosaics.
On the fifth of July last, my church tempted me ten12derly to be proud! The deportment of its dear members was such as to command respect everywhere. It called forth flattering comment and created surprise in our good 15city of Concord.
Beloved brethren, another Christmas has come and gone.
Has it enabled us to know more of the healing Christ that 18saves from sickness and sin? Are we still searching diligently to find where the young child lies, and are we satisfied to know that our sense of Truth is not demoralized, 21finitized, cribbed, or cradled, but has risen to grasp the spiritual idea unenvironed by materiality? Can we say with the angels to-day: “He is risen; he is not here: 24behold the place where they laid him”? Yes, the real Christian Scientist can say his Christ is risen and is not the material Christ of creeds, but is Truth, even as Jesus 27declared; and the sense of Truth of the real Christian Scientist is spiritualized to behold this Christ, Truth, again healing the sick and saving sinners. The mission 30of our Master was to all mankind, and included the very hearts that rejected it — that refused to see the power of Truth in healing.
123:1Our unity and progress are proverbial, and this church’s gifts to me are beyond comparison — they have become 3a wonder! To me, however, love is the greater marvel, so I must continue to prize love even more than the gifts which would express it. The great guerdon of divine 6Love, which moves the hearts of men to goodness and greatness, will reward these givers, and this encourages me to continue to urge the perfect model for your accept9ance as the ultimate of Christian Science.
To-day in Concord, N. H., we have a modest hall in one of the finest localities in the city, — a reading-room and 12nine other rooms in the same building. “Tell it not in Gath”! I had the property bought by the courtesy of another person to be rid of the care and responsibility of 15purchasing it, and furnished him the money to pay for it.
The original cost of the estate was fourteen thousand dollars. With the repairs and other necessary expenses 18the amount is now about twenty thousand dollars. Ere long I will see you in this hall, Deo volente; but my outdoor accommodations at Pleasant View are bigger than 21the indoor. My little hall, which holds a trifle over two hundred people, is less sufficient to receive a church of ten thousand members than were the “five loaves and two 24fishes” to feed the multitude; but the true Christian Scientist is not frightened at miracles, and ofttimes small beginnings have large endings.
6My Beloved Brethren: — Looking on this annual assemblage of human consciousness, — health, harmony, growth, grandeur, and achievement, garlanded with glad faces, 9willing hands, and warm hearts, — who would say to-day, “What a fond fool is hope”? The fruition of friendship, the world’s arms outstretched to us, heart meeting heart 12across continents and oceans, bloodless sieges and tearless triumphs, the “well done” already yours, and the undone waiting only your swift hands, — these are 15enough to make this hour glad. What more abounds and abides in the hearts of these hearers and speakers, pen may not tell.
18Nature reflects man and art pencils him, but it remains for Science to reveal man to man; and between these lines of thought is written in luminous letters, O man, what 21art thou? Where art thou? Whence and whither? And what shall the answer be? Expressive silence, or with finger pointing upward, — Thither! Then produce thy 24records, time-table, log, traveller’s companion, et cetera, and prove fairly the facts relating to the thitherward, — the rate of speed, the means of travel, and the number 27en route. Now what have you learned? The mystery of godliness — God made “manifest in the flesh,” seen of men, and spiritually understood; and the mystery of 30iniquity — how to separate the tares from the wheat, that they consume in their own fires and no longer 125:1kindle altars for human sacrifice. Have you learned to conquer sin, false affections, motives, and aims, — to be 3not only sayers but doers of the law?
Brethren, our annual meeting is a grave guardian. It requires you to report progress, to refresh memory, to 6rejuvenate the branches and to vivify the buds, to bend upward the tendrils and to incline the vine towards the parent trunk. You come from feeding your flocks, big 9with promise; and you come with the sling of Israel’s chosen one to meet the Goliaths.
I have only to dip my pen in my heart to say, All honor 12to the members of our Board of Lectureship connected with The Mother Church. Loyal to the divine Principle they so ably vindicate, they earn their laurels. History 15will record their words, and their works will follow them. When reading their lectures, I have felt the touch of the spirit of the Mars’ Hill orator, which always 18thrills the soul.
The members of the Board of Education, under the auspices of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, have 21acquitted themselves nobly. The students in my last class in 1898 are stars in my crown of rejoicing.
We are deeply grateful that the church militant is 24looking into the subject of Christian Science, for Zion must put on her beautiful garments — her bridal robes.
The hour is come; the bride (Word) is adorned, and lo, 27the bridegroom cometh! Are our lamps trimmed and burning?
The doom of the Babylonish woman, referred to in Reve30lation, is being fulfilled. This woman, “drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus,” “drunk with the wine of her fornication,” 126:1would enter even the church, — the body of Christ, Truth; and, retaining the heart of the harlot and the purpose 3of the destroying angel, would pour wormwood into the waters — the disturbed human mind — to drown the strong swimmer struggling for the shore, — aiming for 6Truth, — and if possible, to poison such as drink of the living water. But the recording angel, standing with “right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth,” 9has in his hand a book open (ready to be read), which uncovers and kills this mystery of iniquity and interprets the mystery of godliness, — how the first is finished and the 12second is no longer a mystery or a miracle, but a marvel, casting out evil and healing the sick. And a voice was heard, saying, “Come out of her, my people” (hearken 15not to her lies), “that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities . . . double unto her double accord18ing to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double . . . for she saith in her heart, I . . . am no widow, . . . Therefore shall her plagues come in one 21day, death, and mourning, and famine; . . . for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.” That which the Revelator saw in spiritual vision will be accomplished. The 24Babylonish woman is fallen, and who should mourn over the widowhood of lust, of her that “is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, 27and a cage of every unclean . . . bird”?
One thing is eternally here; it reigns supreme to-day, to-morrow, forever. We need it in our homes, at our fire30sides, on our altars, for with it win we the race of the centuries. We have it only as we live it. This is that needful one thing — divine Science, whereby thought is 127:1spiritualized, reaching outward and upward to Science in Christianity, Science in medicine, in physics, and in 3metaphysics.
Happy are the people whose God is All-in-all, who ask only to be judged according to their works, who live to 6love. We thank the Giver of all good for the marvellous speed of the chariot-wheels of Truth and for the steadfast, calm coherence in the ranks of Christian Science.
9On comparison, it will be found that Christian Science possesses more of Christ’s teachings and example than all other religions since the first century. Comparing 12our scientific system of metaphysical therapeutics with materia medica, we find that divine metaphysics completely overshadows and overwhelms materia medica, even 15as Aaron’s rod swallowed up the rods of the magicians of Egypt. I deliberately declare that when I was in practice, out of one hundred cases I healed ninety-nine to 18the ten of materia medica.
We should thank God for persecution and for prosecution, if from these ensue a purer Protestantism and mono21theism for the latter days of the nineteenth century. A siege of the combined centuries, culminating in fierce attack, cannot demolish our strongholds. The forts of Christian 24Science, garrisoned by God’s chosen ones, can never surrender. Unlike Russia’s armament, ours is not costly as men count cost, but it is rich beyond price, staunch and 27indestructible on land or sea; it is not curtailed in peace, surrendered in conquest, nor laid down at the feet of progress through the hands of omnipotence. And why?
30Because it is “on earth peace, good will toward men,” — a cover and a defence adapted to all men, all nations, all times, climes, and races. I cannot quench my 128:1desire to say this; and words are not vain when the depth of desire can find no other outlet to liberty.
3“Therefore . . . let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works.” (Hebrews 6 : 1.)
6A coroner’s inquest, a board of health, or class legislation is less than the Constitution of the United States, and infinitely less than God’s benign government, which is 9“no respecter of persons.” Truth crushed to earth springs spontaneously upward, and whispers to the breeze man’s inalienable birthright — Liberty. “Where the Spirit of 12the Lord is, there is liberty.” God is everywhere. No crown nor sceptre nor rulers rampant can quench the vital heritage of freedom — man’s right to adopt a religion, 15to employ a physician, to live or to die according to the dictates of his own rational conscience and enlightened understanding. Men cannot punish a man for suicide; 18God does that.
Christian Scientists abide by the laws of God and the laws of the land; and, following the command of the 21Master, they go into all the world, preaching the gospel and healing the sick. Therefore be wise and harmless, for without the former the latter were impracticable. A lack 24of wisdom betrays Truth into the hands of evil as effectually as does a subtle conspirator; the motive is not as wicked, but the result is as injurious. Return not evil for 27evil, but “overcome evil with good.” Then, whatever the shaft aimed at you or your practice may be, it will fall powerless, and God will reward your enemies accord30ing to their works. Watch, and pray daily that evil suggestions, in whatever guise, take no root in your thought nor bear fruit. Ofttimes examine yourselves, and 129:1see if there be found anywhere a deterrent of Truth and Love, and “hold fast that which is good.”
3I reluctantly foresee great danger threatening our nation, — imperialism, monopoly, and a lax system of religion. But the spirit of humanity, ethics, and Christianity 6sown broadcast — all concomitants of Christian Science — is taking strong hold of the public thought throughout our beloved country and in foreign lands, and is 9tending to counteract the trend of mad ambition.
There is no night but in God’s frown; there is no day but in His smile. The oracular skies, the verdant earth 12— bird, brook, blossom, breeze, and balm — are richly fraught with divine reflection. They come at Love’s call.
The nod of Spirit is nature’s natal.
15And how is man, seen through the lens of Spirit, enlarged, and how counterpoised his origin from dust, and how he presses to his original, never severed 18from Spirit! O ye who leap disdainfully from this rock of ages, return and plant thy steps in Christ, Truth, “the stone which the builders rejected”! Then will 21angels administer grace, do thy errands, and be thy dearest allies. The divine law gives to man health and life everlasting — gives a soul to Soul, a present 24harmony wherein the good man’s heart takes hold on heaven, and whose feet can never be moved. These are His green pastures beside still waters, where faith 27mounts upward, expatiates, strengthens, and exults.
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