"Revelation of the Truth"
Edward A. Kimball
Edward A. Kimball, member of the board of lecturers of the international body of Christian Scientists, and also a member of their board of examiners, has come to California to give information concerning the principle and objects of the church.
Mr. Kimball has addressed large audiences in all the great cities of the Western States. He has spoken in Riverside, San Diego, Pasadena, Los Angeles, and Oakland, and will speak in this city at Golden Gate Hall on Tuesday next.
Mr. Kimball has written the following article for The Call on the history, scope and future of the Scientist movement:
The history of Christian Science as a religio-scientific movement begins with the discovery of this science of life by Rev. Mary Baker Eddy in 1866 and its subsequent exposition to the world.
The ages have yearned and prayed for deliverance from human woe. Men and women standing high in the esteem of the world have predicted and prophesied the reign on earth of that which should redeem and save, and especially have they foretold the ultimate understanding of the science of healing, which would dominate disease and its causes.
Christian Science, which is a revelation of the truth concerning the principle, facts and laws of being, was discerned and promulgated by Mrs. Eddy after many years of religious, scientific and metaphysical investigation and culture, which alone could prepare the mind for the supersensible perception and grasp of such a vast and profound subject. After years of demonstration, which included her own recovery from what was regarded as a fatal sickness, she begun to make known to the world this gospel of healing and deliverance. Thirty years ago this minister of God, immovably fixed on the basis of ascertained and demonstrated scientific intelligence, appeared at the portals of human thought with her message of supreme good, disclosing the science of Jesus' teaching and works, and the exact way of salvation from sin and misery.
If a stricken humanity had formulated all of its needs in one vast petition to God it might have found its answer in the revelation of Christian Science with its limitless possibilities and availability. In the reception which the world accorded this announced science which reveals and declares the right and might of intelligence divinely bestowed, history has repeated itself.
As of old the ignorant and carnal mind, true to the genius of its historical enmity against good, rose in its hateful wrath to scorn the message and to revile, insult and persecute the revelator; and yet in spite of the malignant tide of antagonism, which would have hopelessly appalled one who was unsustained by divine wisdom, this woman, in whom the very spirit of self-sacrifice and godly perseverance was incarnated, pressed on with the knowledge that good is omnipotent and will prevail.
As time wore on the sick were healed and taught the rudiments of this science and the nucleus of the great Christian Science organization was formed. The Massachusetts Metaphysical College was founded and thousands of people from all parts of the land were taught there and returned to their homes to engage in the work, and in this way the growth of the denomination has advanced after the manner of geometrical progression. To-day the denomination has hundreds of churches in America and foreign countries and hundreds of thousands of people are either members of these churches or in immediate affiliation with them.
As a religious organization there is no sectarian law; and only a simple denominational policy. Each branch church has an independent form of church government and the only semblance of central authority is that which is lodged in The Mother Church in Boston. The denomination has a publishing house in Boston which publishes a weekly paper and a monthly magazine and certain books on the subject of Christian Science, including the works of Mrs. Eddy. Her original work, "Science and Health, With Key to Scriptures," is the only text book of genuine Christian Science. It has passed through more than 150 editions and has hundreds of thousands of constant readers and students. As the faultless key to the revelation contained in the Bible this book is accomplishing more to-day for the weal of mankind than any other scientific or religious work that is known to the world. It rests largely on Scriptural authority and sanction, and enables the learner to grasp the true, spiritual import of the Bible.
The scope of Christian Science is infinite. It is the truth about God, man and the universe; about law. government, power, action and substance. To even summarize this scope in the narrow area of a newspaper article is obviously impossible. The Christian Scientists who are taking their primary footsteps on this great scene of science have not, as yet, reached the fullness of an understanding thereof, nor wrought out all of the possibilities of demonstration, but already far more than a million cases of sickness have been healed and nearly, if not quite all, of the known forms of disease have been mastered thereby. Tens of thousands of drunkards have been reclaimed; the sinner has been turned from evil thoughts and ways, the sorrowing have been comforted and every conceivable phase of miserable conditions have either been exterminated or greatly relieved.
The paramount object of Christian Science is to institute and procure a moral preform. It not only presents a higher ideal of life but it reconciles man to the fundamental laws that would govern man aright, and shows how violations of these laws involve him in hopeless and ruin. Christian Science reveals the only true God and inclines man to uncompromising obedience to him. It fortifies man with a rational trust in God and a reliance which is serviceable and availing. It discloses the true way of salvation which is set forth in the Bible and reveals Jesus Christ as the complete exposition of the way, which is neither mysterious nor miraculous, but is scientific and divinely natural. It furnishes the only feasible explanation of the divinity of Christ; reveals the true philosophy of life which eliminates mystery and plants the consciousness of man on the basis of reason rightly directed, instead of involving him in the maelstrom of the so-called supernatural.
The future operation and activity of this Christian knowledge has always been in the hands of God; and will there remain. All actual science is infinite. It has no ebb or flow, no mutations, no fluctuations. It simply is. Christian Science is not new truth, and there can be no doubt as to its future. The real question is as to the capacity of mortals to discern the fact that it is supremely good and bestows the most unspeakable blessings upon them that understand it and who are willing to turn from the ignorance, superstition and sin which prostrate, desolate and consume. Christian Scientists do not attempt to formulate a personal opinion of the future progress of this cause, but as knowledge is also foreknowledge it may be prophetically declared that this revealed truth which has regenerated and elevated the motives, aspirations, hopes and desires of men will continue to do so. That it will continue to educate men away from conjectural and finite misconceptions of being and bestow upon them the intelligence which redeems, revivifies and saves. That it will still manifest its universal and eternal good by reforming the sinner and healing the sick. That it will still teach men the inevitable anguish of hatred and evil and incline them to love one another and to be ''honest, merciful and pure." Confident that "his word will not return unto him void," we may continue to know that the actual science of life which must dominate the diseases of humanity will be recognized, learned and obeyed; that it will establish in the consciousness of man his God-given dominion over all the earth; pacify the nations; consume the agonies of social, political and international strife, and manifest the reign of heaven in the hearts of mankind, which shall tranquilize and satisfy unto the uttermost.
When all this will be accomplished "no man knoweth," but the foretelling and reiteration of revealed truth urges its impressions and predictions now just as it did when St. John declared: "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death; neither sorrow nor crying; neither shall there be any more pain — for the former things are passed away."
EDWARD A. KIMBALL.
[Published in The San Francisco (California) Call., Sept. 18, 1898. The title has been supplied from a phrase within the text of the article.]