William Duncan Kilpatrick, C.S.B.
Member of the Board of Lectureship of The
Mother Church,
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts
In its solution of the problem of existence, Christian Science, the discovery of Mary Baker Eddy, gives the fundamentals upon which to build, in its correct and final explanation of God and man. Most people today, if they are inclined to give thought to the subject at all, agree that a correct concept of God and of man cannot be gained through the medium of the five physical senses. God, as is generally admitted, cannot be comprehended nor approached through the processes by which or through which we apprehend and judge the physical universe including physical man. In other words, God, obviously, cannot be seen or known materially, for does not St. John tell us that "no man hath seen God at any time"? which, being the case, naturally enforces the logical conclusion that man in the image and likeness of God cannot be cognized through the medium of the physical senses.
The revelations of Holy Writ impel the conviction that the man of God's creating is an exact and changeless reflection or expression of God. In fact, the Scriptures state in plain terms that man is created in the image and likeness of God, and it must be obvious to all that an image or a likeness cannot possibly be unlike the original. So, if God is not cognizable through the medium of the physical senses, the conclusion that man in the image and likeness of God could not be cognizable through the senses of seeing, feeling, tasting, smelling, and hearing cannot logically be gainsaid or denied.
Some may be willing to admit the spiritual and incorporeal nature of God, but spiritual vision has not yet furnished them with the concept of man in God's image and likeness as purely spiritual and without physical and material accompaniments. And while some may have glimpsed somewhat the spiritual nature of the Creator, yet there are many who cling to the material, localized, outlined, and circumscribed sense of Him, which would naturally demand a material being or personality as His image and likeness.
In its full, concise, logical, Scriptural and inescapable explanation of both God and man, Christian Science is setting free the imprisoned and embodied thought of mortals and is opening wide the portals of a new vision of God and man, which in time will not only revolutionize, vitalize, and save humanity from its own erroneous postulates, but which also will save the Christian religion from that discouraging future with which it was faced prior to the advent of Christian Science. Through this spiritualized vision of the true God, His Christ, and man in His image and likeness there is revealed the vista of a conscious present, clothed in the rainbow hues of purity, holiness, and spirituality, wherein may be found no hate, no lust, no sin, no poverty, no sickness, and no death; where harmony alone reigns, and strife, malice, and hypocrisy are unknown; where the brotherhood of man is enthroned as a natural and necessary expression of divine rule and authority; where there is but one Mind, one Principle, one God; where thought is in rapport with the holy purpose, and where boundaries, limits, and circumferences disappear in the glories of infinity.
Of man in the image and likeness of God, of the Christ, exemplified in the life and works of Jesus, the writer of the book of Hebrews says, "Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; thou crownedst him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet;" which, of course, endows man with about all the power and authority one could conceive of as belonging to or emanating from a divine, omnipotent Godhead. "Thou madest him a little lower than the angels." Who, forsooth, has found it possible to materially visualize a human being as "little lower than the angels"? Is it conceivable that an identity which might come within the scope of angelic investiture, could become cognizable through the senses of seeing, feeling, tasting, smelling, and hearing?
"Thou crownedst him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet." Does a weak, sick, sinning, poverty-stricken human being exemplify such all-embracing authority and dominion? Can it be said of mortal man that he has put "all things in subjection under his feet"? In fact, even with the remarkable advancement in the realm of material science, are not matter and material methods of healing still inefficient? Until the coming to the world of Christian Science with its spiritual message of healing and salvation, man had little hope for relief, from the decrees of incurability and fatalism, imposed by a culture devoid of the healing Christ in its ministrations to the sick and needy. Obviously, God did not create man to become the object of a materially chaotic universe, where one part of His creation becomes the helpless victim of others of His creatures: where the child of God supinely succumbs to the ravages of a mindless disease germ claiming divine authority to kill; where one of His children wants, while another basks in the lap of luxury; where vice and crime abound, at the expense of the pure and innocent; where hate seems often the master of love; where purity and honesty are tempted of evil, and where man is a helpless, rudderless, and aimless creature, separate and apart from God's care, guidance, and directing.
And here is where Christian Science steps into the breach, and through its Christianly scientific explanation of God and man gives mortals the true concept of themselves in God's image and likeness, and the true vision of God as omnipotent and ever-present good, freeing men from the bondage of those influences which have ever beset the path of mankind, and offering a full salvation from sin, sickness, poverty, and inharmony.
In the quest for surcease from those ills and conditions which are constantly at war with human happiness and peace, nothing is more potent and productive of good than the clear concept of God which Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, has given to the world in her book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," the textbook which all Christian Scientists use in connection with their daily study of the Bible. Through its study the Bible has become a new book to every Christian Scientist, and a wealth of incomparable treasure has been revealed, to enrich and spiritualize existence to the point where today much of the freedom and happiness promised therein is being realized by men, here and now, in their daily lives.
To divest God of human vestures and material accompaniments, and to proclaim Him as universal, "incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love" (Science and Health, p. 465) was not the outcome of human reason. It was the natural and necessary result of Mrs. Eddy's close and constant communion with God. Such communion is possible to us here in the exact degree that we dematerialize our concept of God and understand Him as "incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love."
In the destruction of the inharmonies — the poverty, the sickness, the strife, and the unhappiness of human living — nothing can equal the individual's mental conviction of the infinitude of God. The clear, individual concept of God as infinite effects the elimination of all the inharmony of material existence. God in His true spiritual and infinite significance is the diametrical opposite of that which claims to exist as the persecutor of mankind; and the unadulterated understanding of the infinitude of God will, of itself, prove a law of annihilation to all those conditions which render material existence uncertain, speculative, tragic, and hopeless.
The understanding of God as infinite — that is, as filling all space — logically impels the conviction of the absolute nothingness of that which claims to be opposed to God. Remember always that in Christian Science a mere belief in its teachings or a technical and meticulous repetition of its letter will not scale the heights of spiritual understanding. To affirm the infinitude of God is one thing; to understand it is another. To understand scientifically the infinite nature of God, or Spirit, is to comprehend to the point of positive demonstration the actual nonexistence of matter with its accompanying ills and limitations.
In the understanding of God as infinite, and man as the expression of that infinitude, lies the foundation of one's success to scientifically demonstrating the teachings of Christian Science. On the basis that man, as the Bible assures us, is the exact image and likeness of his creator, we are bound to the unavoidable conclusion that if God is infinite and man is God's expression, man — that is, all men — must, of necessity, express that infinitude. Mrs. Eddy, in Science and Health (p. 336), writing of immortal man, refers to him as the "infinite expression" of God, or Mind. To comprehend the full significance of the meaning of the word "infinite" we must realize and appreciate its complete opposition to and denial of that which is indicated in the term "finite." Everything included in an understanding of the term "infinite" denies the existence and reality of the finite. In a comprehension of the finite we find matter, places, things, localities, time, distances, measurements, limits, and all that has to do with things mundane. In the comprehension of the term "infinite" as applied to God, Spirit, all of these expressions of the finite are annihilated. They become impossible, unreal, and extinct.
These material objects, or expressions of limitation, exist now in our consciousness as illusion, but through the individual inspiration and application of divine metaphysics they will disappear, even as illusion. The present individual conviction of the nothingness of all of these objects of limitation — that is, the present individual conviction of the actual non-existence of that which we see, feel, taste, smell, and hear materially — will heal any form of sickness or inharmony with which one might be confronted. Sickness, poverty, inharmony, dishonesty, sin, and the like, have to be localized to find expression. The errors of human existence lie in the argument that there are persons, places, things, localities, limits, and so on, through which or on which their manifestation is made possible. To take away from sickness and sin and poverty a place in which to operate, or an agency through which to act, namely, localization, would deprive these forms of error of the only avenues through which they find expression. And that is what Christian Science does. It makes plain to us that these material agencies, or objects of limitation through which sickness and sin and poverty operate, exist only in the mental realm of illusion, and that as one's consciousness becomes impregnated with the true sense of the infinity of Spirit and Spirit's creation the very foundation of error is removed, and man is found free, and unbound by the illusions of materiality, localization, or limits.
If God is infinite — that is, fills all space — nothing opposed to God exists, as far as God is concerned. If God is infinite, He cannot be localized or comprehended through the senses of limitation. If God were localized, or confined to space or limits, He would then be cognizable through the five physical senses. If God is not cognizable through the five physical senses, then man is not cognizable through these senses. Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health (p. 258), "We know no more of man as the true divine image and likeness, than we know of God." And it might be conversely stated that what we know of God we know of man. If God is not localized, then man cannot be localized, and if man is not localized, he ceases to become a resting place or lodging place for these forms and conditions of material existence which require localization and objectification for expression, such as sin, sickness, sorrow, poverty, material birth, and death.
St. Paul has indicated to us that God is Mind, and Mrs. Eddy has included this term, in her definition of God, as one of the synonyms of Deity. If God is Mind, as St. Paul says, then man as the image and likeness of God must be mental. If God is infinite, then that Mind which is God is infinite, and there can exist but one Mind, as far as God is concerned. That Mind which is God must be pure, free from any consciousness of matter, limitation, or any opposed consciousness. That Mind must include all divine qualities — such as gentleness, kindness, and so forth — which fill all space, to the complete exclusion of everything else. Man, as the image and likeness of that Mind which is God, must be the expression of all the qualities characterizing that Mind. Such expression would be gradually accomplished through consciousness or the process of thought. Man, as Mrs. Eddy states in Science and Health (p. 475), "is the compound idea of God, including all right ideas." One could not conceive of a Mind without ideas to express itself, and in Christian Science we learn that the real man, God's man, is constituted of the consciousness of those ideas which express God. Man is actually the infinite idea of God, which includes all ideas.
I have found that often there arises a sense of confusion in the mind of an investigator as to what Christian Science teaches as to God as Mind, and also as to what it teaches as to the supposititious opposite of that Mind, that which St. Paul has characterized as the "carnal mind." Christian Science makes distinction between the two — the divine Mind and the carnal mind — and the question is often presented as to where these two minds exist; how one can be distinguished from the other, and so on. By way of explanation, let us take the two terms "love" and "hate." In one place in the Bible the rhetorical question is asked in this connection, "Can a fountain send forth both sweet water and bitter?" In other words, can love and hate come from the same source? Can they have a common creator? The answer is obvious. Love and hate could not come from the same source. Love — that is, that love which is divine — must have its origin in God, the infinite Mind, because love is universal. Anyone may express love. It belongs exclusively to no one, and therefore has its origin in infinity. You and I and everyone else may express just as much love as we wish. It is therefore not localized, or confined, or incidental to a brain or a skull. It comes from an infinite source, which, in Mrs. Eddy's definition of God, is termed the divine Mind.
Now, on the other hand, where does hate originate? It must find its inception in something quite opposed to the divine. St. Paul has characterized this opposite source as the carnal mind. Just as love is infinite and comes from one infinite source outside human consciousness; so hate, arrogantly taking to itself the same prerogatives, claims to come from one infinite source outside human consciousness. None of us has a corner on hate any more than he has on love. Everyone may express hate if he wishes to, and this fact argues for the oneness of the carnal mind and its claim to infinity, as a counterfeit of the divine. Just as God, or divine Mind, is one, outside human consciousness, so the carnal mind claims existence as one mind, outside human consciousness. Neither hate nor love has anything to do with brain. Both come from without a man, and are expressed through mankind only with the permission of the individual. Love comes from that infinitude of intelligence outside the human consciousness which we call divine Mind, or God. Hate comes from a supposititious opposite of the divine Mind which we call the carnal mind, or evil, devil. Both love and hate become active in individual human consciousness only with the permission of the individual. Just as the divine Mind is expressed through divine ideas, as, for example, love, so the carnal mind finds expression in carnal thoughts, such as hate.
In the realm of the real there is but one Love, for instance, and that Love is reflected by man in conscious thought. In the realm of the so-called carnal, or unreal, there is but one hate and that hate is expressed by man in conscious thought. In like manner, there is but one fear, and that fear has first to be admitted to consciousness from without before it may find expression in individual thought or action. Fear belongs to no man. It seems to become a part of man through its acceptance into consciousness at the volition of the individual. The same may be said of dishonesty, worry, anxiety, jealousy, anger, inferiority, poverty, incompetency, etc. Each of these qualities exists as one, in a supposititious carnal mind outside human consciousness, and all become a part of mankind's experience only to the extent that individuals admit them into consciousness.
Now, God, or divine Mind, is infinite, and man is God's exact image. Therefore man, as the expression or idea of God, must be conscious of nothing but the infinite. Man's true being is his consciousness of the divine, hence man's consciousness rests only in the infinite. Therefore, man cannot be conscious of a localized or flesh-embound existence. He is conscious only of the Mind of which he is the expression, and is therefore dependent upon no mind of his own apart from God, but manifests the intelligence, wisdom, and harmony of an all-seeing, all-knowing, omnipotent divinity. Man as the conscious expression of this one Mind is not subject to the belief of minds many, wills many, or purposes many, and is therefore never confronted with the problem of confusion, misdirection, misunderstanding, indecision, mistakes, aggressive mental suggestion, or mental malpractice.
God, of whom man is an idea, governs man with unerring intelligence, wisdom, and accuracy. As all the ideas of Mind are coordinated and harmonized under one infinite and divine intelligence, man can never be subject to any sense of inharmony, friction, irritation, competition, or interference. The ideas of divine Mind, individualized in consciousness, constitute the real embodiment or body of man, and since those ideas express the infinitude of the Mind from which they come, man's real identity exists in and consists of his consciousness of infinite being, and is not localized or circumscribed. Therefore man's real body, an incorporeal spiritual idea, cannot become the agency through which sickness, poverty, sin, and the like find manifestation, because these conditions require a material body, a place, or a thing through which to make themselves manifest. The unfoldment and application of these spiritual truths of existence in your individual consciousness constitute the Saviour, or the Christ, of which Jesus spake when he said, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world" — even to that time when spiritual ideas shall have so filled individual consciousness that the material will have completely disappeared in individual experience.
Jesus explained that God is Spirit, and Spirit is one of the synonyms
used by Mrs. Eddy in defining God. God is infinite, fills all space; hence, as
far as God, Spirit, is concerned, there can be no opposite. God's consciousness
of His own infinite spiritual Being does not permit the existence of anything
opposite to Spirit. Matter, to human consciousness only, is the opposite of
Spirit. Therefore, as far as God is concerned, there is no matter. But to you
and me there seems to be matter. Where does this matter come from, and how are
we conscious of it? It comes from that one carnal mind which claims an
existence opposed to Spirit, and to the extent that you and I admit into consciousness
thoughts which claim to come from this carnal mind, to that extent do we live
in matter, as a material body and a material universe.
Many of us here can well remember the great cry of protest that was sent up in the land when Mrs. Eddy first declared that "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter" (Science and Health, p. 468). Not only was she persecuted by pulpit, and press for this revolutionary utterance, but physical science, through its representatives, declared her a cheat and impostor because she dared to defy the findings of that august profession. What a change has been wrought in the world's opinion through the discovery of this meek modest, New England gentlewoman, especially in the ranks of the physical scientists! Today one can hardly pick up a newspaper without finding some statement from physical scientists which confirms definitely and conclusively that which Mrs. Eddy gave to the world nearly three quarters of a century ago.
One prominent physical scientist of Cambridge University in England, for example, states: "Of the intrinsic nature of matter, science knows nothing and never can know anything. Of what matter is science tells us nothing." And this same gentleman, commenting on nature and its laws, states: "The 'iron laws' of nature . . . acquire an entirely new status as the result of recent scientific work. It can be shown that these laws are the results of the mind's own action . . . The laws of nature are not something imposed on an independently existing universe from without. Indeed, not only the laws of nature, but space and time and the material universe itself, are constructions of the human mind . . . To an altogether unsuspected extent the universe we live in is the creation of our own minds." This is but one of the many similar declarations from the ranks of physicists with which we are repeatedly confronted.
So, your
and my concept of matter and material existence lies only in our own
consciousness, and this consciousness originates in a mind which is unknown to
God, and which therefore in no way conflicts or interferes with the infinitude
of Spirit, or God. Right where this carnal mind which you and I hold in our
individual consciousness tells us there is a material universe, material man
and things, there exists in all its entirety, infinity, and purity, the
spiritual creation of God's making, untouched by and utterly unconscious of the
supposititious existence of any other creation. Matter exists only as an
illusion in your and my consciousness. Change consciousness and the illusion
changes. Spiritualize consciousness and matter disappears.
As matter is a concept of the carnal mind held in the individual human consciousness, the experience of putting "off the old man with his deeds," and putting "on the new man," in accordance with St. Paul's advice, is a mental operation, and is not achieved through death. St. Paul clearly admonishes us that the putting "off the old man," that is, the material man, and the putting "on the new man," that is, the man of God's creating, or spiritual man, is to be accomplished through the renewing of the mind; and not by dying. Jesus said, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away," by which he means that our material concepts of existence must be replaced in consciousness by the spiritual truths which he came to establish, and thereby are we to be translated from the material to the spiritual, rather than by death. Also St. John tells us that in that ideal and spiritual state of existence, to which we must all sooner or later achieve, "the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof."
On page 209 of Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy writes: "The compounded minerals or aggregated substances composing the earth, the relations which constituent masses hold to each other, the magnitudes, distances, and revolutions of the celestial bodies, are of no real importance, when we remember that they all must give place to the spiritual fact by the translation of man and the universe back into Spirit. In proportion as this is done, man and the universe will be found harmonious and eternal. "
In making this mental transposition of existence from the material to the spiritual we must watch lest we fall into the error of mentally uniting matter, or the unreal, with the spiritual, or real: in other words, spiritualizing matter. To become clear in this we must hold to the primary fact that there is nothing in God's universe but the spiritual. There is no matter. Matter exists only as a fiction of the carnal mind, claiming to operate both collectively and individually, and manifesting itself through human consciousness to the extent that individual consciousness accepts this fabrication as real. Matter does not exist as a phenomenon of the carnal, or mortal mind, independent of the human consciousness.
On page 67 of "Retrospection and Introspection," in an article, entitled "The Human Concept," Mrs. Eddy writes, "Sin existed as a false claim before the human concept of sin was formed; hence one's concept of error is not the whole of error." "Sin," in this instance, indicates the so-called carnal mind in its entirety. "The human concept" of sin constitutes individual material existence. That is, your and my concepts of matter and material existence are the externalized manifestations of that portion of the carnal mind which we voluntarily admit into individual human consciousness, and since the portion of the carnal which we admit into consciousness depends entirely on our own volition or will, it is obvious that our concept of error, or the carnal, is not the whole of error. The sin which "existed as a false claim before the human concept of sin was formed" is "error in solution, elementary mortal mind," as Mrs. Eddy explains in Science and Health (p. 372). "Error in solution, elementary mortal mind," constitutes the mortal or carnal mind before it is admitted to the human consciousness. This state is sin, or error, in the abstract, before it becomes cognizable to the physical senses. As this elementary mortal, or carnal, mind finds admission to individual human consciousness it becomes externalized in human experience as matter. The carnal mind thus operating through the human consciousness creates its own material world.
The impressions, or thoughts, of this carnal mind may come to the individual human consciousness either in the form of collective thinking, that is, the thinking of others, or direct. Thus matter and material existence is an individual creation, or a creation of the individual, and is collective in so far as the individual permits the concepts of others to enter his human consciousness.
The thinking of others cannot be responsible for your or my material concepts or experiences further than you and I permit the thoughts of others to enter our consciousness. In other words, collective thinking must become individualized in our consciousness before it can have anything to do with our individual material concepts of existence. Otherwise, there would be no individual method of salvation, and the attainment of heaven would be a collective operation rather than an individual one. That is, if your and my material world or universe, exists because of the thinking of others, independent of our own thinking, then you and I could never attain to the kingdom of heaven until everyone else on earth, or who had ever lived on earth, had accomplished the same degree of perfect mental spiritualization. If material existence is collective, independent of individual consciousness, then the individual nature of salvation is a myth, and the millennium is postponed until every material concept in the mind of each individual mortal is canceled through the divine in individual consciousness. But this is not so. The millennium comes in the experience of each individual to the extent that his individual consciousness becomes spiritualized, and the kingdom of heaven is achieved in the same manner, because your and my material world exists only in your and my material thinking and is not a self-created entity outside our consciousness.
On page 83 of "Miscellaneous Writings" Mrs. Eddy writes: "No person can accept another's belief, except it be with the consent of his own belief. If the error which knocks at the floor 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."
The material has no connection with the spiritual at any point, and in making the mental translation of the material into the spiritual we cannot unite the two. The translation of the material into the spiritual is an individual mental operation. It consists in replacing in individual consciousness material misconceptions with spiritual facts or ideas and those material misconceptions which we replace with spiritual ideas or facts have no connection with and are not dependent upon the spiritual at any point, and do not exist because of the spiritual. In other words, in place of material things there are divine ideas, which exist independently of and separate from the material, and which have no connection whatever with the material, not even in name or in nature. While the material is a counterfeit of the spiritual, it is a counterfeit in the sense that the material is unreal. The divine knows nothing of the carnal and the carnal knows nothing of the divine, and therefore the carnal counterfeit is not formed with the divine as a pattern. The carnal is not a counterfeit made with the divine as a pattern, because both the divine and the carnal are unconscious of the existence of the other. The carnal, or material, is a counterfeit of the divine, in that it is unreal and untrue.
In Science and Health (p. 513) Mrs. Eddy makes this very pertinent observation in this connection: "God creates all forms of reality. His thoughts are spiritual realities. So-called mortal mind — being non-existent and consequently not within the range of immortal existence — could not by simulating deific power invert the divine creation, and afterwards recreate persons or things upon its own plane, since nothing exists beyond the range of all-inclusive infinity, in which and of which God is the sole creator." Then on page 269 of Science and Health she simplifies the question in the statement, "Metaphysics resolves things into thoughts, and exchanges the objects of sense for the ideas of Soul." In other words, metaphysics recognizes that material things are simply material thoughts and that back of a material object, or matter, there is nothing but material or carnal thought and that the process of translating material things into the spiritual consists in exchanging in individual consciousness carnal thoughts for divine ideas.
The divine ideas which we put in place of carnal thoughts have no connection with or relation to the carnal thoughts which we thus eliminate. We do not change carnal thoughts or carnal things. We eliminate them, and in place thereof we find divine ideas, with which the material has no connection or relationship. And in this we avoid confusion by watching lest we localize the spiritual by the use of material terminology or verbiage. Mrs. Eddy has given us some clear examples of the translation of the material into the spiritual where, for instance, in Science and Health (p. 515) she symbolizes "the tireless worm, creeping over lofty summits, persevering in its intent" to patience; where she says that "the serpent of God's creating is neither subtle nor poisonous, but is a wise idea, charming in its adroitness;" where she says (pp. 511, 512), "Spiritually interpreted, rocks and mountains stand for solid and grand ideas," and where she says that "the fowls, which fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven, correspond to aspirations soaring beyond and above corporeality to the understanding of the incorporeal and divine Principle, Love."
Thus in consciously translating the material into the spiritual we must watch lest we mentally and erroneously conceive matter and its manifestations to be material counterparts instead of mental counterfeits of creation. In place of matter, not back of it, is Spirit. The point is, that a material thing or object is not postulated on a specific spiritual idea of that thing. Spiritual ideas are not forerunners of matter, but through reversal and translation Spirit becomes the ultimate of matter.
So do you not see how the discovery of Mary Baker Eddy is uncovering to humanity not only the cause of its bondage to sin, sickness, poverty, appetites, inharmony, and lust, but also how her discovery is pointing the remedy for each individual fault and wrong concept which constitutes the foundation for all of our ills? And what shall we say of one who as no other since the time of Jesus of Nazareth, has flung wide the gates of paradise to a suffering world, that all mankind may enter and find surcease from its sorrow, its cares, and its woes? Could a revelation such as that of Mrs. Eddy come from aught but a purity and a deep devotion imbued by the spirit of the Christ? Is there gratitude enough in our human natures to permit a just and full recognition and acknowledgment of that which she has brought to each one of us individually? The world at large may not yet recognize the greatness of this humble New England gentlewoman; but we, as Christian Scientists, will never achieve those heights of spiritual attainment which she, with bleeding footsteps, has scaled for us until we fully and unreservedly acknowledge her as the Discoverer and Founder of the greatest revelation the world has experienced since the coming of Jesus the Christ.
What glorious possibilities has she opened before us! To what sublime heights has she led us! Comparable to St. John's vision in the Apocalypse is the glimpse of the spiritual, the real, and eternal which she has revealed to us in the depth of that which she has given to the world and left for the guidance and salvation of posterity.
[Probably delivered circa 1939-1940. Several excessively long paragraphs were broken up in this transcript.]