Carol Norton, C.S.D., of New York, New York
Member of the Board of Lectureship of The Mother
Church,
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts
At the invitation of President Schurman, of Cornell University, and under the auspices of the university, presided over by Dean Crane, who represented the president in his absence, Carol Norton, C.S.D., of New York City, representing the Christian Science Board of Lectureship, delivered his lecture, "A Third of a Century of Christian Science," at Barnes Hall, Cornell University, on Tuesday evening, April 2. The Cornell Daily Sun, the regular daily university paper, published and edited by the students, thus refers to the lecture and the introduction of Dean Crane.
Last evening in Barnes Hall, Mr. Carol Norton of New York lectured before a large audience on the subject, "A Third of a Century of Christian Science."
In introducing the speaker Dean Crane said: —
"I presume there is no one present here this evening who has not formed an impression more or less distinct of the ethical and remedial system known as Christian Science. It has occupied a great part of the discussion of the public press, and what is of peculiar moment to citizens of this state, it is the subject of proposed legislation at the capitol. Under these circumstances it cannot fail to be interesting and instructive for you to hear a history and explanation of the system from one who can speak with authority, and I am sure you will give him your courteous and earnest attention.
"The function of a university is to investigate truth in all its forms, and to foster in its students that impartial and judicial frame of mind without which no valuable acquirements in any field of learning are possible. At the same time it must not be forgotten that while the university encourages the greatest freedom of investigation and discussion, it does not itself take sides in the debated questions of the day, and it will be unfair to use hospitality as an excuse to drag it into partisan strife.
"It was in this spirit, I have no doubt, that the president of the university courteously gave permission for the delivery of this lecture in this place, and requested me to present to your kind attention the speaker of the evening."
At the close of Dean Crane's courteous introduction, Mr. Norton prefaced his lecture by the following brief statement, after which he delivered his address, which was received with marked attention by the large audience: —
"By way of brief preface to our lecture this evening, I beg to say that I come here as a representative of the Christian Science denomination or movement, a member of its Board of Lectureship. I come not as one wishing to proselyte in the ordinary sense of that term. It is of no personal or individual moment to me whether you are converted to the doctrines that I shall present, or whether the direct result in your minds may be simply the opening of an impartial, judicial, middle way position or attitude of thought. We cannot, in this impartial investigation, within the precincts of a university widely noted as is Cornell for its liberality, its impartiality, and its progressive life, for an instant abuse such a liberal and kind courtesy as has been extended by the chief officer of this university. Cornell is the first great American university to hear one of the authorized lectures on this subject, which is at once a religious topic, a therapeutical subject, and a scientific question before the men and women of twentieth-century Christendom. Oxford, in England, through one of its philosophical societies a few months ago, opened its doors to Christian Science in a similar way.
"If I seem partisan in presenting these tenets, you may know that I have come to explain the distinctive thought of Christian Science and, therefore, must strongly adhere to my text to make such arguments as will go to prove the truth of the cardinal deduction, which is the primary deduction of Christian Science, — that the allness of God means the allness of the divine Mind, and the divinity of Christ means the divinity of the Christ-life in us all as well as in Christ Jesus."
A large percentage of those present were the students of the university, together with professors and university officers. The lecturer treated his subject in a way conspicuous for its impartiality and tolerance, and brought prominently forth the higher educational value of Christian Science in its relation not only to religion, health, and Scriptural interpretation, but to scientific progress, language, art, education, drama, co-education, and sex-equality; and showed in a sympathetic and frank way the great spiritual and reform work of the Rev. Mary Baker Eddy. He laid especial stress upon the re-construction of thought in relation to religion, health, and science that has already been wrought by the applications of the teachings of the Christian Science text-book. While President Schurman and Dean Crane with dignified impartiality disclaimed any partisan or even sympathetic approval of the doctrines of Christian Science, both showed a most commendable spirit of liberality in sanctioning and facilitating this official utterance on the most talked of Christian philosophy of the hour. Christian Scientists will appreciate this expression of fair-mindedness and true Americanism.
[Mr. Norton's lecture follows.]
Christendom has passed through the doorway of the twentieth century. The ideals of Christianity are rapidly becoming universal. The English language is fast becoming the language of humanity, and hand in hand with this language go the truths of the teachings of Jesus. Christian Science is the most-thought-of aspect of the Christian religion of these early hours of the new century. It is truly twentieth-century Christianity. Christian Science recognizes in the individuality and spiritual teaching of Jesus the individualization and expression of all true religion. Jesus Christ was an idealist, and "ideals," says Emerson, "govern the world." The definite achievements of Christian Science in the realm of religion, healing therapeutics, and scientific deduction during the last third of the nineteenth century prefigure its greater works during the century within whose borders we already stand. What has Christian Science accomplished? What is it at the present time doing? What has the race a right to expect from its practical operation during the days that are to be? These are pertinent questions to be calmly considered, dispassionately discussed, and prayerfully investigated. Blind prejudice is self-imposed ignorance. A dogmatic sense of religion is mental stolidity. A one-sided or prejudiced point of view is a position without view or vista. Fixed ignorance of either religious or scientific truth is inadmissible in this age of enlightenment and impartial investigation. Wrong traditional influences are no part of a progressive mentality, and thinking minds are always open to the light whencesoever it cometh.
The religion of Jesus has within itself the elements of universality. It is a gospel of brotherhood, fraternity, fellowship, social science, and co-operative progress. Jesus' kingdom of righteous dominion is for this world, but partakes not of its worldliness. According to Christian Science, Jesus Christ is at once Son of God and son of Man. His divinity or immortal selfhood is one with the divine Nature that we call God. His humanity is one with universal Man, i.e., "God made manifest in the flesh." This humanly divine manifestation is neither earthly nor sensual, but illustrates the symmetrical proportions of sinless humanhood. Such character constitutes the eternal normality of God's man. Christian Science looks upon Jesus as the central figure of present and future religious history and spiritual conquest. Far above the plane and action of a mere wonder-worker it places the deeds and words of Jesus. Referring to the works of Jesus, especially his healing of sickness through mental or spiritual processes, Matthew Arnold writes: "This action of Jesus, however it may be amplified in the reports, was real; but it is not therefore as popular religion fancies, — thaumaturgy (wonder-working). It is not what people are fond of calling the supernatural, but what is better called the non-natural. It is, on the contrary, like the grace of Raphael or the grand style of Phidias, eminently natural; but it is above common, low-pitched nature; it is a line of nature not yet mastered or followed out."
Is Christian Science evangelical in its attitude toward our Lord and Master? It recognizes in Jesus the fulfilment of the Messianic prophecies and hopes of the Hebrew people. It teaches his immaculate conception, spiritual incarnation, baptism, and his reception of the descent of the Holy Spirit. It accepts the record of his power over the elements, the genuineness of his divinely natural deeds miscalled miracles, his works of healing, regeneration, and divinely compassionate forgiveness of sinners. It accepts his Atonement as a revelation of the divine process of at-one-ment with God. It bows in humility before his Gethsemane struggle, and sees in the tragedy of Calvary the great climax in the drama of atoning love. It believes in the truth of his Easter morning resurrection, and teaches that he restored himself, healing his wounds and removing the winding sheet from his own body and the napkin from his head in the tomb. It accepts the story of his post-resurrection words and acts, as recorded in the Gospels, and sees in his final ascension above matter the scientific fulfilment of his own prophecies and the possibility of individual immortality demonstrated. Therefore Christian Science accepts Jesus Christ as the Way-shower, and in this acceptance lays legitimate claim to being evangelical in its attitude toward the personality, individuality, and work of the Saviour.
Does Christian Science take a liberal view of the character and life of Jesus? Christian Science reiterates the ancient Hebrew statement as to the nature of God, "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord," and therefore it reaffirms the words of Jesus, "My Father is greater than I." Christian Science sees in Jesus and in his sinless ascending life a perspective ideal of our own possibilities. Jesus prayed that all men might be one with the Father even as he was one. He commanded men to be as perfect as God was perfect, and as if to comfort them with the possibility of this marvelous attainment, said, "Ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free." Christian Science, therefore, teaches that God is One as Spirit, Mind, or Truth. Super-personal, yet personal as supreme individual Being to each and every one of His creatures.
According to the philosophy of Christian Science the life of Jesus Christ and the power that his career manifested over sin, physical disease, and death, expresses an illustration of man in tune with the infinite Harmony called God. Christian Science illustrates the divinely designed possibility of spiritual manhood. Creeds, dogmas, materialistic speculations, blind belief, and a merely ecclesiastical point of view do not reveal, but obscure, this divine manhood. Jesus as our elder brother of Nazareth, as humanity's greatest friend and Saviour, in the light of Christian Science steps forth from the tomb in which he has been placed by the deification of his personality, and again as the Healer and Reformer of Galilee, walks in Spirit and in Truth in our midst, a regenerator of the depraved, a healer of the sick, and a joy-bringer to all who sit in darkness.
Finally, Christian Science
believes literally as well as spiritually, because of its demonstrable power to
heal disease, that Christ meant what he said when he gave his great promise to
all ages, "The works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than
these shall he do; because I go unto my Father."
Religion, according to Christian Science, is universal. Strictly speaking there are no religions, as there are no gods. Religion is not a belief about God, nor even merely a belief in God, but by Christian Science it is understood to be a demonstrable understanding of the divine Principle of the universe. God being Spirit, or Mind, He must be approached and worshiped mentally. Therefore the laws of God are laws of Mind, for God is Mind. God being All-in-all, He is at once as supreme in the so-called physical realm as in the moral or spiritual. Therefore, in the words of the Hebrew writer, He "forgiveth all thine iniquities" and "healeth all thy diseases."
Religion, according to Christian Science, is honesty, chastity and purity of thought and act, unselfishness, philanthropy, a literal and spiritual imitation of the life of Jesus Christ as the highest manifestation in religious history of a God-governed man. Christian Science recognizes all that is true and beautiful in the great religious systems of the world, but at all times and under all conditions sees in the progressive career of Jesus Christ the manifestation of the spiritual Idea, the type of the perfect man. Religion, in the light of Christian Science, is spirituality as opposed to Adamic materiality. Religion is universal right, Truth, Justice, Freedom, Liberty, and selfless Love operating upon the minds of men, transforming, reforming, upbuilding, and liberating from all that degrades, materializes, or begets human discord, disease, and ultimate death. According to Christian Science, religion is not necessarily embodied in the external visible manifestations of so-called religion; but at all times abides as the presence of the Holy Spirit in human affairs, the veritable Emmanuel, or God with us, bearing perpetual witness to the existence of the divine Immanence, — God in His world.
Christian Science is essentially Scriptural religion. In the language of the first of its six brief Articles of Faith, its text-book affirms, "As adherents of Truth we take the inspired Word of the Bible for our guide to eternal Life." During its first third of a century's existence Christian Science has made the Bible the chief book in the lives of over a million individuals. Next to the Bible it places the Christian Science text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker G. Eddy. Why? Because through the prayerful application of the teachings of this text-book the spiritual significance of the Bible has again been discerned, and its physically healing gospel, as well as its regenerative message, has once again been proven capable of practical utility and daily demonstration in the healing of sickness and sin.
Christian Science inculcates a dignified and lofty faith in the teachings and promises of Holy Scripture. It substitutes a common-sense understanding of the spiritual interpretation of the Scripture for the crude literalism that in its blind worship of the Bible has done perhaps more than anything else to obscure its real and practical meaning. Christian Scientists are close and conscientious Bible students. When it is remembered that the Christian Science churches, with their thousands of attendants, have, as an impersonal pastor, two books, — the Bible and the Christian Science text-book, from which a duly appointed man and woman read as church Readers, and of these two books the Bible is given first place, cannot the following question be asked in simple justice to Christian Science: Has any body of Christian believers ever paid a higher tribute to the great text-book of Christendom than has the Christian Science Church, under the leadership of its Founder, Mrs. Eddy? This great and growing body enters the twentieth century with personal preaching and personality displaced by the Word of God resident in the Bible and spiritually interpreted in its Scientific sense through the provable truths of the Christian Science text-book.
The simple teachings of Christ Jesus as one continued discourse recorded in the four Gospels by his four students can be termed the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Israel. The recorded rules of life given by Jesus are the city laws of the New Jerusalem. The kingdom of God, or heaven, Jesus taught came not through material observation, but through the acquisition of mental righteousness and inward spirituality. It is a well-known fact that scholastic Christianity is more Pauline than Jesus-like. The history of the Bible is the history of the sacred literature of the Hebrews and of their direct successors, the early Christians. The Truth resident in the Old Testament attests its divine source. The greater or more clearly expressed truths manifest in the New Testament prove its spiritual origin. In direct harmony with and in fulfilment of both the Old and New Testament are the teachings of the Christian Science textbook. The epistles of Paul, James, Peter, John, Jude, together with the Acts of the apostles and the Revelation of John, embody the spiritual observation and experience of these students, disciples, and apostles of Jesus. In a conspicuous way modern Christian theology is the outgrowth of these teachings. In justice to Christian Science should it not be admitted that the regenerative and healing works that have followed in the train of the teaching of the Christian Science text-book are ample evidence that it makes practical the promises of the four Gospels? Thus Christian Science is claimed to be both Christian and Biblical.
Health, Christian Science defines as wholeness, or holiness. According to Christian Science, true holiness, Christian grace, and moral rectitude, must of necessity include a normal relationship with the divine Being which we call God. Thus bodily health is made manifest in the quickening of what is called "the mortal body by the Spirit" (Mind), according to the teaching of Scripture and Scientific law.
If God is All-in-all as divine Perfection, He has as intimate relationship with the so-called physical health of man as with his spiritual harmony. If immorality is moral discord, and materiality the reverse of spirituality, physical ill-health is certainly bodily discord. If the body is to be transformed by the renewing of the mind, health is therefore a spiritual condition, and man, in proper mental harmony with the divine Mind or spiritual law, can no more have bodily disease than can man in harmony with the law of God, Good, express moral deformity. Therefore Christian Science teaches the establishment of health through mental or spiritual processes. It invokes the divine aid through the prayer of understanding, spiritual communion with Deity. It attacks all organic and functional disease in the realm of causation; namely, mentality, and there conquers the disease in its breeding ground; i.e., the conscious and sub-conscious mortal thought. Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil. He spent his whole time in the regeneration of the depraved, in the healing of the sick, in the destruction of error, and in the raising of the dead. Is not Christian Science, therefore, both logical and Scriptural in its assertion that sin, bodily sickness, error, and death are of mortal not divine origin, and constitute the works of the devil or evil in human affairs?
The word Science is clothed with definite spiritual significance through the teachings of Christian Science. If the underlying principles of Christianity are true they must be scientifically true. If scientifically true they are of necessity capable of proof. If provable, ocular evidence should bear witness to their truth. Mere logical or intuitional proof is not sufficient for the man of Scientific research. It has been truly said that physical science is the religion of the theological sceptic. Critics have persistently challenged the right of Christian Scientists to designate their system as a Scientific one capable of proof.
We are all more or less acquainted with the oft-repeated assertion that Christian Science is neither Christian nor scientific. But happily the philosophy of Christian Science is capable of confirmation in both these departments of its application. In the realm of Christianity or religion it proves its Christian character by its reformatory efficacy. In the realm of Science it confirms its claim to being Scientific by offering a definite series of evidences in the healing of organic and functional disease through the sole power of Mind. Being neither a dogmatic nor speculative system of mental therapeutics, it is at once exact in its operation wherever rightly applied. As in music, one definite proof of harmony proves the possibilities of the law of music, and as one manifestation of discord in no wise disproves the possibilities of harmony, so a positive cure through the application of the metaphysical healing law of Christian Science proves the possibility of the most extreme claims made for the system. The failures reflect not against the Principle, but against the lack of understanding on the part of the demonstrator.
Christian Science elevates the idea of God as divine Principle. This Principle is capable of demonstration in the destruction of moral and physical error. Therefore by this very premise Christian Science is removed from the list of experimental philosophies and so-called inexact sciences, and placed at the very head of demonstrable Science. In its demonstration of the supreme power of Mind it thereby proves the nothingness of matter as a causative force. If the scientific development of the nineteenth century proved one thing above another, it was this: that all causation is Mind, and in the words of Mr. Huxley, "matter is but the name for the unknown hypothetical cause of states of our own consciousness."
The miscalled laws of Nature are but the externalized manifestations of what is known as impersonal mortal mind, alias, mortal or human nature. The self-destructive forces of earth, hurricane, tidal wave, pestilence, famine, drought, flood, extremes of heat and cold, poisonous plants, reptiles, ferocious beasts, contagious diseases, the evils of hypnotism, hereditary sin and disease, germs, bacteria, death-dealing electricity, fire, together with the barbaric tendencies dormant and aggressive in the animalized minds and actions of mortals manifesting themselves in cruel warfare, murder, bull, cock, and dog fights, and in all forms of human brutality, express not the manifestation of the nature of that God who is referred to in the thirty-second chapter of Deuteronomy, as "a God of Truth and without iniquity, just and right."
Jesus illustrated the power of the true laws of Nature when he calmed the tempest on the Sea of Galilee. It is recorded that in manifesting his power over the elements he rebuked the storm and it ceased. Would he have rebuked that which manifested the eternal Love? Does the everlasting Love ever express itself through death-dealing forces, either elementary, physical, or human?
Art rises to its true and proper level in Christian Science and partakes of the primary beauty of the infinite Ideal. Christian Science intensifies the love of all that is true and beautiful in nature and in art. Christian Scientists are invariably lovers of Nature. Mountains and hills, babbling brooks and flowing rivers, lakes and ocean, flowers and birds, yea, Nature in her true moods, tell them of endless progress, order, and the continuity of all that is divinely exquisite in God's universe. Into the possession of this universe, into which no sin, pain, suffering, death, or human limitation entereth, they press forward, seeking through the purification of mind the heritage of man's dominion over all things. The drama under the influence of the ideals of Christian Science, is already showing a return to its primitive origin; namely, the righteous depicting of that which is beautiful, noble, pure, and true in contradistinction to that which is ignoble, depraved, unchaste, and merely material. Book-making, sculpture, sociologic reform, the uplifting of the standards of general education. and all phases of sanitary and civil reform, find their most ardent helpers among the followers of Christian Science.
Because of these things Christian Science appeals to the highest order of intelligence in Christendom as well as to what Abraham Lincoln loved to call "God's common people."
To the business man interested in gaining the fruition of his own legitimate labor, to all interested in the conduct of orderly competition in the making and supply of humanity's necessities, Christian Science makes pertinent appeal. It raises the standard of business integrity, intensifies mental perspicuity, lessens so-called brain weariness or mental fatigue. It intensifies the faculties of comprehension, perception, and methodical procedure, quickens what is known as business instinct, and frees the dormant capabilities resident in the nature of both man and woman, in order that both may grasp the larger possibilities of expanding thought. If the word of the true moralist is as good as his bond, the private methods of the genuine Christian Science business operator are as good as his public pretensions and avowed purposes.
The great institution of civil law which can be truthfully called the religion of Justice, finds its staunchest supporters among the believers in Christian Science. They honor all righteous law. They recognize in all such law the bulwarks of man's individual liberty, freedom, and rights as a child of God. Against the apparently widespread theory that a genuine Christian Scientist must of necessity be provincial in thought and painfully narrow in action, let the words of the Founder of Christian Science be quoted: "The right teacher of Christian Science lives the Truth he teaches. Pre-eminent among men, he virtually stands at the head of all sanitary, civil, moral, and religious reform."
One of the least observed but most interesting aspects of the progress of Christian Science throughout the world is its visible effect on the common, every-day spoken language of its thousands of adherents. Language is a thing of growth. New words are added as new conditions are evolved which demand accurate portrayal and expression. With the fluctuating conditions of human experience and growth, words either become obsolete or increase in significance through continued use. The English language, in common with all other languages, has what is known as its great list of positive words, and as an offset to this list perhaps a greater list of words expressive of negative, or inharmonious and imperfect conditions of life. It is therefore self-evident that as the negative conditions of life are overcome through advancement, and spiritual evolution, men will enter into the possession of a more harmonious language, one expressive of more normal and harmonious conditions.
With the decrease of sin, sickness, human woe, poverty, inequality, fear, and death among the sons and daughters of God will occur also the death of the words and phrases indicative of these passing or outgrown conditions. Christian Science is gradually but steadily making obsolete such words. Thousands of words expressing the different diseases known to medical practice Christian Science is relegating to the realm of oblivion. Scores of words expressive of the different states and stages of imbecility, insanity, dementia, etc., it is rendering more and more meaningless. A large part, yea, virtually all, of the vocabulary of the physicist, the anatomist, the physiologist, and the student of germs and bacteria, together with many such religious terms as "fallen man," "angry God," "predestination," "non-election," "infant damnation," "endless punishment," etc., it is dropping into the bottomless pit of non-use. Are these statements extravagant and revolutionary? No. And for this reason and because of the following proposition: If with the advancement of Science the primary relationship existing between God and man is revealed as a demonstrable divine Science, the negative conditions of life, explainable only through the use of the words and terms referred to, having by sure degrees disappeared, being brought under the mastery of this Science, the words expressing them will cease to be used.
Heretofore the life of the universe and man has been dealt with as both physical and mental. Hereafter the great continent of Mind-life will be explored and life will be proven wholly mental. Therefore all phrases and words relating to organic, imperfect physical life will gradually become obsolete. The terminology of the true Christian era for which the twentieth century will be forever famous, is referred to by St. Mark in the sixteenth chapter of his Gospel in his reference to Jesus' promise and prophecy relating to his followers throughout the ages: "These signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover."
We hear of the dead languages. Dead conditions will naturally involve the death of words and phrases and their peculiar terminology. New conditions will not so much create new words, as bring into universal use "the new tongue" referred to by the Founder of the Christian religion. Then will the great and noble and positive words of language take on their wedding garments and "earth will be filled with the glory of God."
Christian Science has already worked a revolution in the consideration of the great question of sex-equality. At the time of its advent the scientific world of thought was undergoing a veritable reign of philosophical excitement over the announcement of the Darwinian theory of the "origin of species" and organic evolution. Simultaneous with the progress of the metaphysical or immaterial theory of creation as taught by Christian Science, and side by side with it has advanced what is known as the evolutionary theory of "the survival of the fittest." The elaboration of the theory of organic evolution belongs peculiarly to the so-called scientific progress of the nineteenth century. Is it not significant that the practical founder of this theory, together with the ablest apostles of its development, have been in large degree agnostic in their views of God, individual immortality, and the existence of Heaven? Christian Science in its deductions relating to the universal creation recognizes therein the infinite gradations in the evolutionary order of creation from infinitesimal to immensity. Through the study of the highest, namely, the divinely creative Mind, it learns the characteristic nature of the infinite hosts of heaven and earth, of which the highest manifestation is the male and female of God's creation jointly reflecting the Fatherhood and Motherhood of God.
Christian Science through its interpretation of the being of the Motherhood and Fatherhood of the divine US; i.e., God, thereby reveals the real nature of man and woman. It also reveals the lesser manifestations of the divine Nature in what is known as masculine and feminine identity in universal creation. Thus it introduces the inductive process of spiritual rationality into scientific procedure, and in tracing individuality constantly ascends in the order of creation. This is in direct opposition to the process utilized by the ordinary evolutionist, who searches amidst suppositional cells and assumed original germs for the divine origin of man. Christian Science admits the accuracy of evolutionary deductions in so far as these deductions relate to the unfolding growth of the material or mortal man, the temporal antipode of the divine man and the real creation made in the image and likeness of God.
The present age witnesses woman's ascension to her rightful place as man's equal. The highest conception that man can have of the divine Being is to think of the infinite Motherhood of God as divine Love. Can it not then be truthfully said that ideal womanhood is the scientific expression of this phase of the divine Nature? Let it be remembered that in the final balancing of the scales of God the male and female of His creation are in exact spiritual equality, conjointly expressing the Fatherhood and Motherhood of God. Religion and theology, Christian, Jewish, and what is known as Pagan, have down through the ages been essentially masculine, and the Fatherhood of God has received almost sole representation. While the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, of which the Christian Science text-book is chief, are an essentially womanly interpretation of the things of the Spirit, this interpretation is so poised in scientific accuracy and logic that equal justice is done to both sexes. Woman's spiritual leadership will not supersede that of man, because man will rise to the possession of a spirituality and love that is ideal. Then there will be fulfilled the vision of genuine sex co-operation. Tennyson beautifully sets forth this idea in his words: —
The woman's cause is man's; they rise or sink
Together, dwarfed or godlike, bond or free.
For woman is not undeveloped man,
But diverse. . . .
Yet in the long years liker must they grow,
The man be more of woman, she of man,
Distinct in individualities;
But like each other even as those who love.
Then comes the statelier Eden back to men;
Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm.
May these things be!
In the days to be the terms womanly manhood and manly womanhood will not be subject to either derision, satire, or stupid prejudice, but terms representative of the image and likeness of the eternal Good.
The Bible reads thus: "When lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." Death is therefore not of divine origin. It occurs because man does not as yet possess the full understanding of how to live; that is, how to demonstrate the Life Principle in its totality. The Bible also says that "the wages of sin is death." Paul said, the last enemy that shall be overcome is death, and Jesus said, whosoever believeth (understandeth) me shall never see death. Inasmuch as Jesus once said, "Let the dead bury their dead," and because a careful study of the word death shows that it means neither annihilation nor organic decomposition, but a state of materialistic deadness to what constitutes real Life, it is certain that the Bible does not teach the divine origin or perpetual inevitability of physical death. Into a true and Scientific understanding of Life, or immortality, the death process cannot enter. Of necessity the demonstration of this Truth must take time and a supreme mastery of the laws of eternal Life. Christian Science sheds its greatest light upon the great mystery of evil. This mystery has been the unanswering silent sphinx of the ages. Strictly speaking there are but three questions for the Scientist, investigator, or religionist to answer, namely these: —
Which is the actual and real? Good or evil, Mind or matter, Life or death? The reality of a positive involves the unreality of a negative. The conquest of fear through the acquisition of spirituality and the understanding of the Omnipotence of God as divine Love is unquestionably the supreme glory of Christian Science. Genuine Christian Scientists are noted for their good cheer, fearlessness, courage, and optimism in the face of depravity, pain, and disease.
The Christian Science movement, its church, institutional life, and reformatory and healing work, is self-evidently the outgrowth of the life-work of Mary Baker Eddy. Mrs. Eddy is without doubt the greatest religious reformer of the nineteenth century and the greatest woman leader in the history of religion. The divine character of her message to humanity is abundantly proven in the good that it accomplishes in the alleviation of human suffering, in the intensifying of the moral and spiritual life of all who accept its teachings, and in the healing of organic and functional diseases. Childhood, youth, and age unite in loving gratitude to this selfless philanthropic woman for the great good that has come into the world and into their lives, through the agency of her Christian career and womanly achievements in the realm of ethics and Christian philosophy. To know her is to love her. To understand her teachings is to understand her life-work. To consider impartially her claims as "a willing disciple at the heavenly gate, waiting for the Mind of Christ," is to rid one's self of blind prejudice against her work and teachings. Thousands upon thousands of men, women, and children offer up a perpetual Psalm of thanksgiving to the eternal Good for the great good that has come to humanity through the career of this God-governed woman. Intelligently, prayerfully, and humbly I deem it a privilege to speak my gratitude to her for what her teachings have done for me in restoring me to health and in making plain the upward, illumined heavenward Christ-way.
Christian Science was the greatest discovery of the nineteenth century. The Christian Science text-book was the greatest book of the nineteenth century. Love, not creeds, will be the key-note of twentieth-century Christianity. Scientific religion will take the place of dogmatic mysticism, and spirituality, genuine and natural, will displace materiality and mortal speculation. Works rather than mere belief will crown Christian activity.
Christ will be, more than ever before, the central figure in all reformatory and healing work. Health will become contagious and disease occasional rather than uniform. Not only Christendom will be reunited under the spiritual leadership of Christ Jesus, but all civilization will become essentially Christian and Christ will be in deed and Truth the Light of the world. Wars will cease, mammon be dethroned, sin, disease, and death will, by steady degrees, be made the vanquished enemies of the race. Immortality will be reduced to or comprehended as a demonstrable divine Science. Brotherhood will be established through brotherly love and unselfishness, and the animal instincts inherent in human nature will by sure degrees be overcome and destroyed by the acquisition of the God-like, Christ-like Mind. The divine democracy of true Christianity will supersede all conditions and theories that tend to class legislation or despotic government. Christianity will be synonymous with true Science, true ethics, true law, true government, true industrial integrity, true health. The white stone in the forehead of its representatives will be pure love, compassionate, forgiving, reformatory, and healing. The world will be baptized into the spiritual or divine Science of Christ's teachings, metaphysically understood, and Christian Science will become the law of life.
[Delivered April 2, 1901, at Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y., and published in The Christian Science Journal, March, 1902. Numerous excessively long paragraphs have been broken into smaller paragraphs for this transcript. The introduction was published in the Christian Science Sentinel, April 18, 1901, from which the date of the lecture's delivery was also taken.]