Charles I. Ohrenstein,
C.S.B., of Syracuse, New York
Member of the Board of Lectureship of The Mother
Church,
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts
Probably no one thing in human history has done so much for the peace and the prosperity of a nation — yes, for the peace of a whole continent — as that immortal document, the Declaration of Independence; for it guarantees the fullest freedom of thought, speech, and action to every individual, organization, community, and state, so long as such freedom does not encroach upon that of others. And the peace, progress, and prosperity of our great country are attributable not only to our natural resources, great as these are, but to this broadminded declaration of our rights.
Our country has been called, and justly so, "the melting pot" of the world, because under its influence people of all nations have, in large measure, become a homogeneous whole — Americans. Statesmen and scholars who have visited us have recognized that such a result must be due to something inherently good in our government and institutions. Likewise those who visit Christian Science churches recognize that people who have been adherents of widely differing religions, and even agnostics, have been brought into a unity of thought. As one of our hymns has it, —
"Now Jew and Gentile, meeting
From many a distant shore,
Around one altar kneeling,
One common Lord adore."
This unifying power of Christian Science is altogether due to its helpful, reasonable, and harmonizing presentation of religion. Jew, Gentile, and agnostic change their beliefs or unbeliefs, because Christian Science heals them and because it satisfies their reason.
In accepting the fact that every one has an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, our people as a whole are our country's friends. But when people or organizations — in perhaps a quite well-meaning way — desire special privileges which would deprive others of their inalienable rights, there is a lurking danger of their becoming enemies of our country and of the broad-minded purpose which is the very corner stone of our governmental structure. Among such organizations — much as we respect the honorable men whom they include — we must call attention to the medical and religious bodies which have stood in opposition to the high interpretation of the teachings of the lowly Nazarene which Christian Science is giving to the world; an interpretation which proves its truth and its practicability by healing from sickness through saving from sin, and by saving from sin through healing from sickness, as the Master did.
The first and foremost thing to which all of us have an inalienable right is life. According to the general belief of mankind, life consists of a soul-animated body; and a well-known writer — Arthur Brisbane — has very aptly said: "So far medical practice has reached no agreement as to the right method to save the body, nor has theology arrived at any definite conclusion as to the right method to save the soul." Not even doctors and clergymen would deny Mr. Brisbane's statement. Moreover, the medical profession does not deny that in its over four thousand years of practice, it has not as yet discovered what life is, what health is, nor what disease is, nor their ultimate origin. Neither will it assert that it has reached a point at which it can say with any certainty that it is able to cure a single case of sickness that is not self-limited in its nature — meaning one which would not in time be overcome by the natural processes of self-restoration.
Indeed, the following extra from a recent issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association goes much farther in this regard than I should think of doing, and charges that medical practice is nothing but experimentation. The article, which was headed, "Clinical Investigation on Private Patients," said, "Physicians, in practice, experiment every time they give a dose of a drug or, in fact, therapy of any kind, for patients differ in their reactions to substances that may be administered." According to this statement, not only is every case an experiment — which means that nothing as to what may result from the treatment is known — but every dose of medicine, and, in fact, all "therapy of any kind," is mere guesswork. Yet, much as this fact should humble their pride, medical organizations have not been deterred from striving to pass laws and ordinances — such as those of health and school boards, particularly the latter — which would place people entirely under their control; under absolute and arbitrary medical dictation as to what methods people must employ as their cures; what methods they must employ that they may live or die.
So, too, the different and differing religious organizations which have never been able to tell us what, or in what part of us, the soul is — but which have none the less assumed the salvation of the soul to be the chief purpose of religion — still threaten with ostracism, and with the superstition of eternal punishment, those who in their urgent need seek the undivided garment of religion, — the healing and the saving Christ.
Is there, then, to be "no balm in Gilead?" Is the healing of God's people to be left to experimentation, and their salvation to conjecture? No! for the Scriptures plainly speak of God as one "who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies; who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's."
Broad as the Declaration of Independence is in proclaiming life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as the inalienable right of all, the Scriptural declarations just quoted, and particularly the declarations of the Master, go much farther. They not only declare life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness the right of all, but they tell us their true source and how we may obtain them. What are these declarations of the Master? "I am come that they [meaning all] might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly;" and, "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." Again, "For this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth." "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." The Christianity of Jesus not only confers a right to liberty, but, rightly understood, it confers liberty. Again, this God-anointed man of whom it is related that he "rejoiced in spirit," said, "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full."
All of these divine declarations of our independence, made two thousand years ago, and again made by Christian Science, not only proclaim every one's independence of all but God and of His Christ, but every one's absolute dependence on them. They give every one not only the right to live, to be free and happy, but also clear, definite, accurate directions as to how life, liberty, and happiness may be had. All of these directions have knowledge — Science — as their basis. To have life and to have it more abundantly, we must know, — know God and Christ. To have freedom, we must know, — know Truth. And to have this knowledge or Science of God, of Christ, and of Truth, we must have the Christ-Science or Christian Science which enabled Jesus to rejoice greatly in Spirit.
Science is defined as "ascertained truths or facts," and as "knowledge of principles and causes." Mechanics and chemistry, which have literally enabled us to remove mountains; steam and gas, which have made the farthest points of our habitable globe available as our pleasure resorts and enabled us to deck our tables with their choicest and most perishable products; electricity, which has annihilated space so that we can speak with one another over continents and oceans; things looked upon as utterly impossible no farther back than the youth of many of us here, now stand before us as ascertained and accomplished facts. But does any one of them, or do all of them together, mean our having life, and having it more abundantly, when upon such credible evidence as the Bible our early ancestors lived a great deal longer without these things than people now live with them? Is any one of them, or are all of them together, the truth which ye shall know and it shall make you free, when every one of their products has been used to maim and to destroy, as we have seen within the last few years; when because of them the world is held in abject terror and in fear?
Are these the "ascertained truths" which are to make us free, when defenseless women and children have been destroyed, when whole nations have been brought into subjection, enslaved and starved by their means? If "a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit," are not these so-called ascertained truths — these so-called sciences — the fruits of "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" of which "thou shalt not eat?" But does Christian Science teach us to decry these things? No! It claims, however, that none of the material sciences, nor all of them together — the whole "wisdom of the world" — will ever constitute one iota of the truth which ye shall know and it shall make you free; that none, nor all of them together, will ever bring one iota of the joy, the happiness, which the truth known by Jesus and again ascertained in Christian Science gives. Christian Science makes these things, "all things . . . lawful" unto us, because it teaches us to use all things constructively and none destructively. It teaches us that "of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil [the belief of selfish material pleasure, satisfaction and gain — that is, of the tree of selfishness], thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shall surely die."
What, then, is Science? Only what is true or real can be known, and only Truth or reality cannot cease to be and cannot undergo change. Everything material — which means everything accepted by the so-called natural sciences — being capable of destruction or of undergoing change, must be unreal and untrue. This does not mean that their products are not humanly useful, and that Christian Scientists do not avail themselves of such products. On the contrary, they do, — the telephone, the telegraph, the radio, the flying machine, and so on — and feel grateful for them. Science, however, is "the knowledge of principles and causes" and of "ascertained truths" — the knowledge of the fundamental, the primary, the ultimate of true or essential being; and such knowledge the natural sciences do not possess, are not, cannot be. They are useful arts, and in showing that only by courtesy can they be looked upon as sciences, Christian Science does not in the least derogate from them.
What, then, may be taken to mean true knowledge or Science? Only such ascertained truths or facts which are basic, fundamental, and constructive, which bless all and injure none; which give life, and give it more abundantly, and bring true freedom and true happiness to all. According to Jesus, true Science is to know God and the Christ whom he came to reveal, and whom to know is life eternal; to know the liberating truth he taught, and to have the spiritual joy or happiness which he enjoyed as a result of his true, his Christian, Science. And right here let me quote what Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, has defined Science to be. On page 127 of her great book, the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," she says, "If God, the All-in-all, be the creator of the spiritual universe, including man, then everything entitled to a classification as truth, or Science, must be comprised in a knowledge or understanding of God, for there can be nothing beyond illimitable divinity."
Jesus said that to know God is life eternal. That he knew whereof he spoke, he demonstrated by raising the dead. He said that knowing the truth "shall make you free," and he demonstrated this by liberating people from bondage to every manner of ill; by liberating them from sin, from sickness and from want of every kind. He said, My joy and my peace I give unto you, and not only did he rejoice greatly in Spirit, but he was able to retain both peace and joy even when confronted with the cross.
If the inalienable right to more abundant life and to greater freedom is not, like that of happiness, to be a mere rainbow chase, must not mankind learn of him who demonstrated an unchanging Science of these things, and who did so by example as well as by precept? Must not mankind, to obtain the results which he obtained, learn of the Master's works as well as of his words, and in all humility be instructed by them all? This is what Mrs. Eddy did. This is how she discovered Christ's unchanging Science, demonstrated it, taught others to do likewise, elucidated it in all her writings and founded it, and brought it to its present stage of development. For this reason she has been and will continue to be its only Leader. How nobly, how untiringly, how efficiently, Mrs. Eddy devoted herself to her mission, is attested not only by the thousands upon thousands who throughout the world have been benefited, healed, and reformed by her teachings, but by the changes which, because of Christian Science, have taken place in the teachings and the practice of other schools of healing and in other religious denominations. All have undergone changes for the better because of Mrs. Eddy's teachings, works and life; changes which have only just begun, and will go on until the world is ruled by Christ's demonstrable Science, until "the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea."
Practically all great thinkers have believed in a Supreme Being or power, but without knowing what this Supreme Being is; without believing that it can be known. All religions have taught that we must believe in God, but to know Him, they have looked upon as impossible. Yet, the Bible says, "They shall all know me [God], from the least of them unto the greatest of them;" and Jesus plainly directed all to know God. Nor have the Bible and Jesus left us without the means; but their teachings of God's nature have been so simple that the erudite have either overlooked them or not looked upon them as scholarly enough. They have looked for God in the farthest heights and in the lowest deeps; in everything but that in which He is. With telescope and microscope have they sought Him, but failed to find Him. Why? Because to see God, as Jesus said, requires purity: "The pure in heart . . . shall see God." To know God, whom Jesus declared to be Spirit, and who is infinite, requires one to strip one's self of all materiality, — to cease believing in a reality apart from God, and so to cease believing in the reality of matter. No one who has enshrined the reality of matter in his heart, his thoughts, knowledge or affections, can know God; for such a one cannot as yet have reached the point at which he cherishes not, loves "not the world, neither the things that are in the world," — matter and materiality.
It is universally recognized that nothing could exist without an adequate cause to produce it, and the chief concern of Science — which, as we have seen, must consist of "ascertained truths or facts" — is causation; for Science is "the knowledge of principles and causes," and thus of what is primary, ultimate and basic. All religions have taught that God is the Great First Cause. They all say what the first line of the Bible says. But although theology has taught as an article of faith, as something that must be believed, that God was in the beginning, it has not taught this as something that must be understood and demonstrated. "Believe, . . . and thou shalt be saved," has been its dictum; and this, notwithstanding the fact that the Bible and Jesus teach that we must know God.
On the other hand, the sciences have precluded, and rightly so, mere belief upon this as upon every subject. They have recognized that knowledge of ultimate, of essential being, would necessarily lead to the solution of all the problems which beset us, and thus to true salvation. They forgot, however, what really is well known to them, that, no matter to what minuteness they might reduce any mere thing or matter, irrespective of how far-fetched the name by which they christen it; whether they call it an atom or an electron — effect, effect, and still effect, and never cause is seen; for, as the Bible says, "canst thou by searching [analyzing mere things] find out God?" Is there, then — even as "the fool hath said in his heart, . . . no God"? Is there no primary, no ultimate, Supreme Being or cause, simply because we know not where theology, philosophy and the sciences have laid Him? Thanks be to God's revelation of Himself in both the Old and New Testaments, and thanks be to the resurrection of that revelation in Christian Science, we do know that when we seek God, and "seek him with the whole heart," we shall surely find Him, and find Him to be "the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever" — the God with whom all right things and only right things are possible.
But here some one may cry in alarm, "Are we to depend for practical things, for health, for life itself, upon something so intangible, impalpable, as God?" God intangible! Impalpable! God, in whom "we live, and move, and have our being," intangible, impalpable! There are three essentials without which nothing whatever can be: presence, power, knowledge. Thus, for instance, nothing whatever could be without being somewhere; nothing whatever could be without power to produce it, and nothing could be without knowledge to purpose, plan and project it.
The very first thing that we read in the Bible is that "in the beginning" something was. This something, very naturally, was a presence, and we are told that it was God. Immediately, that is, without any medium or media this presence did something; it caused or created the heavens and the earth — which previously had been void, without presence or existence — and all that they contain. This presence, or God, is designated by the plural of a word which means power. Thus a presence which was a plural power — a term intended to mean all-power — caused or created everything. Here we have two factors without which nothing could be or occur, namely, presence and power; and these two, which are one, were not matter. What, then, was this presence which was, and consequently must still be all power? Farther on — ages later — we are told in the Bible that this same all-presence, all-power, revealed itself to Moses as "I AM," meaning conscious being or existence, and thus, Mind; and in Deuteronomy it is stated that "he [this same presence, power and Mind] is thy life."
Except in so far as the terms used to designate God, and the attributes with which He is accredited, do so, no attempt is made in the Bible to explain the nature of the Supreme Being. This perhaps applies particularly to the Old Testament, which in the main is a history of a people to whose seers and prophets God had, in some measure at least, revealed Himself. What has already been stated shows that to the seeing eye and to the hearing ear, the designations used for God in the Old Testament speak quite clearly of Him as the one true presence, the one true power, the one true consciousness or Mind, the one true Life, and thus the one true good of all, or God. But in the New Testament we have presented a still higher and clearer revelation — a revelation of Him by the God-anointed, or Christ Jesus. This revelation enables us to see God as "our Father which art in heaven," as the all-harmonious cause of all, and as Spirit, and thus as Mind, without the volitional and purposive operation of which — as without presence and power — nothing whatever could be or occur.
But Christ Jesus' revelation of God was not only by precept, not even only by works, mighty as these were. His chief, his highest revelation of God was his life, — the revelation of God as divine Love, the highest, the truly feminine quality which shows God to be our one true Mother as well as our Father, — a quality which was again so eminently manifested by Mrs. Eddy, who designated God as "our Father-Mother God" (Science and Health, p. 16). It is this simple, this Biblical, this Christ-ian or Christian, this understandable and properly ascertained truth about God as the Great First Cause, and thus as divine Principle, which Christian Science has again brought to mankind. This fact is clearly shown by Mrs. Eddy's answer to the question, "What is God?" on page 465 of the Christian Science textbook: "God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love."
To have life, and to have it more abundantly — and this is certainly what every one of us wants above all else — we must, according to Jesus, not only know God, but we must also know Christ; and to be free, which, rightly understood, must mean to be immune from every limitation, we must, also according to Jesus, know the truth. What, then, about Christ and Truth?
I trust that all of us have a better, clearer, higher, more rational and practical sense of God than when we came together here. I trust that all of us are able to see that God is Truth; absolute, ultimate, unchanging reality. To know God, then, is to know Truth, omnipresent or divine Love, and to be freed from believing in any evil presence, in any evil power, contingency or danger, and thus to be freed from fear and from dis-ease of every kind.
But more specifically, what of Christ and of Truth? Jesus, in speaking of himself as the Christ, said, "Before Abraham was, I am," and, "I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." This very naturally means that Christ always existed, always does and always will exist. It means Christ with us now, here and everywhere — his eternality. St. Paul, in speaking of the Christ, said that he was a "priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec," who was "King of righteousness, and after that also King of Salem, which is, King of peace; without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God; [who] abideth a priest continually." Both the Old Testament and St. Paul tell us that Abraham paid tribute to this Melchisedec, who was the King of righteousness and peace.
I am sure that, like myself, you are able to see that one without human father and mother, and without human descent, who was the Son of God, of Mind, of Love, without beginning or end of days — a king, not of any earthly, material kingdom, but a King of righteousness and peace, — was not a human personality, but the spiritual, altogether divine, pure, perfect, right, and true idea of God, and of His universe, including man; the divine idea of all right, of all well being, the Christ, the only Saviour; seen perhaps dimly, perhaps more or less effulgently by Abraham, by Moses, by the prophets, and by us, present then and now. I am sure that you are able to see that it was this divine idea of being which came to Abraham at eventide — the even tide of right thinking — and that it was to this idea to which Abraham paid tribute, — the tribute of worship and adoration; that it was this divine idea which revealed itself so fully through Christ Jesus because, more than any one of whom we know, he paid tribute in complete admission, submission, and obedience: worshiping it by applying it to all human needs and demonstrating its power to meet them, thus fully manifesting it. It is the divine, the spiritual, the right idea of being, then, that is the ever present Christ, the true Saviour, and Redeemer — which is as Emanuel — God with us.
How beautifully, how truly, how wonderfully, then, has Mrs. Eddy told us of the Christ when in the textbook of this Science (p. 333) she has said that "throughout all generations, both before and after the Christian era, the Christ, as the spiritual idea, — the reflection of God, — has come with some measure of power and grace to all prepared to receive Christ, Truth."
But Christian Science also shows us the true nature of man and of the universe in which we live, and it is by so doing that it frees us from the ills to which the flesh has been believed to be the heir. The process, like everything in Christian Science, is very simple, but, in order to achieve results, an understanding of the subject and an honest application are required. In an earlier part of the lecture it was shown that primary existence is what the religionist calls God, whom Jesus declared to be Spirit, thus Mind, and what the non-religionist or rationalist would call essential or immaterial conscious power, and thus also Mind, — or, as Matthew Arnold put it, "a power that is not ourselves which makes for righteousness," But by whatsoever name one or another doctrine may designate this power, it is what was in the beginning, or, as Mrs. Eddy more correctly states it (Science and Health, p. 502), it was "the only". Being primary, this power was and is the only Principle of existence; being conscious, it was and is Mind; and being "the only," everything must be its product, and must partake of its every property and quality, — a fact which applies particularly to its highest product, — its conscious expression or manifestation, — man.
Here, then, we have a rationalistic and incontrovertible statement of the first chapter of Genesis, — that God made all that was made; that He made man, male and female, in His own image and likeness, and that He pronounced all that He made good, very good. It is upon this perfectly Scriptural and perfectly rational basis that Christian Science declares that the only kind of a man there is, is like the only kind of a God there is, and God being Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth and Love, man is the manifestation of the complete good of All, or God.
Nor does Christian Science waste time and effort over the theory of evolution. For the important thing is not how a carnal and carnally minded kind of a man came into being, but how this kind of a man, or mankind, may evolve into a healthier, happier, more moral and a more Christian man. Mrs. Eddy says, "In its history of mortality, Darwin's theory of evolution from a material basis is more consistent than most theories." But she also says, "The true theory of the universe, including man, is not in material history but in spiritual development" (Science and Health, p. 547); and (ibid., p. 172), "Theorizing about man's development from mushrooms to monkeys and from monkeys into men amounts to nothing in the right direction and very much in the wrong." For this reason, as Mrs. Eddy further teaches, "spiritual evolution alone is worthy of the exercise of divine power" (ibid., p. 135), and it is that mankind may cease to be carnal and carnally minded in its tendencies, and evolve into spiritual mindedness and a consequent higher manifestation of man, that Mrs. Eddy labored to make the true import of Christ's Science known and accepted.
But here it may be objected that what has been said about man is not what we have been taught to mean by man. Very true; and that is why every one is so much the worse for what all have been taught. Let every one be taught, as Christian Science teaches, that man is the manifestation of divine intelligence or Mind, and ignorance and mistaken beliefs of all kinds will disappear; let every one be taught that man is the manifestation of divine Spirit and is spiritual, and materiality and sensuality with all their debasing, degrading, diseasing results will be overcome; let every one be taught that man is the manifestation of divine Principle, and nothing: unprincipled will be done; let every one be taught that man is the manifestation of unending Life, and life will be prolonged until "the last enemy," death, shall be overcome; let every one be taught that man is the manifestation of Truth, and deception and dishonesty will be banished; and let every one be taught that man is the manifestation of divine Love, and selfishness, improvidence, cruelty, strife and war will cease and the brotherhood of man will become a demonstrated fact.
Yes, Christian Scientists know quite well that all have been taught that man is "a mammal capable of carrying his body upright in locomotion, with a big toe that is not opposable;" that, as one of the ancients defined him to be, man is a mere featherless biped. But Jesus, who knew what man really is, and who showed forth the God-created, the God-anointed, or Christ-man, said to those who manifested little more than materiality, little more than an erroneous sense of God and man, "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it." All of which means that those who entertain a mere material, unintelligent, selfish, sensual sense of being, are the product of destructive falsity, of which they, together with those upon whom they impose and prey, are the victims.
"Divers measures . . . are . . . abomination to the Lord," we read in Proverbs. To the chemist, water is always H2O. To the Christian Scientist man is always the image and likeness of God. And just as every chemist knows the truth about water, so every Christian Scientist knows the truth about man. He also knows that just as the chemist by distillation, by a right process of elimination, can restore pure water, H2O, so the Christian Scientist knowing that man, the reflection of Mind, consists only of right ideas, can by the purification of thought, and the elimination of superstition, of ignorance, materiality and their attendant fears, diseases, untruthfulness, dishonesty, greed, malice, envy, hatred, jealousy, revenge and immorality, restore the true man, "which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness;" that is, in health, harmony and perfection. Indeed it is in this way that healing by Christian Science is brought about, and such healing is always reformatory. Every Christian Scientist will tell you that the understanding of the nature of God, of Christ, of Truth and of man, — the understanding that the kind of man which God made is the only real man, has enabled him to be a better, a healthier, a cleaner, a kindlier man than he formerly was; that it has made him freer and happier, and that in thousands upon thousands of cases it has prolonged the span of human life beyond all expectancy.
We have ascertained here in a perfectly simple logical way that there is only one real Mind; that this one and only Mind is all-good and infinite, and being such — irrespective of all appearances, irrespective of all that is believed — this Mind is the only real presence, the only real power, the only real consciousness, and therefore the only true cause of everything that really is; of everything that can be thought, felt, known, experienced. Does it not follow that everything that is really thought, felt, known and experienced is in conformity with this all-able and all-inclusive Mind? Ascertained truth is Science. I submit, therefore, that in accordance with this universally accepted definition, by all the rules of logic, by all the rules of common sense, what we have ascertained here is Science, and nothing less than Science.
I think it was Victor Hugo who said, "There is no power like that of an idea whose time is come." It needs no oracle to tell us that everything that has made for progress has been due to right ideas and devotion to them. On the other hand, everything that has hindered our onward and our upward march has been due to the tenacity with which people have clung to wrong beliefs. Now, let every one here take the simple truth of God's allness and of God's goodness which Christian Science teaches; let him practice what it teaches for a minute, an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year, — yes, let him conform to this all-mastering right idea of being until it takes full possession of him, and then let him, as he is sure to do, tell what it has done for him. I shall tell you now what I am truly able to tell you from my own experience, — yes, from the experience of thousands of others. He will tell you that it has made him a better, an abler, a healthier, a more loving, a more enlightened and progressive man; a man who has life, freedom, happiness, and has them more abundantly than he ever dreamed that he could possibly have them. More than this, — what has been said here about the truth of God, of Christ and of man, — no matter what your present view of it may be, will never altogether leave you. Some time, somewhere, when perhaps you need it most, it will come to you, unfold itself to you, and help you, comfort you and free you because it is the truth of God; and the nature of the truth of God is to make free from all that is contrary to God, and so contrary to good.
During the trying years through which the world has been passing, all men and all countries have been looking for some one wise enough, strong enough to save and to deliver them. Christian Science teaches us that the God-anointed or Christ-idea, the image and likeness of God, is the only true man, — the one whom all must emulate. It teaches us that this divine, this spiritual, this right idea of being — the ever present Christ or Truth — is the only one wise enough, strong enough, good enough, compassionate enough, and loving enough to save and to deliver all. It teaches us that this, the only Saviour, has come, and stands knocking for admission; and this idea is none other than Truth, the Light of the World, the Prince of Peace! His name is Christian Science, and he shall rule all peoples and all nations with the rod of unending and unbending Love.
[1924-1926.]