MESSAGE

TO

THE MOTHER CHURCH

BOSTON, MASS.

June, 1901

BY

MARY BAKER EDDY

PASTOR EMERITUS AND AUTHOR OF SCIENCE AND HEALTH

WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES

BOSTON, U.S.A.

Published by Allison V. Stewart

Falmouth and St. Paul Streets

1915

Copyright, 1901

By Mary Baker G. Eddy

All rights reserved

THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.

MESSAGE FOR 1901

BELOVED brethren, to-day I extend my heart-and-

hand-fellowship to the faithful, to those whose hearts

have been beating through the mental avenues of man-

kind for God and humanity; and rest assured you can

never lack God's outstretched arm so long as you are in

His service. Our first communion in the new century

finds Christian Science more extended, more rapidly ad-

vancing, better appreciated, than ever before, and nearer

the whole world's acceptance.

To-day you meet to commemorate in unity the life of

our Lord, and to rise higher and still higher in the indi-

vidual consciousness most essential to your growth and

usefulness; to add to your treasures of thought the great

realities of being, which constitute mental and physical

perfection. The baptism of the Spirit, and the refresh-

ment and invigoration of the human in communion with

the Divine, have brought you hither.

All that is true is a sort of necessity, a portion of the

primal reality of things. Truth comes from a deep sin-

cerity that must always characterize heroic hearts; it is

the better side of man's nature developing itself.

As Christian Scientists you seek to define God to your

own consciousness by feeling and applying the nature and

practical possibilities of divine Love: to gain the absolute

2 MESSAGES TO THE MOTHER CHURCH

and supreme certainty that Christianity is now what Christ

Jesus taught and demonstrated — health, holiness, im-

mortality. The highest spiritual Christianity in individual

lives is indispensable to the acquiring of greater power in

the perfected Science of healing all manner of diseases.

We know the healing standard of Christian Science was

and is traduced by trying to put into the old garment the

new-old cloth of Christian healing. To attempt to twist

the fatal magnetic element of human will into harmony

with divine power, or to substitute good words for good

deeds, a fair seeming for right being, may suit the weak or

the worldly who find the standard of Christ's healing too

high for them. Absolute certainty in the practice of divine

metaphysics constitutes its utility, since it has a divine and

demonstrable Principle and rule — if some fall short of

Truth, others will attain it, and these are they who will

adhere to it. The feverish pride of sects and systems is

the death's-head at the feast of Love, but Christianity is

ever storming sin in its citadels, blessing the poor in spirit

and keeping peace with God.

What Jesus' disciples of old experienced, his followers

of to-day will prove, namely, that a departure from the

direct line in Christ costs a return under difficulties; dark-

ness, doubt, and unrequited toil will beset all their return-

ing footsteps. Only a firm foundation in Truth can give

a fearless wing and a sure reward.

The history of Christian Science explains its rapid

growth. In my church of over twenty-one thousand six

hundred and thirty-one communicants (two thousand four

hundred and ninety-six of whom have been added since

MESSAGE FOR 1901 3

last November) there spring spontaneously the higher hope,

and increasing virtue, fervor, and fidelity. The special

benediction of our Father-Mother God rests upon this

hour: "Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and per-

secute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you

falsely, for my sake."

God is the Infinite Person

We hear it said the Christian Scientists have no God

because their God is not a person. Let us examine this.

The loyal Christian Scientists absolutely adopt Webster's

definition of God, "A Supreme Being," and the Standard

dictionary's definition of God, "The one Supreme Being,

self-existent and eternal." Also, we accept God, emphati-

cally, in the higher definition derived from the Bible, and

this accords with the literal sense of the lexicons: "God is

Spirit," "God is Love." Then, to define Love in divine

Science we use this phrase for God — divine Principle.

By this we mean Mind, a permanent, fundamental, intel-

ligent, divine Being, called in Scripture, Spirit, Love.

It is sometimes said: "God is Love, but this is no argu-

ment that Love is God; for God is light, but light is not

God." The first proposition is correct, and is not lost

by the conclusion, for Love expresses the nature of God;

but the last proposition does not illustrate the first, as

light, being matter, loses the nature of God, Spirit, deserts

its premise, and expresses God only in metaphor, there-

fore it is illogical and the conclusion is not properly drawn.

It is logical that because God is Love, Love is divine Prin-

4 MESSAGES TO THE MOTHER CHURCH

ciple; then Love as either divine Principle or Person

stands for God — for both have the nature of God.

In logic the major premise must be convertible to the

minor.

In mathematics four times three is twelve, and three

times four is twelve. To depart from the rule of mathe-

matics destroys the proof of mathematics; just as a de-

parture from the Principle and rule of divine Science

destroys the ability to demonstrate Love according to

Christ, healing the sick; and you lose its susceptibility of

scientific proof.

God is the author of Science — neither man nor matter

can be. The Science of God must be, is, divine, predi-

cated of Principle and demonstrated as divine Love; and

Christianity is divine Science, else there is no Science and

no Christianity.

We understand that God is personal in a scientific

sense, but is not corporeal nor anthropomorphic. We un-

derstand that God is not finite; He is the infinite Person,

but not three persons in one person. Christian Scientists

are theists and monotheists. Those who misjudge us be-

cause we understand that God is the infinite One instead

of three, should be able to explain God's personality ra-

tionally. Christian Scientists consistently conceive of God

as One because He is infinite; and as triune, because He

is Life, Truth, Love, and these three are one in essence

and in office.

If in calling God "divine Principle," meaning divine

Love, more frequently than Person, we merit the epithet

"godless," we naturally conclude that he breaks faith with

MESSAGE FOR 1901 5

his creed, or has no possible conception of ours, who be-

lieves that three persons are defined strictly by the word

Person, or as One; for if Person is God, and he believes

three persons constitute the Godhead, does not Person

here lose the nature of one God, lose monotheism, and

become less coherent than the Christian Scientist's sense

of Person as one divine infinite triune Principle, named in

the Bible Life, Truth, Love? — for each of these possesses

the nature of all, and God omnipotent, omnipresent,

omniscient.

Man is person; therefore divine metaphysics discrimi-

nates between God and man, the creator and the created,

by calling one the divine Principle of all. This suggests

another query: Do Christian Scientists believe in person-

ality? They do, but their personality is defined spiritually,

not materially — by Mind, not by matter. We do not blot

out the material race of Adam, but leave all sin to God's

fiat — self-extinction, and to the final manifestation of the

real spiritual man and universe. We believe, according

to the Scriptures, that God is infinite Spirit or Person, and

man is His image and likeness: therefore man reflects

Spirit, not matter.

We are not transcendentalists to the extent of extin-

guishing anything that is real, good, or true; for God and

man in divine Science, or the logic of Truth, are coexistent

and eternal, and the nature of God must be seen in man,

who is His eternal image and likeness.

The theological God as a Person necessitates a creed

to explain both His person and nature, whereas God ex-

plains Himself in Christian Science. Is the human person,

6 MESSAGES TO THE MOTHER CHURCH

as defined by Christian Science, more transcendental than

theology's three divine persons, that live in the Father and

have no separate identity? Who says the God of theology

is a Person, and the God of Christian Science is not a

person, hence no God? Here is the departure. Person is

defined differently by theology, which reckons three as

one and the infinite in a finite form, and Christian Science,

which reckons one as one and this one infinite.

Can the infinite Mind inhabit a finite form? Is the God

of theology a finite or an infinite Person? Is He one

Person, or three persons? Who can conceive either of

three persons as one person, or of three infinites? We

hear that God is not God except He be a Person, and this

Person contains three persons: yet God must be One

although He is three. Is this pure, specific Christianity?

and is God in Christian Science no God because He is not

after this model of personality?

The logic of divine Science being faultless, its consequent

Christianity is consistent with Christ's hillside sermon,

which is set aside to some degree, regarded as impracticable

for human use, its theory even seldom named.

God is Person in the infinite scientific sense of Him, but

He can neither be one nor infinite in the corporeal or an-

thropomorphic sense.

Our departure from theological personality is, that God's

personality must be as infinite as Mind is. We believe in

God as the infinite Person; but lose all conceivable idea

of Him as a finite Person with an infinite Mind. That

God is either inconceivable, or is manlike, is not my sense

of Him. In divine Science He is "altogether lovely," and

MESSAGE FOR 1901 7

consistently conceivable as the personality of infinite Love,

infinite Spirit, than whom there is none other.

Scholastic theology makes God manlike; Christian

Science makes man Godlike. The trinity of the Godhead

in Christian Science being Life, Truth, Love, constitutes

the individuality of the infinite Person or divine intelligence

called God.

Again, God being infinite Mind, He is the all-wise, all-

knowing, all-loving Father-Mother, for God made man in

His own image and likeness, and made them male and

female as the Scriptures declare; then does not our

heavenly Parent — the divine Mind — include within this

Mind the thoughts that express the different mentalities

of man and woman, whereby we may consistently say,

"Our Father-Mother God"? And does not this heavenly

Parent know and supply the differing needs of the indi-

vidual mind even as the Scriptures declare He will?

Because Christian Scientists call their God "divine

Principle," as well as infinite Person, they have not taken

away their Lord, and know not where they have laid Him.

They do not believe there must be something tangible to

the personal material senses in order that belief may attend

their petitions to divine Love. The God whom all Chris-

tians now claim to believe in and worship cannot be con-

ceived of on that basis; He cannot be apprehended through

the material senses, nor can they gain any evidence of His

presence thereby. Jesus said, "Thomas, because thou

hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that

have not seen, and yet have believed."

8 MESSAGES TO THE MOTHER CHURCH

Christ is One and Divine

Again I reiterate this cardinal point: There is but one

Christ, and Christ is divine — the Holy Ghost, or spiritual

idea of the divine Principle, Love. Is this scientific state-

ment more transcendental than the belief of our brethren,

who regard Jesus as God and the Holy Ghost as the third

person in the Godhead? When Jesus said, "I and my

Father are one," and "my Father is greater than I," this

was said in the sense that one ray of light is light, and it

is one with light, but it is not the full-orbed sun. There-

fore we have the authority of Jesus for saying Christ is not

God, but an impartation of Him.

Again: Is man, according to Christian Science, more

transcendental than God made him? Can he be too spir-

itual, since Jesus said, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as

your Father which is in heaven is perfect"? Is God

Spirit? He is. Then is man His image and likeness,

according to Holy Writ? He is. Then can man be mate-

rial, or less than spiritual? As God made man, is he not

wholly spiritual? The reflex image of Spirit is not unlike

Spirit. The logic of divine metaphysics makes man none

too transcendental, if we follow the teachings of the

Bible.

The Christ was Jesus' spiritual selfhood; therefore

Christ existed prior to Jesus, who said, "Before Abraham

was, I am." Jesus, the only immaculate, was born of a

virgin mother, and Christian Science explains that mystic

saying of the Master as to his dual personality, or the spir-

MESSAGE FOR 1901 9

itual and material Christ Jesus, called in Scripture the

Son of God and the Son of man — explains it as referring

to his eternal spiritual selfhood and his temporal man-

hood. Christian Science shows clearly that God is the

only generating or regenerating power.

The ancient worthies caught glorious glimpses of the

Messiah or Christ, and their truer sense of Christ baptized

them in Spirit — submerged them in a sense so pure it

made seers of men, and Christian healers. This is the

"Spirit of life in Christ Jesus," spoken of by St. Paul.

It is also the mysticism complained of by the rabbis, who

crucified Jesus and called him a "deceiver." Yea, it is

the healing power of Truth that is persecuted to-day, the

spirit of divine Love, and Christ Jesus possessed it, prac-

tised it, and taught his followers to do likewise. This

spirit of God is made manifest in the flesh, healing and sav-

ing men, — it is the Christ, Comforter, "which taketh away

the sin of the world;" and yet Christ is rejected of men!

The evil in human nature foams at the touch of good;

it crieth out, "Let us alone; what have we to do with

thee, . . . ? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who

thou art; the Holy One of God." The Holy Spirit takes

of the things of God and showeth them unto the creature;

and these things being spiritual, they disturb the carnal

and destroy it; they are revolutionary, reformatory, and —

now, as aforetime — they cast out evils and heal the sick.

He of God's household who loveth and liveth most the

things of Spirit, receiveth them most; he speaketh wisely,

for the spirit of his Father speaketh through him; he

worketh well and healeth quickly, for the spirit giveth him

10 MESSAGES TO THE MOTHER CHURCH

liberty: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall

make you free."

Jesus said, "For all these things they will deliver you

up to the councils " and "If they have called the master

of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call

them of his household? Fear them not therefore: for

there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed."

Christ being the Son of God, a spiritual, divine emana-

tion, Christ must be spiritual, not material. Jesus was

the son of Mary, therefore the son of man only in the

sense that man is the generic term for both male and

female. The Christ was not human. Jesus was human,

but the Christ Jesus represented both the divine and the

human, God and man. The Science of divine metaphysics

removes the mysticism that used to enthrall my sense of

the Godhead, and of Jesus as the Son of God and the son

of man. Christian Science explains the nature of God as

both Father and Mother.

Theoretically and practically man's salvation comes

through "the riches of His grace" in Christ Jesus. Divine

Love spans the dark passage of sin, disease, and death with

Christ's righteousness, — the atonement of Christ, whereby

good destroys evil, — and the victory over self, sin, disease,

and death, is won after the pattern of the mount. This is

working out our own salvation, for God worketh with us,

until there shall be nothing left to perish or to be pun-

ished, and we emerge gently into Life everlasting. This

is what the Scriptures demand — faith according to

works.

After Jesus had fulfilled his mission in the flesh as the

MESSAGE FOR 1901 11

Son of man, he rose to the fulness of his stature in Christ,

the eternal Son of God, that never suffered and never

died. And because of Jesus' great work on earth, his dem-

onstration over sin, disease, and death, the divine nature

of Christ Jesus has risen to human apprehension, and we

see the Son of man in divine Science; and he is no longer

a material man, and mind is no longer in matter. Through

this redemptive Christ, Truth, we are healed and saved,

and that not of our selves, it is the gift of God; we are

saved from the sins and sufferings of the flesh, and are

the redeemed of the Lord.

The Christian Scientists' Pastor

True, I have made the Bible, and "Science and Health

with Key to the Scriptures," the pastor for all the churches

of the Christian Science denomination, but that does not

make it impossible for this pastor of ours to preach! To

my sense the Sermon on the Mount, read each Sunday

without comment and obeyed throughout the week, would

be enough for Christian practice. The Word of God is a

powerful preacher, and it is not too spiritual to be prac-

tical, nor too transcendental to be heard and understood.

Whosoever saith there is no sermon without personal

preaching, forgets what Christian Scientists do not, namely,

that God is a Person, and that he should be willing to hear

a sermon from his personal God!

But, my brethren, the Scripture saith, "Answer not a

fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him."

St. Paul complains of him whose god is his belly: to

12 MESSAGES TO THE MOTHER CHURCH

such a one our mode of worship may be intangible, for it

is not felt with the fingers; but the spiritual sense drinks

it in, and it corrects the material sense and heals the sin-

ning and the sick. If St. John should tell that man that

Jesus came neither eating nor drinking, and that he bap-

tized with the Holy Ghost and with fire, he would natu-

rally reply, "That is too transcendental for me to believe,

or for my worship. That is Johnism, and only Johnites

would be seen in such company." But this is human: even

the word Christian was anciently an opprobrium; —

hence the Scripture, "When the Son of man cometh, shall

he find faith on the earth?"

Though a man were begirt with the Urim and Thum-

mim of priestly office, yet should not have charity, or should

deny the validity and permanence of Christ's command to

heal in all ages, he would dishonor that office and misin-

terpret evangelical religion. Divine Science is not an in-

terpolation of the Scriptures, it is redolent with health,

holiness, and love. It only needs the prism of divine

Science, which scholastic theology has obscured, to divide

the rays of Truth, and bring out the entire hues of God.

The lens of Science magnifies the divine power to human

sight; and we then see the allness of Spirit, therefore the

nothingness of matter.

No Reality in Evil or Sin

Incorporeal evil embodies itself in the so-called corpo-

real, and thus is manifest in the flesh. Evil is neither

quality nor quantity: it is not intelligence, a person or a

MESSAGE FOR 1901 13

principle, a man or a woman, a place or a thing, and God

never made it. The outcome of evil, called sin, is another

nonentity that belittles itself until it annihilates its own

embodiment: this is the only annihilation. The visible

sin should be invisible: it ought not to be seen, felt, or

acted: and because it ought not, we must know it is not,

and that sin is a lie from the beginning, — an illusion,

nothing, and only an assumption that nothing is something.

It is not well to maintain the position that sin is sin and

can take possession of us and destroy us, but well that we

take possession of sin with such a sense of its nullity as

destroys it. Sin can have neither entity, verity, nor power

thus regarded, and we verify Jesus' words, that evil, alias

devil, sin, is a lie — therefore is nothing and the father of

nothingness. Christian Science lays the axe at the root of

sin, and destroys it on the very basis of nothingness. When

man makes something of sin it is either because he fears it

or loves it. Now, destroy the conception of sin as some-

thing, a reality, and you destroy the fear and the love of

it; and sin disappears. A man's fear, unconquered, con-

quers him, in whatever direction.

In Christian Science it is plain that God removes the

punishment for sin only as the sin is removed — never

punishes it only as it is destroyed, and never afterwards;

hence the hope of universal salvation. It is a sense of sin,

and not a sinful soul, that is lost. Soul is immortal, but

sin is mortal. To lose the sense of sin we must first detect

the claim of sin; hold it invalid, give it the lie, and then

we get the victory, sin disappears, and its unreality is

proven. So long as we indulge the presence or believe in

14 MESSAGES TO THE MOTHER CHURCH

the power of sin, it sticks to us and has power over us.

Again: To assume there is no reality in sin, and yet com-

mit sin, is sin itself, that clings fast to iniquity. The

Publican's wail won his humble desire, while the Phari-

see's self-righteousness crucified Jesus.

Do Christian Scientists believe that evil exists? We

answer, Yes and No! Yes, inasmuch as we do know

that evil, as a false claim, false entity, and utter falsity,

does exist in thought; and No, as something that enjoys,

suffers, or is real. Our only departure from ecclesias-

ticism on this subject is, that our faith takes hold of the

fact that evil cannot be made so real as to frighten us

and so master us, or to make us love it and so hinder our

way to holiness. We regard evil as a lie, an illusion,

therefore as unreal as a mirage that misleads the traveller

on his way home.

It is self-evident that error is not Truth; then it follows

that it is untrue; and if untrue, unreal; and if unreal, to

conceive of error as either right or real is sin in itself. To

be delivered from believing in what is unreal, from fear-

ing it, following it, or loving it, one must watch and pray

that he enter not into temptation — even as one guards

his door against the approach of thieves. Wrong is

thought before it is acted; you must control it in the first

instance, or it will control you in the second. To over-

come all wrong, it must become unreal to us: and it is

good to know that wrong has no divine authority; there-

fore man is its master. I rejoice in the scientific appre-

hension of this grand verity.

The evil-doer receives no encouragement from my

MESSAGE FOR 1901 15

declaration that evil is unreal, when I declare that he

must awake from his belief in this awful unreality, repent

and forsake it, in order to understand and demonstrate

its unreality. Error uncondemned is not nullified. We

must condemn the claim of error in every phase in order

to prove it false, therefore unreal.

The Christian Scientist has enlisted to lessen sin, dis-

ease, and death, and he overcomes them through Christ,

Truth, teaching him that they cannot overcome us. The

resistance to Christian Science weakens in proportion as

one understands it and demonstrates the Science of

Christianity.

A sinner ought not to be at ease, or he would never quit

sinning. The most deplorable sight is to contemplate the

infinite blessings that divine Love bestows on mortals, and

their ingratitude and hate, filling up the measure of

wickedness against all light. I can conceive of little short

of the old orthodox hell to waken such a one from

his deluded sense; for all sin is a deluded sense, and

dis-ease in sin is better than ease. Some mortals may

even need to hear the following thunderbolt of Jonathan

Edwards: —

"It is nothing but God's mere pleasure that keeps you

from being this moment swallowed up in everlasting de-

struction. He is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in

His sight. There is no other reason to be given why you

have not gone to hell since you have sat here in the house

of God, provoking His pure eyes by your sinful, wicked

manner of attending His solemn worship. Yea, there is

nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do

16 MESSAGES TO THE MOTHER CHURCH

not at this moment drop down into hell, but that God's

hand has held you up."

Future Punishment of Sin

My views of a future and eternal punishment take in a

poignant present sense of sin and its suffering, punishing

itself here and hereafter till the sin is destroyed. St.

John's types of sin scarcely equal the modem nonde-

scripts, whereby the demon of this world, its lusts, falsi-

ties, envy, and hate, supply sacrilegious gossip with the

verbiage of hades. But hatred gone mad becomes im-

becile — outdoes itself and commits suicide. Then let the

dead bury its dead, and surviving defamers share our pity.

In the Greek devil is named serpent — liar — the

god of this world; and St. Paul defines this world's god as

dishonesty, craftiness, handling the word of God deceit-

fully. The original text defines devil as accuser,

calumniator; therefore, according to Holy Writ these

qualities are objectionable, and ought not to proceed from

the individual, the pulpit, or the press. The Scriptures

once refer to an evil spirit as dumb, but in its origin evil

was loquacious, and was supposed to outtalk Truth and

to carry a most vital point. Alas! if now it is permitted

license, under sanction of the gown, to handle with gar-

rulity age and Christianity! Shall it be said of this cen-

tury that its greatest discoverer is a woman to whom men

go to mock, and go away to pray? Shall the hope for our

race commence with one truth told and one hundred false-

hoods told about it?

MESSAGE FOR 1901 17

The present self-inflicted sufferings of mortals from sin,

disease, and death should suffice so to awaken the suf-

ferer from the mortal sense of sin and mind in matter as

to cause him to return to the Father's house penitent and

saved; yea, quickly to return to divine Love, the author

and finisher of our faith, who so loves even the repentant

prodigal — departed from his better self and struggling

to return — as to meet the sad sinner on his way and to

welcome him home.

Medicine

Had not my first demonstrations of Christian Science

or metaphysical healing exceeded that of other methods,

they would not have arrested public attention and started

the great Cause that to-day commands the respect of our

best thinkers. It was that I healed the deaf, the blind, the

dumb, the lame, the last stages of consumption, pneumonia,

etc., and restored the patients in from one to three inter-

views, that started the inquiry, What is it? And when the

public sentiment would allow it, and I had overcome a

difficult stage of the work, I would put patients into the

hands of my students and retire from the comparative

ease of healing to the next more difficult stage of action

for our Cause.

From my medical practice I had learned that the dynam-

ics of medicine is Mind. In the highest attenuations of

homoeopathy the drug is utterly expelled, hence it must

be mind that controls the effect; and this attenuation in

some cases healed where the allopathic doses would not.

18 MESSAGES TO THE MOTHER CHURCH

When the "mother tincture" of one grain of the drug was

attenuated one thousand degrees less than in the beginning,

that was my favorite dose.

The weak criticisms and woeful warnings concerning

Christian Science healing are less now than were the

sneers forty years ago at the medicine of homoeopathy;

and the medicine of Mind is more honored and respected

to-day than the old-time medicine of matter. Those who

laugh at or pray against transcendentalism and the Chris-

tian Scientist's religion or his medicine, should know the

danger of questioning Christ Jesus' healing, who admin-

istered no remedy apart from Mind, and taught his dis-

ciples none other. Christian Science seems transcendental

because the substance of Truth transcends the evidence

of the five personal senses, and is discerned only through

divine Science.

If God created drugs for medical use, Jesus and his

disciples would have used them and named them for that

purpose, for he came to do "the will of the Father." The

doctor who teaches that a human hypothesis is above a

demonstration of healing, yea, above the grandeur of our

great master Metaphysician's precept and example, and

that of his followers in the early centuries, should read

this Scripture: "The fool hath said in his heart. There is

no God."

The divine Life, Truth, Love — whom men call God —

is the Christian Scientists' healer; and if God destroys the

popular triad — sin, sickness, and death — remember it

is He who does it and so proves their nullity.

Christians and clergymen pray for sinners; they believe

MESSAGE FOR 1901 19

that God answers their prayers, and that prayer is a divinely

appointed means of grace and salvation. They believe

that divine power, besought, is given to them in times of

trouble, and that He worketh with them to save sinners.

I love this doctrine, for I know that prayer brings the

seeker into closer proximity with divine Love, and thus

he finds what he seeks, the power of God to heal and to

save. Jesus said, "Ask, and ye shall receive;" and if not

immediately, continue to ask, and because of your often

coming it shall be given unto you; and he illustrated his

saying by a parable.

The notion that mixing material and spiritual means,

either in medicine or in religion, is wise or efficient, is

proven false. That animal natures give force to character

is egregious nonsense — a flat departure from Jesus'

practice and proof. Let us remember that the great Meta-

physician healed the sick, raised the dead, and com-

manded even the winds and waves, which obeyed him

through spiritual ascendency alone.

Mental Malpractice

From ordinary mental practice to Christian Science is a

long ascent, but to go from the use of inanimate drugs to

any susceptible misuse of the human mind, such as mes-

merism, hypnotism, and the like, is to subject mankind

unwarned and undefended to the unbridled individual

human will. The currents of God flow through no such

channels.

The whole world needs to know that the milder forms

20 MESSAGES TO THE MOTHER CHURCH

of animal magnetism and hypnotism are yielding to its

aggressive features. We have no moral right and no

authority in Christian Science for influencing the thoughts

of others, except it be to serve God and benefit mankind.

Man is properly self-governed, and he should be guided

by no other mind than Truth, the divine Mind. Christian

Science gives neither moral right nor might to harm either

man or beast. The Christian Scientist is alone with his

own being and with the reality of things. The mental

malpractitioner is not, cannot be, a Christian Scientist; he

is disloyal to God and man; he has every opportunity to

mislead the human mind, and he uses it. People may

listen complacently to the suggestion of the inaudible

falsehood, not knowing what is hurting them or that they

are hurt. This mental bane could not bewilder, darken, or

misguide consciousness, physically, morally, or spiritually,

if the individual knew what was at work and his power

over it.

This unseen evil is the sin of sins; it is never forgiven.

Even the agony and death that it must sooner or later

cause the perpetrator, cannot blot out its effects on him-

self till he suffers up to its extinction and stops practising

it. The crimes committed under this new-old regime of

necromancy or diabolism are not easily reckoned. At

present its mystery protects it, but its hidden modus and

flagrance will finally be known, and the laws of our land

will handle its thefts, adulteries, and murders, and will

pass sentence on the darkest and deepest of human

crimes.

Christian Scientists are not hypnotists, they are not

MESSAGE FOR 1901 21

mortal mind-curists, nor faith-curists; they have faith,

but they have Science, understanding, and works as well.

They are not the addenda, the et ceteras, or new editions

of old errors; but they are what they are, namely, stu-

dents of a demonstrable Science leading the ages.

Questionable Metaphysics

In an article published in the New York Journal,

Rev. _____ writes: "To the famous Bishop Berkeley of the

Church of England may be traced many of the ideas about

the spiritual world which are now taught in Christian

Science."

This clergyman gives it as his opinion that Christian

Science will be improved in its teaching and authorship

after Mrs. Eddy has gone. I am sorry for my critic, who

reckons hopefully on the death of an individual who loves

God and man; such foreseeing is not foreknowing, and

exhibits a startling ignorance of Christian Science, and a

manifest unfitness to criticise it or to compare its literature.

He begins his calculation erroneously; for Life is the

Principle of Christian Science and of its results. Death

is neither the predicate nor postulate of Truth, and Christ

came not to bring death but life into the world. Does this

critic know of a better way than Christ's whereby to benefit

the race? My faith assures me that God knows more

than any man on this subject, for did He not know all

things and results I should not have known Christian

Science, or felt the incipient touch of divine Love which

inspired it.

22 MESSAGES TO THE MOTHER CHURCH

That God is good, that Truth is true, and Science is

Science, who can doubt; and whosoever demonstrates the

truth of these propositions is to some extent a Christian

Scientist. Is Science material? No! It is the Mind of

God — and God is Spirit. Is Truth material? No!

Therefore I do not try to mix matter and Spirit, since

Science does not and they will not mix. I am a spiritual

homoeopathist in that I do not believe in such a compound.

Truth and Truth is not a compound; Spirit and Spirit is

not: but Truth and error, Spirit and matter, are com-

pounds and opposites; so if one is true, the other is false.

If Truth is true, its opposite, error, is not; and if Spirit is

true and infinite, it hath no opposite; therefore matter

cannot be a reality.

I begin at the feet of Christ and with the numeration

table of Christian Science. But I do not say that one added

to one is three, or one and a half, nor say this to accom-

modate popular opinion as to the Science of Christianity.

I adhere to my text, that one and one are two all the way

up to the infinite calculus of the infinite God. The numer-

ation table of Christian Science, its divine Principle and

rules, are before the people, and the different religious

sects and the differing schools of medicine are discussing

them as if they understood its Principle and rules before

they have learned its numeration table, and insist that the

public receive their sense of the Science, or that it receive

no sense whatever of it.

Again: Even the numeration table of Christian Science

is not taught correctly by those who have departed from

its absolute simple statement as to Spirit and matter, and

MESSAGE FOR 1901 23

that one and two are neither more nor less than three;

and losing the numeration table and the logic of Christian

Science, they .have Uttle left that the sects and faculties

can grapple. If Christian Scientists only would admit

that God is Spirit and infinite, yet that God has an oppo-

site and that the infinite is not all; that God is good and

infinite, yet that evil exists and is real, — thence it would

follow that evil must either exist in good, or exist outside

of the infinite, — they would be in peace with the

schools.

This departure, however, from the scientific statement,

the divine Principle, rule, or demonstration of Christian

Science, results as would a change of the denominations

of mathematics; and you cannot demonstrate Christian

Science except on its fixed Principle and given rule, ac-

cording to the Master's teaching and proof. He was ultra;

he was a reformer; he laid the axe at the root of all error,

amalgamation, and compounds. He used no material

medicine, nor recommended it, and taught his disciples

and followers to do likewise; therefore he demonstrated

his power over matter, sin, disease, and death, as no other

person has ever demonstrated it.

Bishop Berkeley published a book in 1710 entitled

"Treatise Concerning the Principle of Human Knowl-

edge." Its object was to deny, on received principles of

philosophy, the reality of an external material world. In

later publications he declared physical substance to be

"only the constant relation between phenomena connected

by association and conjoined by the operations of the

universal mind, nature being nothing more than conscious

24 MESSAGES TO THE MOTHER CHURCH

experience. Matter apart from conscious mind is an impos-

sible and unreal concept. He denies the existence of

matter, and argues that matter is not without the mind,

but within it, and that that which is generally called

matter is only an impression produced by divine power on

the mind by means of invariable rules styled the laws of

nature." Here he makes God the cause of all the ills of

mortals and the casualties of earth.

Again, while descanting on the virtues of tar-water, he

writes: "I esteem my having taken this medicine the

greatest of all temporal blessings, and am convinced that

under Providence I owe my life to it." Making matter

more potent than Mind, when the storms of disease beat

against Bishop Berkeley's metaphysics and personality he

fell, and great was the fall — from divine metaphysics to

tar-water!

Christian Science is more than two hundred years old.

It dates beyond Socrates, Leibnitz, Berkeley, Darwin, or

Huxley. It is as old as God, although its earthly advent

is called the Christian era.

I had not read one line of Berkeley's writings when I

published my work Science and Health, the Christian

Science textbook.

In contradistinction to his views I found it necessary to

follow Jesus' teachings, and none other, in order to

demonstrate the divine Science of Christianity — the meta-

physics of Christ — healing all manner of diseases. Phil-

osophy, materia medica, and scholastic theology were

inadequate to prove the doctrine of Jesus, and I relin-

quished the form to attain the spirit or mystery of

MESSAGE FOR 1901 25

godliness. Hence the mysticism, so called, of my writings

becomes clear to the godly.

Building on the rock of Christ's teachings, we have a

superstructure eternal in the heavens, omnipotent on earth,

encompassing time and eternity. The stone which the

builders reject is apt to be the cross, which they reject and

whereby is won the crown and the head of the corner.

A knowledge of philosophy and of medicine, the scho-

lasticism of a bishop, and the metaphysics (so called)

which mix matter and mind, — certain individuals call

aids to divine metaphysics, and regret their lack in my

books, which because of their more spiritual import heal

the sick! No Christly axioms, practices, or parables are

alluded to or required in such metaphysics, and the dem-

onstration of matter minus, and God all, ends in some

specious folly.

The great Metaphysician, Christ Jesus, denounced all

such gilded sepulchres of his time and of all time. He

never recommended drugs, he never used them. What,

then, is our authority in Christianity for metaphysics based

on materialism? He demonstrated what he taught. Had

he taught the power of Spirit, and along with this the

power of matter, he would have been as contradictory

as the blending of good and evil, and the latter superior,

which Satan demanded in the beginning, and which has

since been avowed to be as real, and matter as useful, as

the infinite God, — good, — which, if indeed Spirit and

infinite, excludes evil and matter. Jesus likened such

self-contradictions to a kingdom divided against itself,

that cannot stand.

26 MESSAGES TO THE MOTHER CHURCH

The unity and consistency of Jesus' theory and practice

give my tired sense of false philosophy and material the-

ology rest. The great teacher, preacher, and demonstrator

of Christianity is the Master, who founded his system of

metaphysics only on Christ, Truth, and supported it by

his words and deeds.

The five personal senses can have only a finite sense

of the infinite: therefore the metaphysician is sensual

that combines matter with Spirit. In one sentence he

declaims against matter, in the next he endows it with a

life-giving quality not to be found in God! and turns

away from Christ's purely spiritual means to the schools

and matter for help in times of need.

I have passed through deep waters to preserve Christ's

vesture unrent; then, when land is reached and the world

aroused, shall the word popularity be pinned to the seam-

less robe, and they cast lots for it? God forbid! Let

it be left to such as see God — to the pure in spirit,

and the meek that inherit the earth; left to them of a

sound faith and charity, the greatest of which is charity

— spiritual love. St. Paul said: "Though I speak

with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not

charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling

cymbal."

Before leaving this subject of the old metaphysicians,

allow me to add I have read little of their writings. I was

not drawn to them by a native or an acquired taste for

what was problematic and self-contradictory. What I

have given to the world on the subject of metaphysical

healing or Christian Science is the result of my own ob-

MESSAGE FOR 1901 27

servation, experience, and final discovery, quite independ-

ent of all other authors except the Bible.

My critic also writes: "The best contributions that

have been made to the literature of Christian Science have

been by Mrs. Eddy's followers. I look to see some St.

Paul arise among the Christian Scientists who will inter-

pret their ideas and principles more clearly, and apply

them more rationally to human needs."

My works are the first ever published on Christian

Science, and nothing has since appeared that is correct

on this subject the basis whereof cannot be traced to some

of those works. The application of Christian Science is

healing and reforming mankind. If any one as yet has

healed hopeless cases, such as I have in one to three inter-

views with the patients, I shall rejoice in being informed

thereof. Or if a modern St. Paul could start thirty years

ago without a Christian Scientist on earth, and in this

interval number one million, and an equal number of sick

healed, also sinners reformed and the habits and appe-

tites of mankind corrected, why was it not done? God is

no respecter of persons.

I have put less of my own personality into Christian

Science than others do in proportion, as I have taken out

of its metaphysics all matter and left Christian Science

as it is, purely spiritual, Christlike — the Mind of God

and not of man — born of the Spirit and not matter.

Professor Agassiz said: "Every great scientific truth goes

through three stages. First, people say it conflicts with

the Bible. Next, they say it has been discovered before.

Lastly, they say they had always believed it." Having

28 MESSAGES TO THE MOTHER CHURCH

passed through the first two stages, Christian Science must

be approaching the last stage of the great naturalist's

prophecy.

It is only by praying, watching, and working for the

kingdom of heaven within us and upon earth, that we

enter the strait and narrow way, whereof our Master said,

"and few there be that find it."

Of the ancient writers since the first century of the

Christian era perhaps none lived a more devout Christian

life up to his highest understanding than St. Augustine.

Some of his writings have been translated into almost

every Christian tongue, and are classed with the choicest

memorials of devotion both in Catholic and Protestant

oratories.

Sacred history shows that those who have followed ex-

clusively Christ's teaching, have been scourged in the

synagogues and persecuted from city to city. But this

is no cause for not following it; and my only apology for

trying to follow it is that I love Christ more than all the

world, and my demonstration of Christian Science in

healing has proven to me beyond a doubt that Christ,

Truth, is indeed the way of salvation from all that work-

eth or maketh a lie. As Jesus said: "It is enough for

the disciple that he be as his master." It is well to know

that even Christ Jesus, who was not popular among the

worldlings in his age, is not popular with them in this

age; hence the inference that he who would be popular

if he could, is not a student of Christ Jesus.

After a hard and successful career reformers usually

are handsomely provided for. Has the thought come to

MESSAGE FOR 1901 29

Christian Scientists, Have we housed, fed, clothed, or

visited a reformer for that purpose? Have we looked after

or even known of his sore necessities? Gifts he needs not.

God has provided the means for him while he was provid-

ing ways and means for others. But mortals in the ad-

vancing stages of their careers need the watchful and

tender care of those who want to help them. The aged

reformer should not be left to the mercy of those who are

not glad to sacrifice for him even as he has sacrificed for

others all the best of his earthly years.

I say this not because reformers are not loved, but be-

cause well-meaning people sometimes are inapt or selfish

in showing their love. They are like children that go out

from the parents who nurtured them, toiled for them, and

enabled them to be grand coworkers for mankind, children

who forget their parents' increasing years and needs, and

whenever they return to the old home go not to help

mother but to recruit themselves. Or, if they attempt

to help their parents, and adverse winds are blowing, this

is no excuse for waiting till the wind shifts. They should

remember that mother worked and won for them by

facing the winds. All honor and success to those who

honor their father and mother. The individual who loves

most, does most, and sacrifices most for the reformer, is

the individual who soonest will walk in his footsteps.

To aid my students in starting under a tithe of my own

difficulties, I allowed them for several years fifty cents on

every book of mine that they sold. "With this percent-

age," students wrote me, "quite quickly we have regained

our tuition for the college course."

30 MESSAGES TO THE MOTHER CHURCH

Christian Scientists are persecuted even as all other

religious denominations have been, since ever the primi-

tive Christians, "of whom the world was not worthy."

We err in thinking the object of vital Christianity is only

the bequeathing of itself to the coming centuries. The

successive utterances of reformers are essential to its

propagation. The magnitude of its meaning forbids head-

long haste, and the consciousness which is most imbued

struggles to articulate itself.

Christian Scientists are practically non-resistants; they

are too occupied with doing good, observing the Golden

Rule, to retaliate or to seek redress; they are not quacks,

giving birth to nothing and death to all, — but they are

leaders of a reform in religion and in medicine, and they

have no craft that is in danger.

Even religion and therapeutics need regenerating.

Philanthropists, and the higher class of critics in theology

and materia medica, recognize that Christian Science

kindles the inner genial life of a man, destroying all lower

considerations. No man or woman is roused to the estab-

lishment of a new-old religion by the hope of ease, pleasure,

or recompense, or by the stress of the appetites and pas-

sions. And no emperor is obeyed like the man "clouting

his own cloak" — working alone with God, yea, like the

clear, far-seeing vision, the calm courage, and the great

heart of the unselfed Christian hero.

I counsel Christian Scientists under all circumstances

to obey the Golden Rule, and to adopt Pope's axiom:

"An honest, sensible, and well-bred man will not insult

me, and no other can." The sensualist and world-wor-

MESSAGE FOR 1901 31

shipper are always stung by a clear elucidation of truth,

of right, and of wrong.

The only opposing element that sects or professions

can encounter in Christian Science is Truth opposed to

all error, specific or universal. This opposition springs

from the very nature of Truth, being neither personal nor

human, but divine. Every true Christian in the near

future will learn and love the truths of Christian Science

that now seem troublesome. Jesus said, "I came not to

send peace but a sword."

Has God entrusted me with a message to mankind? —

then I cannot choose but obey. After a long acquaintance

with the communicants of my large church, they regard

me with no vague, fruitless, inquiring wonder. I can use

the power that God gives me in no way except in the

interest of the individual and the community. To this

verity every member of my church would bear loving

testimony.

My Childhood's Church Home

Among the list of blessings infinite I count these dear:

Devout orthodox parents; my early culture in the Congre-

gational Church; the daily Bible reading and family

prayer; my cradle hymn and the Lord's Prayer, repeated

at night; my early association with distinguished Chris-

tian clergymen, who held fast to whatever is good, used

faithfully God's Word, and yielded up graciously what

He took away. It was my fair fortune to be often taught

by some grand old divines, among whom were the Rev.

32 MESSAGES TO THE MOTHER CHURCH

Abraham Burnham of Pembroke, N. H., Rev. Nathaniel

Bouton, D. D., of Concord, N. H., Congregationalists;

Rev. Mr. Boswell, of Bow, N. H., Baptist; Rev. Enoch

Courser, and Rev. Corban Curtis, Congregationalist; and

Father Hines, Methodist Elder. I became early a child

of the Church, an eager lover and student of vital Chris-

tianity. Why I loved Christians of the old sort was I

could not help loving them. Full of charity and good

works, busy about their Master's business, they had no

time or desire to defame their fellow-men. God seemed

to shield the whole world in their hearts, and they were

willing to renounce all for Him. When infidels assailed

them, however, the courage of their convictions was seen.

They were heroes in the strife; they armed quickly, aimed

deadly, and spared no denunciation. Their convictions

were honest, and they lived them; and the sermons their

lives preached caused me to love their doctrines.

The lives of those old-fashioned leaders of religion ex-

plain in a few words a good man. They fill the ecclesi-

astic measure, that to love God and keep His command-

ments is the whole duty of man. Such churchmen and

the Bible, especially the First Commandment of the Dec-

alogue, and Ninety-first Psalm, the Sermon on the Mount,

and St. John's Revelation, educated my thought many

years, yea, all the way up to its preparation for and recep-

tion of the Science of Christianity. I believe, if those

venerable Christians were here to-day, their sanctified

souls would take in the spirit and understanding of Chris-

tian Science through the flood-gates of Love; with them

Love was the governing impulse of every action; their

MESSAGE FOR 1901 33

piety was the all-important consideration of their being,

the original beauty of holiness that to-day seems to be

fading so sensibly from our sight.

To plant for eternity, the "accuser" or "calumniator"

must not be admitted to the vineyard of our Lord, and

the hand of love must sow the seed. Carlyle writes:

"Quackery and dupery do abound in religion; above all,

in the more advanced decaying stages of religion, they

have fearfully abounded; but quackery was never the

originating influence in such things; it was not the health

and life of religion, but their disease, the sure precursor

that they were about to die."

Christian Scientists first and last ask not to be judged

on a doctrinal platform, a creed, or a diploma for scientific

guessing. But they do ask to be allowed the rights of con-

science and the protection of the constitutional laws of

their land; they ask to be known by their works, to be

judged (if at all) by their works. We admit that they do

not kill people with poisonous drugs, with the lance, or

with liquor, in order to heal them. Is it for not killing

them thus, or is it for healing them through the might and

majesty of divine power after the manner taught by Jesus,

and which he enjoined his students to teach and practise,

that they are maligned? The richest and most positive

proof that a religion in this century is just what it was in

the first centuries is that the same reviling it received

then it receives now, and from the same motives which

actuate one sect to persecute another in advance of it.

Christian Scientists are harmless citizens that do not

kill people either by their practice or by preventing the

34 MESSAGES TO THE MOTHER CHURCH

early employment of an M.D. Why? Because the effect

of prayer, whereby Christendom saves sinners, is quite

as salutary in the healing of all manner of diseases. The

Bible is our authority for asserting this, in both cases.

The interval that detains the patient from the attendance

of an M.D., occupied in prayer and in spiritual obedience

to Christ's mode and means of healing, cannot be fatal

to the patient, and is proven to be more pathological than

the M.D.'s material prescription. If this be not so, where

shall we look for the standard of Christianity? Have we

misread the evangelical precepts and the canonical writ-

ings of the Fathers, or must we have a new Bible and a

new system of Christianity, originating not in God, but

a creation of the schools — a material religion, proscrip-

tive, intolerant, wantonly bereft of the Word of God.

Give us, dear God, again on earth the lost chord of

Christ; solace us with the song of angels rejoicing with

them that rejoice; that sweet charity which seeketh not

her own but another's good, yea, which knoweth no evil.

Finally, brethren, wait patiently on God; return bless-

ing for cursing; be not overcome of evil, but overcome

evil with good; be steadfast, abide and abound in faith,

understanding, and good works; study the Bible and the

textbook of our denomination; obey strictly the laws that

be, and follow your Leader only so far as she follows

Christ. Godliness or Christianity is a human necessity:

man cannot live without it; he has no intelligence, health,

hope, nor happiness without godliness. In the words of

the Hebrew writers: "Trust in the Lord with all thine

heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In

MESSAGE FOR 1901 35

all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy

paths;" "and He shall bring forth thy righteousness as

the light, and thy judgment as the noonday."

The question oft presents itself. Are we willing to sac-

rifice self for the Cause of Christ, willing to bare our bosom

to the blade and lay ourselves upon the altar? Christian

Science appeals loudly to those asleep upon the hill-tops

of Zion. It is a clarion call to the reign of righteousness,

to the kingdom of heaven within us and on earth, and

Love is the way alway.

O the Love divine that plucks us

From the human agony!

O the Master's glory won thus.

Doth it dawn on you and me?

And the bliss of blotted-out sin

And the working hitherto —

Shall we share it — do we walk in

Patient faith the way thereto?

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