MESSAGE

TO

THE FIRST CHURCH OF

CHRIST, SCIENTIST

OR

THE MOTHER CHURCH

BOSTON

June 15, 1902

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, 1902

By Mary Baker G. Eddy

All rights reserved

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

MESSAGE FOR 1902

THE OLD AND THE NEW COMMANDMENT

BELOVED brethren, another year of God's loving

providence for His people in times of persecution has

marked the history of Christian Science. With no special

effort to achieve this result, our church communicants

constantly increase in number, unity, steadfastness. Two

thousand seven hundred and eighty-four members have

been added to our church during the year ending June,

1902, making total twenty-four thousand two hundred and

seventy-eight members; while our branch churches are

multiplying everywhere and blossoming as the rose. Evil,

though combined in formidable conspiracy, is made to

glorify God. The Scripture declares, "The wrath of man

shall praise Thee: the remainder of wrath shalt Thou

restrain."

Whatever seems calculated to displace or discredit the

ordinary systems of religious beliefs and opinions wrest-

ling only with material observation, has always met with

opposition and detraction; this ought not so to be, for

a system that honors God and benefits mankind should

be welcomed and sustained. While Christian Science,

engaging the attention of philosopher and sage, is circling

2 MESSAGES TO THE MOTHER CHURCH

the globe, only the earnest, honest investigator sees

through the mist of mortal strife this daystar, and whither

it guides.

To live and let live, without clamor for distinction or

recognition; to wait on divine Love; to write truth first

on the tablet of one's own heart, — this is the sanity and

perfection of living, and my human ideal. The Science

of man and the universe, in contradistinction to all error,

is on the way, and Truth makes haste to meet and to wel-

come it. It is purifying all peoples, religions, ethics, and

learning, and making the children our teachers.

Within the last decade religion in the United States has

passed from stern Protestantism to doubtful liberalism.

God speed the right! The wise builders will build on the

stone at the head of the corner; and so Christian Science,

the little leaven hid in three measures of meal, — ethics,

medicine, and religion, — is rapidly fermenting, and en-

lightening the world with the glory of untrammelled truth.

The present modifications in ecclesiasticism are an out-

come of progress; dogmatism, relegated to the past, gives

place to a more spiritual manifestation, wherein Christ

is Alpha and Omega. It was an inherent characteristic

of my nature, a kind of birthmark, to love the Church;

and the Church once loved me. Then why not remain

friends, or at least agree to disagree, in love, — part fair

foes. I never left the Church, either in heart or in doc-

trine; I but began where the Church left off. When the

churches and I round the gospel of grace, in the circle of

love, we shall meet again, never to part. I have always

taught the student to overcome evil with good, used no

MESSAGE FOR 1902 3

other means myself; and ten thousand loyal Christian

Scientists to one disloyal, bear testimony to this fact.

The loosening cords of non-Christian religions in the

Orient are apparent. It is cause for joy that among the

educated classes Buddhism and Shintoism are said to

be regarded now more as a philosophy than as a religion.

I rejoice that the President of the United States has put

an end, at Charleston, to any lingering sense of the North's

half-hostility to the South, thus reinstating the old national

family pride and joy in the sisterhood of States.

Our nation's forward step was the inauguration of

home rule in Cuba, — our military forces withdrawing,

and leaving her in the enjoyment of self-government under

improved laws. It is well that our government, in its brief

occupation of that pearl of the ocean, has so improved her

public school system that her dusky children are learning

to read and write.

The world rejoices with our sister nation over the close

of the conflict in South Africa; now, British and Boer may

prosper in peace, wiser at the close than the beginning of

war. The dazzling diadem of royalty will sit easier on the

brow of good King Edward, — the muffled fear of death

and triumph canker not his coronation, and woman's

thoughts — the joy of the sainted Queen, and the lay of

angels — hallow the ring of state.

It does not follow that power must mature into oppres-

sion; indeed, right is the only real potency; and the only

true ambition is to serve God and to help the race. Envy

is the atmosphere of hell. According to Holy Writ, the

first lie and leap into perdition began with "Believe in

4 MESSAGES TO THE MOTHER CHURCH

me." Competition in commerce, deceit in councils, dis-

honor in nations, dishonesty in trusts, begin with "Who

shall be greatest?" I again repeat, Follow your Leader,

only so far as she follows Christ.

I cordially congratulate our Board of Lectureship, and

Publication Committee, on their adequacy and correct

analysis of Christian Science. Let us all pray at this

Communion season for more grace, a more fulfilled life

and spiritual understanding, bringing music to the ear,

rapture to the heart — a fathomless peace between

Soul and sense — and that our works be as worthy as

our words.

My subject to-day embraces the First Commandment

in the Hebrew Decalogue, and the new commandment in

the gospel of peace, both ringing like soft vesper chimes

adown the corridors of time, and echoing and reechoing

through the measureless rounds of eternity.

God as Love

The First Commandment, "Thou shalt have no other

gods before me," is a law never to be abrogated — a divine

statute for yesterday, and to-day, and forever. I shall

briefly consider these two commandments in a few of their

infinite meanings, applicable to all periods — past, present,

and future.

Alternately transported and alarmed by abstruse

problems of Scripture, we are liable to turn from them as

impractical, or beyond the ken of mortals, — and past

finding out. Our thoughts of the Bible utter our lives.

MESSAGE FOR 1902 5

As silent night foretells the dawn and din of morn; as the

dulness of to-day prophesies renewed energy for to-morrow,

— so the pagan philosophies and tribal religions of yester-

day but foreshadowed the spiritual dawn of the twentieth

century — religion parting with its materiality.

Christian Science stills all distress over doubtful inter-

pretations of the Bible; it lights the fires of the Holy

Ghost, and floods the world with the baptism of Jesus.

It is this ethereal flame, this almost unconceived light of

divine Love, that heaven husbands in the First Com-

mandment.

For man to be thoroughly subordinated to this com-

mandment, God must be intelligently considered and

understood. The ever-recurring human question and

wonder, What is God? can never be answered satisfac-

torily by human hypotheses or philosophy. Divine meta-

physics and St. John have answered this great question

forever in these words: "God is Love." This absolute

definition of Deity is the theme for time and for eternity;

it is iterated in the law of God, reiterated in the gospel of

Christ, voiced in the thunder of Sinai, and breathed in

the Sermon on the Mount. Hence our Master's saying,

"Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the

prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil."

Since God is Love, and infinite, why should mortals

conceive of a law, propound a question, formulate a doc-

trine, or speculate on the existence of anything which is

an antipode of infinite Love and the manifestation thereof?

The sacred command, "Thou shalt have no other gods

before me," silences all questions on this subject, and for-

6 MESSAGES TO THE MOTHER CHURCH

ever forbids the thought of any other reality, since it is im-

possible to have aught unlike the infinite.

The knowledge of life, substance, or law, apart or other

than God — good — is forbidden. The curse of Love

and Truth was pronounced upon a lie, upon false knowl-

edge, the fruits of the flesh not Spirit. Since knowledge

of evil, of something besides God, good, brought death

into the world on the basis of a lie, Love and Truth de-

stroy this knowledge, — and Christ, Truth, demonstrated

and continues to demonstrate this grand verity, saving

the sinner and healing the sick. Jesus said a lie fathers

itself, thereby showing that God made neither evil nor its

consequences. Here all human woe is seen to obtain in

a false claim, an untrue consciousness, an impossible

creation, yea, something that is not of God. The Chris-

tianization of mortals, whereby the mortal concept and

all it includes is obliterated, lets in the divine sense of

being, fulfils the law in righteousness, and consummates

the First Commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods

before me." All Christian faith, hope, and prayer, all

devout desire, virtually petition, Make me the image and

likeness of divine Love.

Through Christ, Truth, divine metaphysics points the

way, demonstrates heaven here, — the struggle over, and

victory on the side of Truth. In the degree that man be-

comes spiritually minded he becomes Godlike. St. Paul

writes: "For to be carnally minded is death; but to be

spiritually minded is life and peace." Divine Science

fulfils the law and the gospel, wherein God is infinite Love,

including nothing unlovely, producing nothing unlike

MESSAGE FOR 1902 7

Himself, the true nature of Love intact and eternal. Divine

metaphysics concedes no origin or causation apart from

God. It accords all to God, Spirit, and His infinite mani-

festations of love — man and the universe.

In the first chapter of Genesis, matter, sin, disease, and

death enter not into the category of creation or conscious-

ness. Minus this spiritual understanding of Scripture, of

God and His creation, neither philosophy, nature, nor

grace can give man the true idea of God — divine Love —

sufficiently to fulfil the First Commandment.

The Latin omni, which signifies all, used as an English

prefix to the words potence, presence, science, signifies all-

power, all-presence, all-science. Use these words to define

God, and nothing is left to consciousness but Love, without

beginning and without end, even the forever I AM, and

All, than which there is naught else. Thus we have

Scriptural authority for divine metaphysics — spiritual

man and the universe coexistent with God. No other

logical conclusion can be drawn from the premises,

and no other scientific proposition can be Christianly

entertained.

Love One Another

Here we proceed to another Scriptural passage which

serves to confirm Christian Science. Christ Jesus saith,

"A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one

another; as I have loved you." It is obvious that he

called his disciples' special attention to his new command-

ment. And wherefore? Because it emphasizes the

8 MESSAGES TO THE MOTHER CHURCH

apostle's declaration, "God is Love," — it elucidates

Christianity, illustrates God, and man as His likeness, and

commands man to love as Jesus loved.

The law and the gospel concur, and both will be ful-

filled. Is it necessary to say that the likeness of God, Spirit,

is spiritual, and the likeness of Love is loving? When

loving, we learn that "God is Love;" mortals hating, or

unloving, are neither Christians nor Scientists. The new

commandment of Christ Jesus shows what true spirituality

is, and its harmonious effects on the sick and the sinner.

No person can heal or reform mankind unless he is actuated

by love and good will towards men. The coincidence be-

tween the law and the gospel, between the old and the new

commandment, confirms the fact that God and Love are

one. The spiritually minded are inspired with tenderness,

Truth, and Love. The life of Christ Jesus, his words and

his deeds, demonstrate Love. We have no evidence of

being Christian Scientists except we possess this inspira-

tion, and its power to heal and to save. The energy that

saves sinners and heals the sick is divine: and Love is the

Principle thereof. Scientific Christianity works out the

rule of spiritual love; it makes man active, it prompts per-

petual goodness, for the ego, or I, goes to the Father,

whereby man is Godlike. Love, purity, meekness, co-

exist in divine Science. Lust, hatred, revenge, coincide in

material sense. Christ Jesus reckoned man in Science,

having the kingdom of heaven within him. He spake of

man not as the offspring of Adam, a departure from God,

or His lost likeness, but as God's child. Spiritual love

makes man conscious that God is his Father, and the con-

MESSAGE FOR 1902 9

sciousness of God as Love gives man power with untold

furtherance. Then God becomes to him the All-presence

— quenching sin; the All-power — giving life, health,

holiness; the All-science — all law and gospel.

Jesus commanded, "Follow me; and let the dead bury

their dead;" in other words, Let the world, popularity,

pride, and ease concern you less, and love thou. When

the full significance of this saying is understood, we shall

have better practitioners, and Truth will arise in human

thought with healing in its wings, regenerating mankind

and fulfilling the apostle's saying: "For the law of the

Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the

law of sin and death." Loving chords set discords in har-

mony. Every condition implied by the great Master,

every promise fulfilled, was loving and spiritual, urging

a state of consciousness that leaves the minor tones of so-

called material life and abides in Christlikeness.

The unity of God and man is not the dream of a heated

brain; it is the spirit of the healing Christ, that dwelt for-

ever in the bosom of the Father, and should abide forever

in man. When first I heard the life-giving sound thereof,

and knew not whence it came nor whither it tended, it

was the proof of its divine origin, and healing power, that

opened my closed eyes.

Did the age's thinkers laugh long over Morse's dis-

covery of telegraphy? Did they quarrel long with the

inventor of a steam engine? Is it cause for bitter com-

ment and personal abuse that an individual has met the

need of mankind with some new-old truth that counteracts

ignorance and superstition? Whatever enlarges man's

10 MESSAGES TO THE MOTHER CHURCH

facilities for knowing and doing good, and subjugates

matter, has a fight with the flesh. Utilizing the capacities

of the human mind uncovers new ideas, unfolds spiritual

forces, the divine energies, and their power over matter,

molecule, space, time, mortality; and mortals cry out,

"Art thou come hither to torment us before the time?"

then dispute the facts, call them false or in advance of the

time, and reiterate, Let me alone. Hence the foot-

prints of a reformer are stained with blood. Rev. Hugh

Black writes truly: "The birthplace of civilization is not

Athens, but Calvary."

When the human mind is advancing above itself towards

the Divine, it is subjugating the body, subduing matter,

taking steps outward and upwards. This upward ten-

dency of humanity will finally gain the scope of Jacob's

vision, and rise from sense to Soul, from earth to heaven.

Religions in general admit that man becomes finally

spiritual. If such is man's ultimate, his predicate tending

thereto is correct, and inevitably spiritual. Wherefore,

then, smite the reformer who finds the more spiritual way,

shortens the distance, discharges burdensome baggage,

and increases the speed of mortals' transit from matter

to Spirit — yea, from sin to holiness? This is indeed our

sole proof that Christ, Truth, is the way. The old and

recurring martyrdom of God's best witnesses is the in-

firmity of evil, the modus operandi of human error,

carnality, opposition to God and His power in man.

Persecuting a reformer is like sentencing a man for com-

municating with foreign nations in other ways than by

walking every step over the land route, and swimming the

MESSAGE FOR 1902 11

ocean with a letter in his hand to leave on a foreign shore.

Our heavenly Father never destined mortals who seek

for a better country to wander on the shores of time dis-

appointed travellers, tossed to and fro by adverse circum-

stances, inevitably subject to sin, disease, and death.

Divine Love waits and pleads to save mankind — and

awaits with warrant and welcome, grace and glory, the

earth-weary and heavy-laden who find and point the path

to heaven.

Envy or abuse of him who, having a new idea or a more

spiritual understanding of God, hastens to help on his

fellow-mortals, is neither Christian nor Science. If a

postal service, a steam engine, a submarine cable, a wire-

less telegraph, each in turn has helped mankind, how

much more is accomplished when the race is helped on-

ward by a new-old message from God, even the knowl-

edge of salvation from sin, disease, and death.

The world's wickedness gave our glorified Master a

bitter cup — which he drank, giving thanks, then gave

it to his followers to drink. Therefore it is thine, advanc-

ing Christian, and this is thy Lord's benediction upon

it: "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. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad:

for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they

the prophets which were before you."

Of old the Jews put to death the Galilean Prophet, the

best Christian on earth, for the truths he said and did:

while to-day Jew and Christian can unite in doctrine and in

practice on the very basis of his words and works. The Jew

12 MESSAGES TO THE MOTHER CHURCH

believes that the Messiah or the Christ has not yet come;

the Christian believes that Christ is come and is God.

Here Christian Science intervenes, explains these doctrinal

points, cancels the disagreement, and settles the whole ques-

tion on the basis that Christ is the Messiah, the true spir-

itual idea, and this ideal of God is now and forever, here and

everywhere. The Jew who believes in the First Command-

ment is a monotheist, he has one omnipresent God: thus

the Jew unites with the Christian idea that God is come,

and is ever present. The Christian who believes in the

First Commandment is a monotheist: thus he virtually

unites with the Jew's belief in one God, and that Jesus

Christ is not God, as he himself declared, but is the Son of

God. This declaration of Christ, understood, conflicts not

at all with another of his sayings: "I and my Father are

one," — that is, one in quality, not in quantity. As a drop

of water is one with the ocean, a ray of light one with the

sun, even so God and man, Father and son, are one in

being. The Scripture reads: "For in Him we live, and

move, and have our being."

Here allow me to interpolate some matters of business

that ordinarily find no place in my Message. It is a privi-

lege to acquaint communicants with the financial transac-

tions of this church, so far as I know them, and especially

before making another united effort to purchase more land

and enlarge our church edifice so as to seat the large number

who annually favor us with their presence on Communion

Sunday.

When founding the institutions and early movements of

the Cause of Christian Science, I furnished the money from

MESSAGE FOR 1902 13

my own private earnings to meet the expenses involved.

In this endeavor self was forgotten, peace sacrificed, Christ

and our Cause my only incentives, and each success in-

curred a sharper fire from enmity.

During the last seven years I have transferred to The

Mother Church, of my personal property and funds, to the

value of about one hundred and twenty thousand dollars;

and the net profits from the business of The Christian Sci-

ence Publishing Society (which was a part of this transfer)

yield this church a liberal income. I receive no personal

benefit therefrom except the privilege of publishing my

books in their publishing house, and desire none other.

The land on which to build The First Church of Christ,

Scientist, in Boston, had been negotiated for, and about one

half the price paid, when a loss of funds occurred, and I

came to the rescue, purchased the mortgage on the lot

corner of Falmouth and Caledonia (now Norway) Streets;

paying for it the sum of $4,963.50 and interest, through my

legal counsel. After the mortgage had expired and the note

therewith became due, legal proceedings were instituted by

my counsel advertising the property in the Boston news-

papers, and giving opportunity for those who had previously

negotiated for the property to redeem the land by paying

the amount due on the mortgage. But no one offering

the price I had paid for it, nor to take the property off my

hands, the mortgage was foreclosed, and the land legally

conveyed to me, by my counsel. This land, now valued at

twenty thousand dollars, I afterwards gave to my church

through trustees, who were to be known as "The Christian

Science Board of Directors." A copy of this deed is pub-

14 MESSAGES TO THE MOTHER CHURCH

lished in our Church Manual. About five thousand dollars

had been paid on the land when I redeemed it. The only

interest I retain in this property is to save it for my church.

I can neither rent, mortgage, nor sell this church edifice nor

the land whereon it stands.

I suggest as a motto for every Christian Scientist, — a

living and life-giving spiritual shield against the powers of

darkness, —

"Great not like Caesar, stained with blood,

But only great as I am good."

The only genuine success possible for any Christian — and

the only success I have ever achieved — has been accom-

plished on this solid basis. The remarkable growth and

prosperity of Christian Science are its legitimate fruit. A

successful end could never have been compassed on any

other foundation, — with truths so counter to the common

convictions of mankind to present to the world. From the

beginning of the great battle every forward step has been

met (not by mankind, but by a kind of men) with mockery,

envy, rivalry, and falsehood — as achievement after achieve-

ment has been blazoned on the forefront of the world and

recorded in heaven. The popular philosophies and reli-

gions have afforded me neither favor nor protection in the

great struggle. Therefore, I ask: What has shielded and

prospered preeminently our great Cause, but the out-

stretched arm of infinite Love? This pregnant question,

answered frankly and honestly, should forever silence all

private criticisms, all unjust public aspersions, and afford

an open field and fair play.

MESSAGE FOR 1902 15

In the eighties, anonymous letters mailed to me con-

tained threats to blow up the hall where I preached; yet I

never lost my faith in God, and neither informed the police

of these letters nor sought the protection of the laws of my

country. I leaned on God, and was safe.

Healing all manner of diseases without charge, keeping

a free institute, rooming and boarding indigent students

that I taught "without money and without price," I strug-

gled on through many years; and while dependent on the

income from the sale of Science and Health, my publisher

paid me not one dollar of royalty on its first edition. Those

were days wherein the connection between justice and be-

ing approached the mythical. Before entering upon my

great life-work, my income from literary sources was ample,

until, declining dictation as to what I should write, I became

poor for Christ's sake. My husband, Colonel Glover, of

Charleston, South Carolina, was considered wealthy, but

much of his property was in slaves, and I declined to sell

them at his decease in 1844, for I could never believe that a

human being was my property.

Six weeks I waited on God to suggest a name for the book

I had been writing. Its title. Science and Health, came to

me in the silence of night, when the steadfast stars watched

over the world, — when slumber had fled, — and I rose

and recorded the hallowed suggestion. The following day

I showed it to my literary friends, who advised me to drop

both the book and the title. To this, however, I gave no

heed, feeling sure that God had led me to write that book,

and had whispered that name to my waiting hope and

prayer. It was to me the "still, small voice" that came to

16 MESSAGES TO THE MOTHER CHURCH

Elijah after the earthquake and the fire. Six months there-

after Miss Dorcas Rawson of Lynn brought to me Wyclif s

translation of the New Testament, and pointed out that

identical phrase, "Science and Health," which is rendered

in the Authorized Version "knowledge of salvation."

This was my first inkling of Wyclif 's use of that combina-

tion of words, or of their rendering. To-day I am the happy

possessor of a copy of Wyclif, the invaluable gift of two

Christian Scientists, — Mr. W. Nicholas Miller, K.C., and

Mrs. F. L. Miller, of London, England.

Godlikeness

St. Paul writes: "Follow peace with all men, and holi-

ness, without which no man shall see the Lord." To attain

peace and holiness is to recognize the divine presence and

allness. Jesus said: "I am the way." Kindle the watch-

fires of unselfed love, and they throw a light upon the un-

complaining agony in the life of our Lord; they open the

enigmatical seals of the angel, standing in the sun, a glori-

fied spiritual idea of the ever-present God — in whom there

is no darkness, but all is light, and man's immortal being.

The meek might, sublime patience, wonderful works, and

opening not his mouth in self-defense against false wit-

nesses, express the life of Godlikeness. Fasting, feasting,

or penance, — merely outside forms of religion, — fail to

elucidate Christianity: they reach not the heart nor reno-

vate it; they never destroy one iota of hypocrisy, pride,

self-will, envy, or hate. The mere form of godliness,

MESSAGE FOR 1902 17

coupled with selfishness, worldliness, hatred, and lust, are

knells tolling the burial of Christ.

Jesus said, "If ye love me, keep my commandments."

He knew that obedience is the test of love; that one gladly

obeys when obedience gives him happiness. Selfishly, or

otherwise, all are ready to seek and obey what they love.

When mortals learn to love aright; when they learn that

man's highest happiness, that which has most of heaven in

it, is in blessing others, and self-immolation — they will

obey both the old and the new commandment, and receive

the reward of obedience.

Many sleep who should keep themselves awake and

waken the world. Earth's actors change earth's scenes;

and the curtain of human life should be lifted on reality, on

that which outweighs time; on duty done and life perfected,

wherein joy is real and fadeless. Who of the world's lovers

ever found her true? It is wise to be willing to wait on God,

and to be wiser than serpents; to hate no man, to love one's

enemies, and to square accounts with each passing hour.

Then thy gain outlives the sun, for the sun shines but to

show man the beauty of holiness and the wealth of love.

Happiness consists in being and in doing good; only what

God gives, and what we give ourselves and others through

His tenure, confers happiness: conscious worth satisfies

the hungry heart, and nothing else can. Consult thy every-

day life; take its answer as to thy aims, motives, fondest

purposes, and this oracle of years will put to flight all care

for the world's soft flattery or its frown. Patience and res-

ignation are the pillars of peace that, like the sun beneath

the horizon, cheer the heart susceptible of light with prom-

18 MESSAGES TO THE MOTHER CHURCH

ised joy. Be faithful at the temple gate of conscience,

wakefully guard it; then thou wilt know when the thief

cometh.

The constant spectacle of sin thrust upon the pure sense

of the immaculate Jesus made him a man of sorrows. He

lived when mortals looked ignorantly, as now, on the might

of divine power manifested through man; only to mock,

wonder, and perish. Sad to say, the cowardice and self-

seeking of his disciples helped crown with thorns the life of

him who broke not the bruised reed and quenched not the

smoking flax, — who caused not the feeble to fall, nor

spared through false pity the consuming tares. Jesus was

compassionate, true, faithful to rebuke, ready to forgive.

He said, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the

least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

"Love one another, as I have loved you." No estrange-

ment, no emulation, no deceit, enters into the heart that

loves as Jesus loved. It is a false sense of love that, like

the summer brook, soon gets dry. Jesus laid down his life

for mankind; what more could he do? Beloved, how much

of what he did are we doing? Yet he said, "The works

that I do shall he do." When this prophecy of the great

Teacher is fulfilled we shall have more effective healers and

less theorizing; faith without proof loses its life, and it

should be buried. The ignoble conduct of his disciples

towards their Master, showing their unfitness to follow

him, ended in the downfall of genuine Christianity, about

the year 325, and the violent death of all his disciples save

one.

The nature of Jesus made him keenly alive to the

MESSAGE FOR 1902 19

injustice, ingratitude, treachery, and brutality that he

received. Yet behold his love! So soon as he burst the

bonds of the tomb he hastened to console his unfaithful

followers and to disarm their fears. Again: True to his

divine nature, he rebuked them on the eve of his ascension,

called one a "fool" — then, lifting up his hands and bless-

ing them, he rose from earth to heaven.

The Christian Scientist cherishes no resentment; he

knows that that would harm him more than all the malice

of his foes. Brethren, even as Jesus forgave, forgive thou.

I say it with joy, — no person can commit an offense

against me that I cannot forgive. Meekness is the armor

of a Christian, his shield and his buckler. He entertains

angels who listens to the lispings of repentance seen in a

tear — happier than the conqueror of a world. To the

burdened and weary, Jesus saith: "Come unto me."

O glorious hope! there remaineth a rest for the righteous,

a rest in Christ, a peace in Love. The thought of it stills

complaint; the heaving surf of life's troubled sea foams

itself away, and underneath is a deep-settled calm.

Are earth's pleasures, its ties and its treasures, taken

away from you? It is divine Love that doeth it, and

sayeth, "Ye have need of all these things." A danger

besets thy path? — a spiritual behest, in reversion, awaits

you.

The great Master triumphed in furnace fires. Then,

Christian Scientists, trust, and trusting, you will find divine

Science glorifies the cross and crowns the association with

our Saviour in his life of love. There is no redundant

drop in the cup that our Father permits us. Christ

20 MESSAGES TO THE MOTHER CHURCH

walketh over the wave; on the ocean of events, mounting

the billow or going down into the deep, the voice of him

who stilled the tempest saith, "It is I; be not afraid."

Thus he bringeth us into the desired haven, the kingdom

of Spirit; and the hues of heaven, tipping the dawn of

everlasting day, joyfully whisper, "No drunkards within,

no sorrow, no pain; and the glory of earth's woes is risen

upon you, rewarding, satisfying, glorifying thy unfaltering

faith and good works with the fulness of divine Love."

'T was God who gave that word of might

Which swelled creation's lay, —

"Let there be light, and there was light," —

That swept the clouds away;

'T was Love whose finger traced aloud

A bow of promise on the cloud.

Beloved brethren, are you ready to join me in this prop-

osition, namely, in 1902 to begin omitting our annual

gathering at Pleasant View, — thus breaking any seeming

connection between the sacrament in our church and a

pilgrimage to Concord? I shall be the loser by this change,

for it gives me great joy to look into the faces of my dear

church-members; but in this, as all else, I can bear the

cross, while gratefully appreciating the privilege of meet-

ing you all occasionally in the metropolis of my native

State, whose good people welcome Christian Scientists.

The University Press, Cambridge, U. S. A.

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