The Rev. Andrew J. Graham, C.S.B., of Boston,
Massachusetts
Member of the Board of Lectureship of The
Mother Church,
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts
All Truth is one, a complete whole, and its name is God — infinite Spirit, Principle, Mind. This Mind is infinitely conscious and from it emanates all activity, all that really is, and this spiritual creation is never severed from its Source. God is All. Truth's manifestation is essentially complex: it is not a monotone. The tree is a unit including roots, body, bark, sap, branches, leaves and color.
So the spiritual creation is an integer, infinite in variety; and for the readier comprehension by man, divine revelation seemingly separates Truth's expression into parts, but in reality nothing that is true is ever torn asunder. Substitution and usurpation are unknown in the realm of Truth.
As the bark of the tree does not take the place of the root nor does the leaf substitute for the sap, so Truth does not throw out love nor does the derivative usurp the place of the original. All are necessary parts of a perfect whole whose name is God. Hence, Christ, and Christian Science, or Christ-knowing, are forever at-one — in absolute harmony.
Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science and the author of its textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," has given us in her published writings clear definitions of both. Of the first she writes (Science and Health, p. 583): "CHRIST. The divine manifestation of God, which comes to the flesh to destroy incarnate error." And of the second (Rudimental Divine Science, p. 1): Christian Science is "the law of God, the law of good, interpreting and demonstrating the divine Principle and rule of universal harmony."
Both are impersonal, both are emanations from God. In thought the two are inseparable. All that Christian Science teaches is the Christ, Truth. It speaks to the good in man. Its appeal is to the pure in heart. It wins through its tenderness and compassion. Therefore it is our earnest desire, during this quiet hour, that not only we who are students of Christian Science, but also the stranger to this truth and the seeker of it, may think of the message as Christian Science and the Winning Christ, and may see in the word winning, not only the verb of action, moving on to victory, but also the winsome adjective of quality, irresistible in its drawing power and altogether lovely. There is only one Christ.
By accepting the multiplication table a man does not become the multiplication table, nor does one become Christ when accepting Christ. "Jesus demonstrated Christ" (Science and Health, p. 332). True Christianity is the acceptance and expression of Christ in daily thinking and living. Jesus was ever obedient to the Christ and for that reason became Christ Jesus or the anointed one. As a person, visible to mortals, he revealed more of God — good — than any other man who ever lived. It is not therefore much to be wondered at that when the early church lost the power to heal, it seemed also to have forgotten that God is Spirit, and fell to worshiping the highest manifestation of good which could be seen with human eyes. That is, it exalted the human Jesus into the place of Deity. It sought God through the personal Jesus instead of through the impersonal Christ.
Yet to teach that Jesus was God gave rise to so many difficulties in thought that the keenest theologians found it impossible to frame statements concerning him which would be free from self-contradictions. The three creeds of early Christendom, known as the Apostles, the Nicene, and the Athanasian, did not silence disputes nor could they prevent the body of believers from being divided into factions.
Sooner or later all religious discussions about Christianity fell back to and centered around the person of Jesus the Christ. The alleged Deity could not be harmonized with the facts which the humanity involved. Even the remarkable purification of theological thought, induced and produced by the great Reformation period, dared not let its changes impinge upon the belief in the alleged Godhead of Jesus.
After many years of patient, clarified study and thinking Mrs. Eddy handled this question boldly and logically. She untied the Gordian knot. She solved the problem which had served as a theological battleground for centuries. In a reverent, natural, and spiritual way she revealed to thinkers the dual nature in Jesus the Christ, and she pointed out that that duality implied and involved the personal, human Jesus and the impersonal, divine Christ. Very lucidly, Mrs. Eddy shows on pages 332 and 333 of Science and Health, that "Jesus was the son of a virgin. He was appointed to speak God's word and to appear to mortals in such a form of humanity as they could understand as well as perceive."
Christ, as she also plainly shows, is the impersonal truth and love of God, everywhere all the time, appealing to men for response. All men of every race and age, at some time respond to this appeal, either consciously or unconsciously, and it is the definite teaching of Christian Science that today or tomorrow, now or then, here or hereafter, every member of the human race from Adam to the end of time, will consciously and fully see and accept this Christ, Truth, and so will be eased from the burdens of sickness and of sin.
The way leading to this wonderful attainment has been made plain by one who aspired and attained completely. Mrs. Eddy calls him the Way-shower, and in so doing she displays a singular capacity for recognizing the way-marks of primitive Christianity. For the common name applied to the early followers of Jesus was "The Way." And that way was altogether lovely. Through Truth and Love he proved his right to claim leadership. In him the Word was made practical. To the hearts that were ready to receive him there was something unusually winsome about the human Jesus, obedient to the Christ. He was the highest earthly expression of beauty and Truth and Love.
How quickly those earnest, loving fishermen responded to his call. It was not a mere sense of duty that impelled them. It was an instant recognition of the drawing power of the beauty of holiness. With human eyes they began to see, in Jesus, the King in his beauty; later they carried his image in their hearts, for the truest portraiture of the Way-shower is in the consciousness of those who lovingly follow his example. Many artists have sought to depict his countenance.
In our Leader's home at Chestnut Hill, Mass., is a picture of Jesus as a man. It is said by some to be a "reproduction from Caesar's cameo." The outlines of the countenance are impressingly bold and yet tender. Perhaps no artist of modern times has portrayed the countenance of Jesus with such winning power as the aged Hofmann in his painting entitled "The Jesus Boy in the Temple." In English this painting is known as "Christ in the Temple." It represents Jesus, when twelve years of age, in the midst of the learned doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions.
One cannot look upon that face without experiencing some sense of exaltation. Jesus' gentleness made him great, and even his denunciation of sin and hypocrisy was so compassionately sincere that it must have impressed even those who thought they hated him. Such was the great demonstrator of the Christ. Our Leader speaks of him as "that life-link forming the connection through which the real reaches the unreal, Soul rebukes sense, and Truth destroys error" (Science and Health, p. 350). He brought to men the Father's message of love. The activity of the Christ and the example of Jesus gave the inspiration which guided Mrs. Eddy in becoming the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science.
A loving message can be vitally conveyed only through a loving messenger. The very fact that Christian Science came to mankind through Mrs. Eddy proves that she was a vessel meet for the Master's use. It is not possible to read the story of her life, with honest intent, without recognizing and loving the character of the woman. It is distinctly against her expressed desire that the troubles and persecutions which beset her should be publicly narrated, but one may be permitted to say that under all circumstances dignity and tenderness stamped her speech and action. Increase of influence and popularity did not diminish her winning qualities.
Multitudes who never had the privilege of looking into her face have shed tears of gratitude on beholding her in her writings. The reading of the first twelve words in the Preface to Science and Health has speedily healed many invalids, and the opening lines in the first chapter of the same volume have done likewise. It has often been observed that in the twelfth chapter of her textbook, that wonderful chapter explaining the Christian Science practice and healing, Mrs. Eddy has devoted the three opening pages to a most tender, searching, and cleansing treatment of the victimized Magdalene.
No harsh condemnation, no weak
compromise, but such a clean channel of compassionate thought as cannot help
but cleanse the thinking of those who earnestly see the truth which she
expresses on page 75 of her "Poems":
"Tis the
Spirit that makes pure,
That exalts thee,
and will cure
All thy sorrow and sickness and sin."
Yes, we find Mrs. Eddy in her writings ever appealing to the best and leading to the highest. There is on page 23 of her published book called "Retrospection and Introspection," a cluster of thoughts, marvelous in comprehension and expression. That page is of the very essence of poetry. The thought is creative and cumulative, the language rich in cadence, and the climax perfect.
In previous pages Mrs. Eddy had been writing of her ancestry, her childhood, her progress, and earnest search for truth, and then she pauses in the midst of the narrative of human life to write this wonderful page entitled "Emergence into Light," a part of which reads as follows: "Thus it was when the moment arrived of the heart's bridal to more spiritual existence. When the door opened, I was waiting and watching; and lo, the bridegroom came! The character of the Christ was illuminated by the midnight torches of Spirit. My heart knew its Redeemer. He whom my affections had diligently sought was as the One 'altogether lovely,' as 'the chiefest,' the only, 'among ten thousand.' Soulless famine had fled. Agnosticism, pantheism, and theosophy were void. Being was beautiful, its substance, cause, and currents were God and His idea. I had touched the hem of Christian Science."
One who could so think and so write was the loving messenger to bring the Christ message to the joyous and the free, as well as to the weary and the heavy-laden. Foremost among all the phases of religious appeal made to men stands Christian Science in promise and in fulfillment. This may be said fearlessly because Christian Scientists claim no special privilege or ownership of the truth.
Christian Science is the common inheritance of all men, irrespective of race, color, position, or education. Its voice is to the sons of men. Its origin is God; its activity is the Christ; its comfort is the Holy Spirit; its object is the destruction of everything opposed to good. Being the absolute Truth, it has no sense of jealousy or of fear. In it, "Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other." It bestows forgiveness and peace to the sinner when greediness for sin gives place to the desire for good. It gives wholeness to the sick who lean on God alone for help. Its message runneth very swiftly, unimpeded by time, space, or any material conditions.
It penetrates the dark places of the earth as well as the mountains of joy. Its hour is the hour of midnight as well as that of roseate dawn, for there is no night there. Christian Science is the Christ activity in the spiritual universe. It is coterminous with eternity and with good. The self-offering of Abel saw it; the fidelity of Abraham saw it; the moral courage of Moses saw it; the prophecy of Elias saw it; pre-eminently did Jesus see it; and all earnest men, through the centuries, who have longed for rightness, have been touched by this Christ activity, the heart of Christian Science.
Grateful people in this audience, and throughout the world, are singing and making melody in their hearts, as a result of the advent of Christian Science in their consciousness. Not to know that Mary Baker Eddy discovered Christian Science in 1866 and established it among men is to be ignorant of the most far-reaching fact of modern times.
One of the most winning features of Christian Science is that it begins to put one in touch with that blessed liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. In one of the early Christian hymns is found this passage, addressed to Jesus the Christ:
"When thou
hadst overcome the sharpness of death,
Thou didst open
the kingdom of heaven
To all believers."
When Jesus cried from the cross, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit," the beautiful veil or curtain in the temple at Jerusalem was torn in twain, from top to bottom, thus signifying that all people have free access to the Father. Unregenerated man loves to be in a favored class, to be looked up to, and to dominate. He loves to be considered the medium through which others must seek and obtain favors. Thus grew up that "pride of priesthood" (Science and Health, p. 270) in pagan and Christian lands, and this assumed monopoly of privilege and power tended to foster dependence upon men instead of upon God.
In other words, it put man in subjection to man, taking away his freedom. It is true that freedom of thought and action involves tremendous responsibility and for this reason a mortal prefers to resign his freedom of thought in order to shift responsibility. The whole system of so-called religious autocracy which has grown up through the centuries tends to suppress individual expression, at least, so far as religion is concerned. But because God hath not left Himself without a witness in any nation or in any man, mental protests against this bondage have broken out again and again.
Savonarola, Luther, Cranmer, Voltaire, Hume, Huxley, the Pilgrims, Paine, Ingersoll and Burbank, all were partly right as well as partly wrong. They were honestly striving for the unfoldment, in their own thought, of the consciousness of truth. These thinkers put their chief emphasis on the destruction of error; Christian Science emphasizes, primarily, the upbuilding of good. Christian Science destroys through construction instead of destruction.
Incoming good means outgoing evil; the presence of beauty spells the absence of ugliness; the consciousness of truth is the unconsciousness of the lie. On accepting Christian Science one of the many things which impressed me was the penetrating and far-reaching wisdom shown by Mrs. Eddy when she laid it down as a law for all time that in Christian Science churches "the Bible and the Christian Science textbook are our only preachers." No longer are there to be personal expositors to tell Christian people what they must believe; no longer are there to be doctrinal sermons, narrowing thought and provoking antagonism; no longer are there to be popular pulpit idols.
In Christian Science these things are abnormal and obsolete. Each worshiper hears the impersonal sermon from the Bible and the Christian Science textbook and draws from it such instruction and nourishment as his unfolding consciousness can receive. And should anyone be saying at this time: Why is a Christian Scientist any better able than others to do his own thinking about God? our reply is: The study of Christian Science and Christian Science healing give one the capacity for understanding God and God's Word that can come in no other way. The joy of freedom from dominating and being dominated by persons is one of the winning features of Christian Science.
In the human measurement of time, fifteen years have passed since I was instantaneously healed through Christian Science; and it seems but a day. Three and a half years of periodical suffering and mental distress had overwhelmed me; terrors were on every side; hope and courage were well-nigh dead. Those who had known me for years never would have dreamed that I would turn to Christian Science.
I myself saw nothing beautiful or winning about it, and my only words about it were words of condemnation. It may be of help to some who are sick and weary and heavy-laden — and I was all of that — to know that when I was healed in Christian Science I had no faith in it whatever. I believed it was a fraud, and I thought I hated it. I did not willingly receive treatment, but seemed to have been drawn into it by divine Love. But when that healing came, physical pain and fear and anguish fled and the pledge of the prophet appeared with striking reality: "Thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty" and the vision of the "land that is very far off."
The beauty and joy which I saw in Christian Science on the day of healing have not dimmed with the passage of years. Never by the space of the wink of an eye has confidence in it been shaken. Not only have I found Christian Science beautiful and winning, as to love, but winning also as to logic. It stands the closest test of reasoning and not only meets one's spiritual aspirations, but also satisfies his intellectual demand for God. Christian Science healing clarified thought and enabled me to see very clearly that either there is no unyielding problem among men or God is not omnipotent.
Multitudes of men and women have had courage renewed, and joy and peace and health restored, and understanding given through Christian Science, after it had seemed that all was hopeless.
The winsome and recuperative influence of Christian Science teaching is very manifest in our penitentiaries, workhouses, and kindred institutions where services are held and where practitioners go on request to help the prisoners. This pregnant fact is well worth our careful consideration. To those who from the mortal mind standpoint are in hopeless situations, owing to sinful thinking and reckless living, which have brought them under the penalty of civil law, Christian Science extends peculiar promises; I say peculiar, because no other religious system states and teaches, and proves logically, as Christian Science does, that God's man has never fallen, either through sickness or sin.
When the sinful and disconsolate and often resentful criminal catches the first glimpse of the wonderful fact that the man whom God made, has never been sick or sinful, he begins to recover hope. If the startling redemption wrought through Christian Science among prisoners could be known to all communities, such knowledge would turn the thought of increasing numbers to this wonderful truth.
Christian Science offers the
glorious possibility of a new start in life, free from handicaps, when the
awakened thought begins to realize the omnipotent goodness of God. It holds up
to the view of the discouraged and the resentful the entrancing vision of
sweetness, gentleness, and purity attainable by all — in fact never lost, to
the real man. As we read in the Christian Science Hymnal, No. 127:
"Breaking
through the clouds of darkness,
Black with error,
doubt, and fear;
Lighting up each
sombre shadow,
With a radiance
soft and clear;
Filling every
heart with gladness,
That its holy
power feels,
Comes the
Christian Science Gospel;
Sin it kills and grief it heals."
To mankind in general Christian Science appeals for the same reason that Jesus' work appealed to the early Christians; that is, its feature of physical healing. The vast majority of people who appealed to Jesus for help desired relief from physical suffering. It is a precious commentary on Jesus' work that he seems never to have criticized such appeal. Sickness is unnatural, for God is not its cause. It is abnormal to man and it is always right to seek to be rid of it and always wrong to think that it cannot be destroyed. A correct view of the unreality of sickness follows as an inevitable conclusion from a correct view of man.
Man made in God's image and likeness is forever unfallen. The very essence of the definition of Truth is that it can never become a lie, nor can life ever become death; so man can never become less than man. Any quality, attribute, or characteristic which is unlike God is no part of man and is unreal. It is an excrescent thought or belief or illusion, and can be put off. When one sees and accepts a thing as true, he cannot see and accept its opposite as true.
In the realization of man as unfallen, sickness fades away. Christian Science healing is the overcoming of disease by the same method which Jesus employed; that is, by understanding and utilizing the infinite power of God, who, according to the Psalmist, healeth all our infirmities.
Christian Scientists abide by the fact written in the Bible that "the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." In one of her books, "Miscellaneous Writings, page 96, Mrs. Eddy says of Christian Science healing: "It is not one mind acting upon another mind; it is not the transference of human images of thought to other minds . . . it is not of the flesh . . . It is not one mortal thought transmitted to another's thought from the human mind that holds within itself all evil . . . It is Christ come to destroy the power of the flesh; it is Truth over error." This definition of Christian Science healing is a partial exposition of Jesus' words: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
To those who feel the need of healing it may be said that a sincere and obedient thought will do much toward placing them in a receptive mood, even though they know nothing of Christian Science. The ordinary method of procedure is to seek a Christian Science practitioner through a list of names always found in the current number of The Christian Science Journal. However, many persons are healed through simply reading the textbook of Christian Science, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." Healings are often experienced at Wednesday testimonial meetings, and not infrequently we learn of persons being healed at Christian Science lectures.
Perhaps it may be helpful to mention one such case. When lecturing abroad a few years ago, a barrister and his wife attended a Saturday lecture and another the following Sunday afternoon. The lecturer did not know of the incident, here related, until six weeks after its occurrence, when he received a letter from the barrister, containing substantially, the following:
Dear Sir: My wife insists that I should write you about my healing. When you lectured at — about six weeks ago, my wife and I attended the Saturday afternoon lecture. Perhaps you will remember us as we both have gray hair and sat on the front seat at your left hand. When we entered the church we were both feeling quite poorly but seemed entirely free when the lecture was over. On the way home I said to my wife that I was feeling so well I believed my rupture was healed.
"On reaching home I removed the support I had been wearing and found no rupture. The next afternoon we started to your lecture again. My wife went into the church but I would not enter. Instead, I walked about and as I was walking it dawned on me that in some way the lecture had something to do with my healing. And so my wife insists that I should write you about it, but I want you to know that I do not believe it was you who healed me, but God."
This letter showed that the man was not only healed of rupture but also was healed of leaning on personality. Christian Science healing is the vestibule of heaven.
When Jesus, the Christ, said, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you," he declared the reality of a present heaven. Christian Science denies the erroneous belief that heaven is an abode of peace to be attained only after the experience of so-called death; and it invites and declares the fact that heaven is a state of consciousness entirely independent of place or time.
Christian Scientists are a happy people, largely because they are learning how to escape from that "hope deferred" which "maketh the heart sick." If heaven, which means harmony, is where God is, then heaven is everywhere, since God is infinite. God being Spirit, Mind, then heaven is spiritual, mental. Sooner or later, the fact must become apparent to all that the only need one ever has is, the "mind . . . which was also in Christ Jesus."
This includes increasing victory over the disturbing elements of the material senses. Again we may emphasize the fact that the study of Christian Science, with its healing power, awakens one, as no other teaching can do, to the truth that the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Our Master, Christ, teaches us that all laborers in the vineyard receive their reward of a penny a day, that is, that reward is not deferred, but is now; and Mrs. Eddy writes on page 291 of the textbook, "No final judgment awaits mortals, for the judgment-day of wisdom comes hourly and continually." The supposition that heaven is there and then, instead of here and now, strips one of the present joy and shelters thoughts of depression and discouragement.
In human experience heaven is the
unfolding consciousness of the ever-present God — good. It is the solace for
the woes of men; the light which shineth in darkness; the encouragement after
disappointment; the peace after the storm. Heaven is the present reward for
clear thinking and earnest striving. Paul, in the midst of bitterness and
persecution, could say with confidence, "None of these things move
me," and he could write to others from the background of his own
experience: "Rejoice in the Lord alway; and again I say, Rejoice."
The daily glimpse of heaven, harmony, is the food of the pilgrim.
"As when the
weary traveler gains
The height of some
commanding hill
His heart revives,
if o'er the plain
He sees his home
though distant still.
Thus when the
earnest pilgrim views
By faith his
mansion in the skies,
The sight his
waning strength renews
And wings his speed to reach the prize."
The Holy Grail is where we are. We need no long journey in order to find it. Just to arouse the spiritual sense to cognize the good eternally present!
The activities in the Christian Science movement are peculiar, unique. The work of the genuine Christian Scientist is not done from the push of duty, but from the winning power of love. The Christ power is a drawing power; the kingdom of heaven is not taken by violence. What we used to call missionary work, in the old methods, is taken care of in Christian Science by the quiet distribution of literature, through the opportunities afforded by the Christian Science Reading Rooms, and by the Christian Science practitioners. The work is done unobtrusively.
People accept Christian Science because they are hungry, not because it is forced upon them. The purpose of Christian Science is not primarily to add members to the church, but to offer the opportunity for health and peace and usefulness. It does not demand something, but seeks to bestow. This is genuine missionary work. The word "missionary" comes from the Latin "mitto," to send out. All the physical activity in the world which has not behind it the activity of right thinking about God and man is void of good.
The unselfish, loving healings performed by Jesus were the best religious advertisement ever published abroad. And the marvelous influence of the Christian Science movement, and its quick and increasing acceptance by mankind, grow out of the love and unselfishness of individual Christian Scientists.
It may be well for the sake of the strangers present to enlarge somewhat on the missionary agencies of Christian Science already mentioned.
1. The literature distribution. Foremost in this department is the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," the healing influence of which has already been alluded to. The periodicals established by Mrs. Eddy, The Christian Science Journal, Christian Science Sentinel, and The Christian Science Monitor, are informing, elevating and healing with every issue. To those desirous of learning about Christian Science these periodicals are of great value, for a considerable proportion of the people healed in Christian Science were led to this truth through reading some article or testimony of healing in one of these publications.
2. The Christian Science Reading Rooms are quiet centers of great missionary activity. I myself approached Science through the door of a little Reading Room in Oxford, England. If a stranger desires information about Christian Science or seeks a practitioner for special help, he may find supply for both needs through the attendant in a Reading Room.
3. Christian Science practitioners, striving to do as Jesus commanded, in healing the sick, are the busiest missionaries in the world. A practitioner who heals one case in a year has set in operation a missionary power which will reproduce itself over and over again.
The joyous activity in the Christian Science movement is largely due to the fact that its adherents are not, primarily, urging people to join the Christian Science church, but are just seeking to awaken them to some realization of the blessed fact that there is a balm and a healing for their sores, their sicknesses, and sins, here and now, and this is the elemental work of Christian Science practitioners.
The loving acceptance of and willing obedience to the divine Principle of Christian Science carries one out of the valley of depression into sunlight and peace. Jesus sojourned for a period in the wilderness. Mrs. Eddy gives two definitions of this word on page 597 of Science and Health: (1) "Loneliness; doubt; darkness." This is the mortal mind definition. (2) "Spontaneity of thought and idea; the vestibule in which a material sense of things disappears, and spiritual sense unfolds the great facts of existence." This is the Christian Science definition. Human beings, from the very nature of their beliefs are subject to many distressing experiences. Discouragement, seeming loss, separation, grief, and anguish assail them.
One does not free himself from these painful situations by saying they are unreal, but by knowing it. This knowing is the precious gift of Christian Science to him, who, in great need, knows not where to turn save to God. Some years ago, while visiting one of our large penitentiaries, I had a visit with a man who was condemned to execution on the gallows. He was a murderer, but during the months of confinement he had learned Christian Science and there was no murder left in his heart. His manner was perfectly composed and peaceful. He talked as quietly and confidently about Christian Science as though no shadows were impending. We conversed for half an hour and I went away with a strong sense of affection for the man who seemed so free in the truth.
As I left the grounds, my companion said: "You would hardly believe that the man with whom you have just visited had, about an hour before you saw him, received a message that the petition for pardon had been refused by the governor, and the day set for the execution." Yet in the man's talk with me, nothing but Christian Science was mentioned. This man, through Christian Science, had come to see that he was God's child, pure and unfallen. He was so filled with gratitude and the sense of life that he had no time to think of Life's unlikeness.
This power to lift one out of the
valley and set his feet upon the rock is Christian Science demonstrated.
Pertinently then rises the question of our Saviour, "Why seek ye the
living among the dead?" The gentle, life-bearing, peace-bearing Christ, as
taught and understood in Christian Science, robs even so-called death and the
grave of their vaunted victory.
"For sudden
the worst turns the best to the brave,
The fiend voices
that rave,
Shall dwindle, shall blend.
Shall change,
shall become first a peace out of pain,
Then a light,
And with God be the rest!"
In Christian Science there is no forlorn hope, no lost battle, there is no unpardonable sin, no broken friendships; there is no irreparable past, no impending future. Mists may arise and clouds gather, but the sunlight of God shines in the consciousness.
Christian Science heals sickness and it protects one from the temptation to forget God when health is restored. It destroys the sense of poverty and keeps one from making a God of mammon. Christian Science brings usefulness and honor through quickened thought and protects one from self-exaltation. It delivers man from human domination and saves him from the sin of dominating others.
Christian Science sets men free from the rigors of law by keeping them from transgression. It heals them of ignorance and mental lethargy, while protecting them from pride of intellectuality. Christian Science bestows universal love and saves from its debasement. It shows the way back home and destroys fear of the past.
And so we wait patiently, and work faithfully, and rest confidently, securely, and sweetly in the Christ Science — the winsome and winning revelation of the Christ.
[Probably delivered around the year 1927 and published in a Cleveland, Ohio, area newspaper, name and date unknown.]