Edward A. Kimball, C.S.D.
Member of the Board of Lectureship of The Mother
Church,
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts
We give below a condensed
statement of Mr. Kimball's lecture delivered before a splendid audience in
Symphony Hall, Boston, December 8. The lecturer was introduced by Prof. Hermann
S. Hering, First Reader of the Mother Church, who said,
Friends: The lecture you have been invited to hear this evening is the regular semi-annual public lecture given under the auspices of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, the Mother Church of the denomination, for the purpose of presenting an authoritative statement of the fundamental teachings of Christian Science, its practice and results, and of correcting any existing misapprehensions thereof.
Christian Science in its essentials is extremely simple, its spirit being readily grasped even by children, but its teachings concerning all the various theological, medical, and educational questions, and its explanation of the innumerable problems of existence, are so exhaustive and comprehensive, when considered in their entirety, that in a single lecture it is quite impossible to do more than touch on the most important points; but the fundamentals will be presented, and if any of them appeal to you as reasonable, desirable, or even promising, you can readily obtain fuller information by further inquiry.
I can tell you from my own experience as a former physical scientist and lay student of materia medica and theology, that you can prove for yourselves, through honest investigation, study, and application, the truth of every declaration made here to-night, as well as the entire statement of Christian Science as contained in Mrs. Eddy's writings.
You will also be told something of the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, that noble New England woman for whom hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries feel such genuine gratitude, who has devoted her whole life and energy to disclosing to suffering humanity the knowledge and understanding of the true God and His Christ, which knowledge is life eternal, and brings to them health, happiness, and holiness.
The gentleman who will address you to-night is one who is eminently qualified to speak with conviction and authority. About seventeen years ago he was a very successful business man, but owing to ill health, being in fact on the very brink of the grave, he was obliged to retire. At this point Christian Science healed him and he has since devoted his entire time to Christian Science work. He is a personal student of Mrs. Eddy, has occupied successfully the various positions of practitioner, teacher, Reader, lecturer; and for the last five years has been the teacher of Christian Science in the Massachusetts Metaphysical College. You can therefore rest assured that what he tells you to-night will be spoken with authority and is the result of wide experience. I bespeak for him your calm, impartial, and intelligent attention.
It is with much pleasure that I introduce to you the lecturer of the evening, Mr. Edward A. Kimball, C.S.D., of Chicago.
Mr. Kimball said in part,
[I am not here seeking for converts nor to entreat your acceptance of a proofless theory, but rather to speak from the basis of demonstrable, definite science which, burning all bridges behind it, depends wholly upon proof rather than credulity for the evidence of its verity.
[I am here in the capacity of witness, to bear testimony as to what has been accomplished through Christian Science, and particularly through Mrs. Eddy's ceaseless and practical work.
[Ten years ago the president of the world's parliament of religions said to me:
["Mrs. Eddy is already one of the world's illustrious religious leaders."
[Inch by inch this conviction is forcing its way into the consciousness of humanity, but the present and future acknowledgment of her character and life work will not rest on the uncertain contingencies of human opinion. By means of self-evident facts; by reason of achieved results which are in response to the deepest human needs; by reason of her manifest struggle in behalf of mankind and her manifest success against outrageous odds; by means of these facts and even more all that will ever mean character, fame or reputation has been established and will be determined.
[The threadbare declaration that a woman never founded a successful religious movement has an answer in the fact that a woman has done it. The barbaric assumption that a woman is a mental or spiritual inferior, without capacity for initiative ability, is answered by the fact that Mrs. Eddy has brought to pass a denominational organization which is so adequate and complete as to compel the admission of those who are at enmity that it has no superior.
[The shallow gibe that Christian Science is just a "fad," and that Mrs. Eddy's teaching is a fanciful vagary of the passing hour, without substance or utility is met by the fact that 1,000,000 people have been healed through these means of diseases largely considered fatal, or have been re-claimed from desperate conditions of sin and vice. The history of 1,000 years presents no spectacle that is parallel or equivalent.
[Speaking from the vantage ground of these good works, I ask you to attend to my story in confident knowledge that it will be of much avail to you.
[If any of you have come here in a state of trepidation lest your religious sense may be violently molested, I will assure you by saying that we glory in every good thought and deed that has ever touched the experience of men. If you believe in God we will only ask you to believe more fully and trust more confidently. If your hope is in Christ we urge you to hope more and for more. If your affections are fixed on Christ's way of salvation, we hope to make the way seem more plain and the journey more satisfying. Mrs. Eddy's plea has always been for more of divine Christianity, instead of less, and in exact accord with the teaching of Jesus.]
In order that you may most readily appreciate the import of this address, you are asked to contemplate for a moment the scene upon which Christian Science has made its entrance.
The history of the human race may be classified as a tragedy. If it were to be epitomized, then one long monotone of protest against the misery, one pitiful appeal to God for relief, and one final moan of defeat would tell the story. There are a few flowers, a little sunshine perhaps, but beyond the foreground is the vista at the end of which is the grave and mystery.
The people of earth, unreconciled
to what seems to be an intolerable fate, have turned in every conceivable
direction in their effort for deliverance from evil, and they have failed, thus
far, to find the way. There are still the same tears, broken hearts, beds of
pain,the same havoc of outrageous fortune. Men continue to live, sicken, and
die according to a philosophy of doom which declares there is no salvation this
side of the grave, no way out of the hell on earth but to die out.
To this same stricken people, and in this very age, comes Christian Science to declare that they can get out, naturally, lawfully, scientifically; it comes as a message of hope and promise to a race which is in supreme need.
We submit the proposition that humanity which prays for different results should also consistently pray for and expect a different way, and we contend that Christian Science, which promises and produces the prayed for results, cannot logically be rejected simply because it also discloses a different way.
By means of literature, teachers, and lecturers, explanation has been made concerning the points of agreement between Christian Science and other forms of religious and scientific belief, but it is my purpose to-night to emphasize the fundamental differences also, and thus enable you to make comparisons for yourselves.
It is self-evident that certain things have existence. It is generally known that they have cause, origin, and basis, by reason of which they exist. Some people declare the cause to be a blind force; others that it is some sort of intelligence, and theology affirms that it is a conscious intelligence or entity which many designate God.
A consensus of enlightened belief concerning God, is that He is one supreme, infinite, self existent, all-inclusive, spiritual, individual, conscious Being, the sole Creator of all that has actual existence. Also that God is good, Life, Truth, Love, omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent; that He is the only law-maker, and holds in His grasp the destiny of all men.
Christian Scientists subscribe to all these postulates without reserve, and yet our religion is in some respects quite different from that of others. Why? Why different if we agree on these essentials?
The difference is in the amplification and application. It is in this respect that most religious sects and systems diverge from each other. There are hundreds of these sects. There are one hundred and forty Christian sects alone, many of which have been in the most violent antagonism towards each other. There is, therefore, no unity of religious belief with which we can compare Christian Science, but I shall explain wherein it is different from all others.
In her effort to enlarge the human concept of the infinite God, Mrs. Eddy has added somewhat to the technical definitions of Deity, and affirms, among other things, that God is divine Mind and that this Mind is good.
God is either Mind or mindless. The Mind that is God, and which includes all wisdom, intelligence, and science, is good. This Mind is the antipode of what the Bible calls the "carnal mind," or that which Mrs. Eddy designates "mortal mind," the mind of sin, which is enmity against God.
The Science of Mind declares that to the extent that man is governed by the divine Mind, he will manifest perfection, health, life, welfare, prosperity, the ampleness and completeness of harmonious existence. It was this Mind which was also in Christ; which cancelled temptation and sin, healed the sick, raised the dead, raised Jesus from the dead, and overcame "the world, the flesh, and the devil." "To be carnally minded is death." Sin and disease are the offspring of this carnal mind; they are no part of the nature or of the procurement of the divine Mind.
God is good, in nature, design, power, action, substance, and operation. All that He has made and done is good. His laws are good, and He has already done everything that is essential to the supreme welfare of man.
Conversely we repudiate the effort to solve the mystery of evil by assuming that any part of it has been instituted by God, or that He needs to involve Himself in or with evil in any way or for any purpose, or that He does so involve Himself.
God is not only Life, but has ordained life and is the law of life and health for man. The theology of Christian Science is consistently parallel throughout with this declaration. It also declares that God has created man that he might have being, and not for the purpose of inflicting upon him inveterate agony and disease.
We repudiate all assumption that His law is the law of sin and death. Sickness is contrary to God, and God is contrary to it. God is the natural healer of the sick, and is able, willing, and ever ready to save mortals from the evils imposed upon them by an utterly perverted sense of existence.
The supposition that God has induced the pangs and horrors of disease and death engenders a fear of Him, a fear and alarm concerning the author and the law and the destiny of human life; a fear concerning the very foundations of existence. We Christian Scientists are no longer afraid of God or of His heaven, which we are learning is within us to the extent that we are governed by the Mind which was in Christ.
In Christian Science there is no longer an unknown God. No longer do the distorted graven images of human thought mask or hide from us the real God, who is altogether lovely, who is our dearest friend, whose help is ever available, whose grace is sufficient, and who created man that he might have life and peace. Christian Science promises to lead mankind to God through the highways of health and life instead of death. It promises to humanity, in the name of God, not the doubtful felicity of the grave, but a sensible, practical dispensation of good, now. It promises to incline men naturally and willingly to a more spiritual life, which will satisfy them; and it promises that as they wend their way to a sure heaven this Christ-truth will be the Christ way-shower through all the mazes and besetments of an evil sense and an evil age, until, with undeviating trust and confidence, they abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
We disagree with others concerning the nature of evil. Mrs. Eddy knows full well that "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," and that sin inevitably imposes suffering on its victim; nevertheless, she declares that sin, sickness, and kindred evils are unreal, meaning thereby that they belong in the realm of the temporal, illegitimate, abnormal. They are the paraphernalia of mortal belief or the carnal mind, unlawful, unrighteous, and unnecessary, monstrosities of unnatural existence.
The world generally believes that evil is an enduring entity having a basis in truth; that it is as actual and substantial as good, or God, and that its indestructible immortality will be manifested in an eternal hell and devil. If this were true, and evil as an entity were consequently indestructible, then the entreaty of Jesus to resist and overcome it must needs have been a mockery. But, on the contrary, the career of Jesus is in demonstration of the power of something to abolish evil, its pretense and presence. Is it a thinkable proposition that our Master sought to equip a mortal man to destroy something that God has made, and is therefore a part of infinity? Do Christ and Christianity ask of you something that cannot be done?
Picture for a moment a family which includes a violently insane person. Ask the other members if they consider the insanity real, and the answer will be "Real! why of course it is real, it is the only thing in sight most of the time." Now suppose that this person is cured of insanity; what becomes of it? It is now a nonentity is it not? Was it at any time other than an abnormity, a deranged sense of that which is an entity and which is normal?
Christian Science explains that sickness is of a kindred unreal nature and is to be obliterated by the same process whereby everything that has no right to exist or continue is to become extinct through Christ and Christianity.
If insanity and sickness are real, then God, who includes all reality, must have made them. If He made them and bestows or sends them, then it is a sin to try to get well or to want to get well.
Concerning the divine Christ there is among men much conflict of opinion. Most Christians believe he was the Son of God, and was divinely commissioned; that his mission was to preach the gospel of reform and regeneration, to set forth the way and promise of salvation after death, by reason of his mediatorial atonement. It is believed that, incidentally, he did many mighty works. It is also affirmed that he is the only Messiah or Saviour, and that his way is the only way of salvation.
Christian Scientists believe all this, and yet their sense of Christianity differs from that of all others. We know that Christ was and is divine; is our Saviour or Messiah; is the "Way," and we can prove it. We are confident that when this way is scientifically understood and becomes scientifically operative, it will manifest its saving efficacy by transforming the race.
We believe that Christ Jesus was the representative of God to humanity; that he was the voice of wisdom and intelligence, and that he knew more about God, man, and the universe than all other people combined. We believe he came to do the will of God and to fulfil law. What God, and what law? The God that is good and whose law is the law of life, health, harmony, and holiness. We believe he came "to seek and to save that which was lost," and that he found that "which was lost" when he found the sinner and the sick man. We believe that he came to "destroy the works of the devil," and that he was "about his Father's business" while he was doing it. Unless he was destroying the works of the devil when he healed the sick, there must have been a time when he was not in the fulfilment of his mission, for he gave much attention to the cure of disease, and himself declared that such healing was a part of his "works." We believe this healing was natural and lawful: that all his works were done in exquisite accord with the eternal law of a changeless God. We believe that the teaching of Christian Science through Mrs. Eddy removes the ministry of Jesus from the realm of mystery and brings it within the range of law, order, and a scientific modus operandi. We believe that God and His Christ are too wise to be unlawful or to procure or induce or make use of that which is in contravention of law! We believe that the unlimited divine volition does not need to upset or undo any natural law in order to do good.
We believe that the Christ
ministry is an object-lesson in demonstration of the immanent, ever-present,
and ever-available power of Spirit, God, to destroy evil. We believe that Jesus
manifested the supremacy of spiritual law which is the law of life, and its
power over the fictitious law of sin and death.
Christian Science teaches that this proof, the deeds, the achieved results, the mighty works, is to illustrate the way of salvation to them that need salvation, and that Christian salvation is for the sick man as well as the sinner. All this is different from the belief that his work was miraculous, meaning that it was mysterious and in the way of intervention or violation of law and nature.
Jesus never intimated that his work was mysterious. On the contrary he indicated the universal nature of the divine animus by declaring: "These works shall ye do." The contrary beliefs of men which have filtered their way down through the dark ages lead to the most absurd conclusions and tax to the utmost the credulity of man. They presuppose that, after promising for one thousand years that a Messiah should come to save a suffering world, God arranged and carried out a plan of which all future generations should have a right to say, "It is an impenetrable mystery." They require people to believe that Jesus largely devoted himself to mighty works which were of no utility to subsequent generations of men, and which have exhausted their service when people are induced to believe that it was according to the divine nature for God to heal the sick man in one age and refuse or neglect to heal him in a subsequent age. They require men to believe that God and Christ, who were willing to save that which was lost, limited that salvation to the sinner and discriminated against the sick man. They require us to split the ministry of Christ Jesus in two; decide that the healing work was without scientific or universal avail; that it was nothing we can possibly understand; and lastly that Jesus did not mean what he said when he declared that Christians who understood his Christianity must preach the Gospel and heal the sick and that they could do it. They require us to repudiate the works of Jesus as the legitimate interpreters of his mission and his words. They require us to believe that in saying "heal the sick," he who shows the way asks us to heal with drugs, a way which is contrary to his way.
If instead of regarding evil as a mysterious entity, men had understood the Science which detects and correctly designates the phenomena of evil, such misconceptions of Christian salvation would long since have been dissipated.
Sin and disease are in immediate kinship. They are allied as cause and effect. The Scriptural statement that "through sin came death" is scientific. Every physician knows, or ought to know, that anger will arrest digestion, that grief, revenge, and envy will impair the integrity of the body.
If Jesus came to save from one, then he came to save from both. He could not possibly save from one without saving from the other. He clearly indicated this to those who heard though they could not understand.
When Jesus healed the sick did he destroy the work of God or devil? Was it the mission of Jesus to destroy the work of God? If sickness is the work of devil, then is God for or against it? If God is against and contrary to it, are His laws for or against it? If His laws are against it are they available to man? Has God created a man who is without possible recourse to His law and power? If He has, then why pray for an impossibility?
Mrs. Eddy answers all these questions and hundreds of others in her text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," and thereby reconciles reason to God, and dispels the mystery which has obscured the science of Life.
People throughout all the Christian centuries have differed concerning the meaning of the Bible, indeed, in behalf of the quarrel about the Bible and of the conflict of creeds, millions have gone down to violent death. Our tenets declare, "We take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal life." Like many others, we believe that the Bible has not been dictated word for word by God. We believe with Paul that the things of God and the real substance of the Bible must be spiritually discerned.
Most people have commentaries, or helps to the study of the Bible. We have a commentary, or Key, in our textbook. With historic and characteristic instinct the people whose love is for their own alone do not like ours, and even say it is dangerous. I will not linger long to discuss the merits of this book now. Since studying the Bible in its light, we have no desire to kill any one or quarrel with any one about religion. We have learned to love the right of every man to strive for heaven according to his own inspiration. We are taught that it is abominable in the sight of God and a decent manhood to denounce, persecute, or molest a man who does not agree with our religious propaganda.
This book encourages us to live according to the Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount, and in obedience to the highest conceivable moral standard. It teaches us to be loving, charitable, merciful, meek, and pure, and as followers of Christ Jesus to obey every mandate of God and Christ, even to the extent of forsaking sin, preaching the gospel, and healing the sick. We are taught to love and to rely on one infinitely good God, who is Love; and that we may trust Him to the uttermost; indeed, we are led to believe we cannot trust God too much nor expect too much from infinite Love. We are taught to rely on the supremacy of Spirit and to know that no other reliance and no lack of reliance is acceptable to God or of avail to mortals. We are taught that the mission of Christ is in demonstration of an un-mysterious salvation, and that we may expect more and gain more through Christ than if we were to minimize the scope and efficacy of his mission.
If to be thus obedient, or to be too explicit in obedience, be dangerous, then we are indeed the most dangerous people that encumber the earth.
Read all the books on philosophy
since time began and they will not equip you to cure one case of fibroid tumor.
Read all the commentaries, sermons, and books on theology, and they will not
enable you to heal one case of locomotor ataxia in its worst form. Read all the
medical books and all other books and you cannot, as a result thereof, cure one
instance of malignant cancer. This book Science and Health has taught people
how to cure hundreds of such cases, and they have done it.
We differ concerning the nature of man. The Bible declares that God made man in His own image and likeness and gave him dominion over all the earth. Do you know of any such man? No. Is there something wrong with God or with the man? The trouble is with man, and he confesses it by declaring himself a fallen man (fallen from some high estate), and by his ceaseless prayer and effort to get back. Theology and philosophy in general declare that he cannot get back except through the door of death.
Jesus' theology was indeed divine. He was himself a consummate theologian. He ushered Christianity upon the scene of humanity by means of preaching and healing. His works were in demonstration of his theology. They were essentially incidental to his Christianity, and the same works are essential signs of Christianity now.
In comparing Christian Science with other systems of curative endeavor, I remind you first that there are many such systems and much disagreement concerning theory and practice. For example: one school of medical practice advocates the use on the average of one hundred million times as much medicine as is administered by the other school.
I shall speak of several particulars in which Christian Science is fundamentally different from all other systems.
The matter physician holds to the theory that disease is natural and inevitable; that although he may in some instances prevent or cure, nevertheless disease, per se, is sure to master him and his patient ultimately. By way of admission of the inadequacy of the system to cope with disease, he exhibits a long list of fatal or incurable types thereof. He therefore advances to the conflict with sickness with more or less uncertainty as to his natural right or ability to succeed.
Christian Science declares that disease is unnatural and should be resisted, and repudiates the theory that, from a scientific standpoint, disease is incurable. Jesus, the only perfect healer, actually demolished the theory by healing the multitude of all manner of diseases.
The practice of Christian Science is in its infancy. No pretence is made that such proficiency and efficiency have been attained by practitioners as to preclude any failure, but already this practice has resulted in the cure of practically every disease that is included in the long list of incurables. In other words, Christian Science can heal all diseases that drugs have ever healed and all that drugs have never healed; hence the Christian Scientist contemplates sickness as something he has a right to cure and ought to be able to cure.
The medical profession have practically united in the admission that "concerning the essence or primary cause of disease little is known; indeed, nothing at all." It is generally assumed, however, that matter alone is causation. There is an exception to the rule in the case of homoeopathy, which designates certain abnormal and unrighteous mental conditions sin, etc. as causative, and affirms that anger arrests digestion; that grief, sorrow, etc., impair or degrade the physical condition. According to Christian Science the enigma of the ages; namely, What is the primary cause of disease? can be solved only by entering the mental realm.
Did you ever see a person turn pale because of fear? Have you known a person to turn red because of anger? Have you ever heard that one has died because of fright? Do you not know that the thing which happens is this: that such mental activities operate as causation; affect the nervous and circulatory systems and induce congestion, the evidence of physical impairment or degeneracy?
It must be, surely, that you know that mental conditions affect the body, and because you know this and should act accordingly, I ask if there is any scientific relationship between grief or jealousy as a cause and a mud bath as a cure. If you had a patient whose incorrigible hatred had finally caused liver trouble, and the medical books prescribed a mustard plaster, would you apply the plaster to the liver which is innocent of offence, or to the hatred which is the sole cause?
If the case is to be cured at all, ought not the remedy to reach the cause and cancel it? Do you think that a plaster will do it? If not, then consider the Mind which was in Christ and which transforms man by means of righteousness. Consider the curative system of Christ Jesus, which clearly recognized sin as a cause of sickness and administered the emollient of holiness which divine Love has prepared in the laboratory of eternal Life.
In consequence of ignorance and superstition, the universal mortal man is afraid of the very foundation of his being. He is afraid of God and heaven, he is afraid of devil and hell; afraid of his own body, of everything he does and has, and of all that exists on earth. This universal fear constitutes a universal and primary cause of disease, and the conclusion cannot be resisted that the curative system which fails to recognize it, cannot intelligently abolish its effects.
There are two books in the world which entreat humanity to know that fear is illegitimate and can be "cast out." These books are the Bible and Science and Health. The latter, with much elaboration, explains the fabulous nature of fear and gives the reason and rule for its elimination.
Will not those of you who are Christians consider as to whether or not it would have been a mockery for the Saviour of the world compassionately to implore man to resist fear if it really has a scientific, inherent right to infest humanity, and therefore is irresistible?
The matter physician declares that the proper therapeutic or curative agency is to be found in matter or in the use of material means.
The drugging system did not originate in a civilized, enlightened, or Christian age. According to its own history of itself, it is the offspring of paganism. Since its birth, forty centuries ago, men have endeavored to reduce the system and practice to a science, and they not only admit they have failed, but declare that the practice is largely tentative, by way of expediency; is experimental, or accidental.
In behalf of the drugging theory mankind has literally swallowed everything on earth, hoping to placate or obstruct disease, and is still sicker and has more diseases than ever before. Concerning the theory and practice of four thousand years, it is to be said that nearly all of it is condemned by the practice and theory of to-day, and it is prophetically expected by the physician of this generation that his practice and methods will be repudiated by the next generation. The "History of Four Thousand Years of Medicine" does not disclose one single element of pure science. Moreover, there is scarcely a postulate that has been allowed to remain unimpeached or undisturbed.
Now comes the utterance of Christian Science, which is the Science of Mind. It declares that everything you have or know; all that means religion, politics, art, music, sociology, education, finance, business, government, the daily life and minutiae of your existence; all is in consequence of thought. Thought ruptures empires, wages war, obliterates nations. Thought is the greatest potentiality that the mortal knows of or is moved by. The stage of human existence which Oliver Wendell Holmes calls a "disorder" has been desolated by evil mental conditions and must become normal and righteous through the "transformation of Mind." Mindless matter is not equal to the task. It has no intelligence of its own and an all-wise God needs not to filter Himself through non-intelligence in order to accomplish for a sick man all that he needs or to which he is entitled.
We think the Bible is to be credited, wherein it indicates that God is the natural healer of all our diseases, and we know that this God is Mind and not matter.
How did Jesus, the only perfect healer whom history affords, how did he heal the sick? Medicine had been in use for twenty centuries. Was it Mind, or matter? Christianity would collapse in the admission that it was not Mind.
It is urged that all this is transcendental because contrary to the senses. So is the hope of immortality, so is the belief in God and heaven. The senses testify to the extinction of man by death and the annihilation of his individuality, and they do not afford an atom of evidence of God as Spirit.
It is declared that Christian
Science practice is intangible and is objectionable because there is no visible
or palpable animus or modus operandi. Do you know why the earth revolves,
why your heart beats, why you can wink your eyes, or do anything? No. Does any
physical scientist understand the primary impulsion of your every act? No, none
on earth ever knew. I might spend years in bringing to your attention the
every-day things of your life, and in proving to you that you do not understand
the modus operandi of one in a thousand.
Christian Scientists who have been the first to heal malignant cancers, know more about the modus, than you know about the circulation of the blood or your ability to walk.
Why did it not come sooner? It did come sooner. Jesus understood the healing Christianity; declared and demonstrated it. The people did not fully understand him and he told them they could not, but he prophetically declared the time will come when "ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Since then men have prayed that it might be revealed, and now we believe it has been revealed.
Why did not everything come sooner? Why did not Adam have a telephone, a steamship, a piano, and the thousand other things of to-day? Simply because he didn't know enough. In consequence of law, substance, and possibility, all these were possible to him if he had only known enough to make the discovery. The Principle and rule of Christian Science Mind-healing were before Adam. They only needed to be discovered and applied.
After this brief and fragmentary allusion to these differences I ask what think you of the difference?
It really means the supremacy of God and the impotence of error. It means life and health instead of sickness and doom. It means joy instead of tears. It means a lawful Christ in demonstration of a palpable salvation for a man who ought to be like his Maker.
For a third of a century Mrs. Eddy has been pleading with mankind for the recognition of its right to life, health, and holiness according to the will of God. She has insisted that God is the natural healer of the sick, and that disease is contrary to God and His will. She has discovered and made known the Science of Christian healing and has set forth the rule whereby humanity is to obtain mastery over disease.
On every one who has ever healed the sick through and by means of divine power in attestation of the supremacy of spiritual law, the world has bestowed the antagonism and hatred which materialism ever exhibits toward the spiritually minded; indeed, there has scarcely been a reformer since the day of Abel who has not been hated, reviled, stoned, or crucified; a martyr to his own ministry and mission.
In view of this inveterate propensity of the human mind to persecute the prophets and to resist that which makes for its own moral and spiritual welfare, it is not strange that with consistent industry it has given itself up to misrepresentation and defamation of Christian Science and its works, and of the Leader of this Cause.
It seems futile to repine or demur because of this ruthless habit, and it is useless for us to protest or contend against the baseless disposition to do injury to us and to our Leader. Mrs. Eddy has specifically denied all the inventions of evil and the perverted statements of fact, and there is but one sufficient, adequate course for her and for us to pursue. Her life, past and present the actual facts and activities of her daily existence constitute an imperishably righteous answer, and one that will stand as answer forever.
There is no other way, and there need be no other way, for this dignified woman to do, for one who is entrenched in the rectitude of her own pure living, but to depend on the present and ultimate recognition by the world of the great value of her work for her justification. The lofty character of her deeds and impulses, and the long-continued sacrifices which she has endured in order that her mission might live, these speak for her.
Every revelation of truth, every scientific discovery, has found its way to humanity through some man, woman, or child. It so happened that Christian Science was discovered, assimilated, and disclosed by a woman, and forthwith, and since then, there have been many objections, all of which can be congregated in one common belief that woman is not fit to know the truth. It is not strange that this barbaric belief that mental inferiority inheres naturally in woman should have penetrated so many centuries, but it is amazing that this generation needs yet to learn the scientific fact that there is no reason, mental, moral, or material; physical, metaphysical, or spiritual, why woman may not know anything that is true, and know it as soon as a man and as well as a man.
A Noble Womanhood
I feel that I need not stand long before a New England audience to debate the question as to whether or no its grand women constitute fit ministers of God to them that sin and mourn and suffer. I know it is expected that a chivalrous man will speak in gracious terms of gracious womanhood, but I rejoice to know that the women I mean need not, nor do they thrive on unnutritious compliment. Because of the sublimity of inspiration, fidelity, courage, and character they stand on exalted heights which they have achieved for themselves.
It has been my good fortune to know a splendid womanhood of whom I am greatly enamored, but I never knew one who was so meek, loving, and humble as is the Leader of our Cause. I never knew one who seemed so intent on knowing the will of God or so glad and satisfied to do that will. I never knew one who was so honest, so charitable, just, or kind. Her many years of consecrated experience have ripened into Godly reverence for and devotion to the daily life that is in imitation of Christ. Her chief ambition seems to be to battle for humanity against sin and disease, and to continue without reproach before God and man.
Some day the world will know all this and render tardy justice, and meanwhile the tender, loving woman knoweth that a million people, many of them once dying, who have been rescued from unspeakable depths, and who know that for a generation she has stood as the lone rock stands far out against an angry sea, are thankful that in spite of every contention against her she has been faithful to her trust.
[Delivered Dec. 8, 1903, at Symphony Hall, Boston, MA, and published in the Christian Science Sentinel, Dec. 19, 1903. The bracketed portion of the text was inserted here from the fuller account of the lecture in The Niagra Falls Gazette of June 8, 1904, which was the "first public exposition on Christian Science ever delivered in Niagra Falls" at which "an exceptionally large audience of 1,000 or more people took advantage of the opportunity to hear something about Christian Science"; "Mr. Kimball talked for nearly two hours impressively and powerfully".
[The title of this lecture, "The Beneficial Effects of Christian Science," was found in a notice appearing in The Niagra Falls Gazette of June 6, 1904, prior to the June 7 delivery and the June 8 publication noted above. Excerpts from this same lecture appeared in The Amsterdam (New York) Evening Recorder, Sept. 14, 1904, in which the title was given as "The Beneficial Results of Christian Science". Possibly Mr. Kimball used the titles interchangeably; we find that The Christian Science Sentinel, Dec. 26, 1903, states that he gave "The Beneficial Effects of Christian Science" in West Chester, Pennsylvania, on Nov. 16, 1903, and "The Beneficial Results of Christian Science" in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Nov. 17, 1903.]