Message for 1902

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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 wrestling 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

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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 welcome 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 outcome 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 doctrine; 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

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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 oppression; 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

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me." Competition in commerce, deceit in councils, dishonor 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.

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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 yesterday but foreshadowed the spiritual dawn of the twentieth century — religion parting with its materiality.

Christian Science stills all distress over doubtful interpretations 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 Commandment.

For man to be thoroughly subordinated to this commandment, God must be intelligently considered and understood. The ever-recurring human question and wonder, What is God? can never be answered satisfactorily by human hypotheses or philosophy. Divine metaphysics 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 doctrine, 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-

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ever forbids the thought of any other reality, since it is impossible 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 knowledge, 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 destroy 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 Christianization 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 becomes 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

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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 manifestations 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 consciousness. 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 allpower, 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 commandment. And wherefore? Because it emphasizes the

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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 fulfilled. 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 between 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 inspiration, 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 perpetual goodness, for the ego, or I, goes to the Father, whereby man is Godlike. Love, purity, meekness, coexist 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-

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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 harmony. 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 forever 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 discovery of telegraphy? Did they quarrel long with the inventor of a steam engine? Is it cause for bitter comment 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

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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 footprints 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 tendency 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 infirmity 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 communicating with foreign nations in other ways than by walking every step over the land route, and swimming the

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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 disappointed travellers, tossed to and fro by adverse circumstances, 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 wireless telegraph, each in turn has helped mankind, how much more is accomplished when the race is helped onward by a new-old message from God, even the knowledge 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, advancing Christian, and this is thy Lord's benediction upon it: "Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute 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

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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 question 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 Commandment 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 privilege to acquaint communicants with the financial transactions 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

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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 incurred 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 Science 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 newspapers,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-

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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 Cæsar, 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 accomplished 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 achievement has been blazoned on the forefront of the world and recorded in heaven. The popular philosophies and religions 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 outstretched 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.

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In the eighties, anonymous letters mailed to me contained 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 struggled 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 being 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

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Elijah after the earthquake and the fire. Six months thereafter 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 combination 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 holiness, 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 watchfires of unselfed love, and they throw a light upon the uncomplaining agony in the life of our Lord; they open the enigmatical seals of the angel, standing in the sun, a glorified 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 witnesses, express the life of Godlikeness. Fasting, feasting, or penance, — merely outside forms of religion, — fail to elucidate Christianity: they reach not the heart nor renovate it; they never destroy one iota of hypocrisy, pride, self-will, envy, or hate. The mere form of godliness,

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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 everyday 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 resignation are the pillars of peace that, like the sun beneath the horizon, cheer the heart susceptible of light with prom-

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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 estrangement, 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

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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 blessing 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

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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 proposition, 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 meeting you all occasionally in the metropolis of my native State, whose good people welcome Christian Scientists.