my purpose, when I came here, knowing that such an effort would involve a lessening of the retirement I so much desired. But the demand increased, and I consented, hoping thereby to give to many in this city a church home.
Acknowledgment of Gifts
To the Chicago Churches
My Beloved Brethren: — I have yearned to express my thanks for your munificent gift to First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Concord, of ten thousand dollars. What is gratitude but a powerful camera obscura, a thing focusing light where love, memory, and all within the human heart is present to manifest light.
Is it not a joy to compare the beginning of Christian Science in Chicago with its present prosperity? Now [1904] six dear churches are there, the members of which not only possess a sound faith, but that faith also possesses them. A great sanity, a mighty something buried in the depths of the unseen, has wrought a resurrection among you, and has leaped into living love. What is this something, this phœnix fire, this pillar by day, kindling, guiding, and guarding your way? It is unity, the bond of perfectness, the thousandfold expansion that will engirdle the world, — unity, which unfolds the thought most within us into the greater and better, the sum of all reality and good.
This unity is reserved wisdom and strength. It builds upon the rock, against which envy, enmity, or malice beat in vain. Man lives, moves, and has his being in God, Love. Then man must live, he cannot die; and Love
