First Church of Christ, Scientist,
Cleveland, Ohio
Beloved Brethren: — You will pardon my delay in acknowledging your card of invitation to the dedicatory services of your church. Adverse circumstances, loss of help, new problems to be worked out for the field, etc., have hitherto prevented my reply. However, it is never too late to repent, to love more, to work more, to watch and pray; but those privileges I have not had time to express, and so have submitted to necessity, letting the deep love which I cherished for you be hidden under an appearance of indifference.
We must resign with good grace what we are denied, and press on with what we are, for we cannot do more than we are nor understand what is not ripening in us. To do good to all because we love all, and to use in God's service the one talent that we all have, is our only means of adding to that talent and the best way to silence a deep discontent with our shortcomings.
Christian Science is at length learned to be no miserable piece of ideal legerdemain, by which we poor mortals expect to live and die, but a deep-drawn breath fresh from God, by whom and in whom man lives, moves, and has deathless being. The praiseworthy success of this church, and its united efforts to build an edifice in which to worship the infinite, sprang from the temples erected first in the hearts of its members — the unselfed love that builds without hands, eternal in the heaven of Spirit. God grant that this unity remain, and that you continue to build, rebuild, adorn, and fill these spiritual temples with grace. Truth, Life, and Love.
