The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany/Chapter 2.04
CHAPTER IV
MESSAGES TO THE MOTHER CHURCH
Communion, January 2, 1898
MY Beloved Brethren: — I have suggested a change in the time for holding our semi-annual church meetings, in order to separate these sessions from the excitement and commotion of the season's holidays.
In metaphysics we learn that the strength of peace and of suffering is sublime, a true, tried mental conviction that is neither tremulous nor relapsing. This strength is like the ocean, able to carry navies, yet yielding to the touch of a finger. This peace is spiritual; never selfish, stony, nor stormy, but generous, reliable, helpful, and always at hand.
Peace, like plain dealing, is somewhat out of fashion. Yet peace is desirable, and plain dealing is a jewel as beautiful as the gems that adorn the Christmas ring presented to me by my students in 1897. Few blemishes can be found in a true character, for it is always a diamond of the first water; but external gentility and good humor may be used to disguise internal vulgarity and villainy. No deformity exists in honesty, and no vulgarity in kindness. Christian Science, however, adds to these graces, and reflects the divine likeness.
Self-denial is practical, and is not only polite to all but is pleasant to those who practise it. If one would follow the advice that one gratuitously bestows on others, this would create for one's self and for the world a destiny more grand than can issue from the brain of a dreamer.
That glory only is imperishable which is fixed in one's own moral make-up.
Sin is like a dock root. To cut off the top of a plant does no good; the roots must be eradicated or the plant will continue to grow. Now I am done with homilies and, you may add, with tedious prosaics.
On the fifth of July last, my church tempted me tenderly to be proud! The deportment of its dear members was such as to command respect everywhere. It called forth flattering comment and created surprise in our good city of Concord.
Beloved brethren, another Christmas has come and gone. Has it enabled us to know more of the healing Christ that saves from sickness and sin? Are we still searching diligently to find where the young child lies, and are we satisfied to know that our sense of Truth is not demoralized, finitized, cribbed, or cradled, but has risen to grasp the spiritual idea unenvironed by materiality? Can we say with the angels to-day: “He is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him”? Yes, the real Christian Scientist can say his Christ is risen and is not the material Christ of creeds, but is Truth, even as Jesus declared; and the sense of Truth of the real Christian Scientist is spiritualized to behold this Christ, Truth, again healing the sick and saving sinners. The mission of our Master was to all mankind, and included the very hearts that rejected it — that refused to see the power of Truth in healing.
Our unity and progress are proverbial, and this church's gifts to me are beyond comparison — they have become a wonder! To me, however, love is the greater marvel, so I must continue to prize love even more than the gifts which would express it. The great guerdon of divine Love, which moves the hearts of men to goodness and greatness, will reward these givers, and this encourages me to continue to urge the perfect model for your acceptance as the ultimate of Christian Science.
To-day in Concord, N. H., we have a modest hall in one of the finest localities in the city, — a reading-room and nine other rooms in the same building. “Tell it not in Gath”! I had the property bought by the courtesy of another person to be rid of the care and responsibility of purchasing it, and furnished him the money to pay for it. The original cost of the estate was fourteen thousand dollars. With the repairs and other necessary expenses the amount is now about twenty thousand dollars. Ere long I will see you in this hall, Deo volente; but my outdoor accommodations at Pleasant View are bigger than the indoor. My little hall, which holds a trifle over two hundred people, is less sufficient to receive a church of ten thousand members than were the “five loaves and two fishes” to feed the multitude; but the true Christian Scientist is not frightened at miracles, and ofttimes small beginnings have large endings.
Seeing that we have to attain to the ministry of right- eousness in all things, we must not overlook small things in goodness or in badness, for “trifles make perfection,” and “the little foxes . . . spoil the vines.”
As a peculiar people whose God is All-in-all, let us say with St. Paul: “We faint not; but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience.”
Communion, June 4, 1899
My Beloved Brethren: — Looking on this annual assemblage of human consciousness, — health, harmony, growth, grandeur, and achievement, garlanded with glad faces, willing hands, and warm hearts, — who would say to-day, “What a fond fool is hope”? The fruition of friendship, the world's arms outstretched to us, heart meeting heart across continents and oceans, bloodless sieges and tearless triumphs, the “well done” already yours, and the undone waiting only your swift hands, — these are enough to make this hour glad. What more abounds and abides in the hearts of these hearers and speakers, pen may not tell.
Nature reflects man and art pencils him, but it remains for Science to reveal man to man; and between these lines of thought is written in luminous letters, O man, what art thou? Where art thou? Whence and whither? And what shall the answer be? Expressive silence, or with finger pointing upward, — Thither! Then produce thy records, time-table, log, traveller's companion, et cetera, and prove fairly the facts relating to the thitherward, — the rate of speed, the means of travel, and the number en route. Now what have you learned? The mystery of godliness — God made “manifest in the flesh,” seen of men, and spiritually understood; and the mystery of iniquity — how to separate the tares from the wheat, that they consume in their own fires and no longer kindle altars for human sacrifice. Have you learned to conquer sin, false affections, motives, and aims, — to be not only sayers but doers of the law?
Brethren, our annual meeting is a grave guardian. It requires you to report progress, to refresh memory, to rejuvenate the branches and to vivify the buds, to bend upward the tendrils and to incline the vine towards the parent trunk. You come from feeding your flocks, big with promise; and you come with the sling of Israel's chosen one to meet the Goliaths.
I have only to dip my pen in my heart to say, All honor to the members of our Board of Lectureship connected with The Mother Church. Loyal to the divine Principle they so ably vindicate, they earn their laurels. History will record their words, and their works will follow them. When reading their lectures, I have felt the touch of the spirit of the Mars' Hill orator, which always thrills the soul.
The members of the Board of Education, under the auspices of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, have acquitted themselves nobly. The students in my last class in 1898 are stars in my crown of rejoicing.
We are deeply grateful that the church militant is looking into the subject of Christian Science, for Zion must put on her beautiful garments — her bridal robes. The hour is come; the bride (Word) is adorned, and lo, the bridegroom cometh! Are our lamps trimmed and burning?
The doom of the Babylonish woman, referred to in Revelation, is being fulfilled. This woman, “drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus,” “drunk with the wine of her fornication,” would enter even the church, — the body of Christ, Truth; and, retaining the heart of the harlot and the purpose of the destroying angel, would pour wormwood into the waters — the disturbed human mind — to drown the strong swimmer struggling for the shore, — aiming for Truth, — and if possible, to poison such as drink of the living water. But the recording angel, standing with “right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth,” has in his hand a book open (ready to be read), which uncovers and kills this mystery of iniquity and interprets the mystery of godliness, — how the first is finished and the second is no longer a mystery or a miracle, but a marvel, casting out evil and healing the sick. And a voice was heard, saying, “Come out of her, my people” (hearken not to her lies), “that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities . . . double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double . . . for she saith in her heart, I . . . am no widow, . . . Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; . . . for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.” That which the Revelator saw in spiritual vision will be accomplished. The Babylonish woman is fallen, and who should mourn over the widowhood of lust, of her that “is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean . . . bird”?
One thing is eternally here; it reigns supreme to-day, to-morrow, forever. We need it in our homes, at our firesides, on our altars, for with it win we the race of the centuries. We have it only as we live it. This is that needful one thing — divine Science, whereby thought is spiritualized, reaching outward and upward to Science in Christianity, Science in medicine, in physics, and in metaphysics.
Happy are the people whose God is All-in-all, who ask only to be judged according to their works, who live to love. We thank the Giver of all good for the marvellous speed of the chariot-wheels of Truth and for the steadfast, calm coherence in the ranks of Christian Science.
On comparison, it will be found that Christian Science possesses more of Christ's teachings and example than all other religions since the first century. Comparing our scientific system of metaphysical therapeutics with materia medica, we find that divine metaphysics completely overshadows and overwhelms materia medica, even as Aaron's rod swallowed up the rods of the magicians of Egypt. I deliberately declare that when I was in practice, out of one hundred cases I healed ninety-nine to the ten of materia medica.
We should thank God for persecution and for prosecution, if from these ensue a purer Protestantism and monotheism for the latter days of the nineteenth century. A siege of the combined centuries, culminating in fierce attack, cannot demolish our strongholds. The forts of Christian Science, garrisoned by God's chosen ones, can never surrender. Unlike Russia's armament, ours is not costly as men count cost, but it is rich beyond price, staunch and indestructible on land or sea; it is not curtailed in peace, surrendered in conquest, nor laid down at the feet of progress through the hands of omnipotence. And why? Because it is “on earth peace, good will toward men,” — a cover and a defence adapted to all men, all nations, all times, climes, and races. I cannot quench my desire to say this; and words are not vain when the depth of desire can find no other outlet to liberty. “Therefore . . . let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works.” (Hebrews 6: 1.)
A coroner's inquest, a board of health, or class legislation is less than the Constitution of the United States, and infinitely less than God's benign government, which is “no respecter of persons.” Truth crushed to earth springs spontaneously upward, and whispers to the breeze man's inalienable birthright — Liberty. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” God is everywhere. No crown nor sceptre nor rulers rampant can quench the vital heritage of freedom — man's right to adopt a religion, to employ a physician, to live or to die according to the dictates of his own rational conscience and enlightened understanding. Men cannot punish a man for suicide; God does that.
Christian Scientists abide by the laws of God and the laws of the land; and, following the command of the Master, they go into all the world, preaching the gospel and healing the sick. Therefore be wise and harmless, for without the former the latter were impracticable. A lack of wisdom betrays Truth into the hands of evil as effectually as does a subtle conspirator; the motive is not as wicked, but the result is as injurious. Return not evil for evil, but “overcome evil with good.” Then, whatever the shaft aimed at you or your practice may be, it will fall powerless, and God will reward your enemies according to their works. Watch, and pray daily that evil suggestions, in whatever guise, take no root in your thought nor bear fruit. Ofttimes examine yourselves, and see if there be found anywhere a deterrent of Truth and Love, and “hold fast that which is good.”
I reluctantly foresee great danger threatening our nation, — imperialism, monopoly, and a lax system of religion. But the spirit of humanity, ethics, and Christianity sown broadcast — all concomitants of Christian Science — is taking strong hold of the public thought throughout our beloved country and in foreign lands, and is tending to counteract the trend of mad ambition.
There is no night but in God's frown; there is no day but in His smile. The oracular skies, the verdant earth — bird, brook, blossom, breeze, and balm — are richly fraught with divine reflection. They come at Love's call. The nod of Spirit is nature's natal.
And how is man, seen through the lens of Spirit, enlarged, and how counterpoised his origin from dust, and how he presses to his original, never severed from Spirit! O ye who leap disdainfully from this rock of ages, return and plant thy steps in Christ, Truth, “the stone which the builders rejected”! Then will angels administer grace, do thy errands, and be thy dearest allies. The divine law gives to man health and life everlasting — gives a soul to Soul, a present harmony wherein the good man's heart takes hold on heaven, and whose feet can never be moved. These are His green pastures beside still waters, where faith mounts upward, expatiates, strengthens, and exults.
Lean not too much on your Leader. Trust God to direct your steps. Accept my counsel and teachings only as they include the spirit and the letter of the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, and the teachings and example of Christ Jesus. Refrain from public controversy; correct the false with the true — then leave the latter to propagate. Watch and guard your own thoughts against evil suggestions and against malicious mental malpractice, wholly disloyal to the teachings of Christian Science. This hidden method of committing crime — socially, physically, and morally — will ere long be unearthed and punished as it deserves. The effort of disloyal students to blacken me and to keep my works from public recognition — students seeking only public notoriety, whom I have assisted pecuniarily and striven to uplift morally — has been made too many times and has failed too often for me to fear it. The spirit of Truth is the lever which elevates mankind. I have neither the time nor the inclination to be continually pursuing a lie — the one evil or the evil one. Therefore I ask the help of others in this matter, and I ask that according to the Scriptures my students reprove, rebuke, and exhort. A lie left to itself is not so soon destroyed as it is with the help of truth-telling. Truth never falters nor fails; it is our faith that fails.
All published quotations from my works must have the author's name added to them. Quotation-marks are not sufficient. Borrowing from my copyrighted works, without credit, is inadmissible. But I need not say this to the loyal Christian Scientist — to him who keeps the commandments. “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” has an enormous strain put upon it, being used as a companion to the Bible in all your public ministrations, as teacher and as the embodiment and substance of the truth that is taught; hence my request, that you borrow little else from it, should seem reasonable.
Beloved, that which purifies the affections also strengthens them, removes fear, subdues sin, and endues with divine power; that which refines character at the same time humbles, exalts, and commands a man, and obedience gives him courage, devotion, and attainment. For this hour, for this period, for spiritual sacrament, sacrifice, and ascension, we unite in giving thanks. For the body of Christ, for the life that we commemorate and would emulate, for the bread of heaven whereof if a man eat “he shall live forever,” for the cup red with loving restitution, redemption, and inspiration, we give thanks. The signet of the great heart, given to me in a little symbol, seals the covenant of everlasting love. May apostate praise return to its first love, above the symbol seize the spirit, speak the “new tongue” — and may thought soar and Soul be.
Address at Annual Meeting, June 6, 1899
My Beloved Brethren: — I hope I shall not be found disorderly, but I wish to say briefly that this meeting is very joyous to me. Where God is we can meet, and where God is we can never part. There is something suggestive to me in this hour of the latter days of the nineteenth century, fulfilling much of the divine law and the gospel. The divine law has said to us: “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.”
There is with us at this hour this great, great blessing; and may I say with the consciousness of Mind that the fulfilment of divine Love in our lives is the demand of this hour — the special demand. We begin with the law as just announced, “Prove me now herewith, . . . if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing,” and we go to the Gospels, and there we hear: “In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”
The Christian Scientist knows that spiritual faith and understanding pass through the waters of Meribah here — bitter waters; but he also knows they embark for infinity and anchor in omnipotence.
Oh, may this hour be prolific, and at this time and in every heart may there come this benediction: Thou hast no longer to appeal to human strength, to strive with agony; I am thy deliverer. “Of His own will begat He us with the word of truth.” Divine Love has strengthened the hand and encouraged the heart of every member of this large church. Oh, may these rich blessings continue and be increased! Divine Love hath opened the gate Beautiful to us, where we may see God and live, see good in good, — God all, one, — one Mind and that divine; where we may love our neighbor as ourselves, and bless our enemies.
Divine Love will also rebuke and destroy disease, and destroy the belief of life in matter. It will waken the dreamer — the sinner, dreaming of pleasure in sin; the sick, dreaming of suffering matter; the slothful, satisfied to sleep and dream. Divine Love is our only physician, and never loses a case. It binds up the broken-hearted; heals the poor body, whose whole head is sick and whose whole heart is faint; comforts such as mourn, wipes away the unavailing, tired tear, brings back the wanderer to the Father's house in which are many mansions, many welcomes, many pardons for the penitent.
Ofttimes I think of this in the great light of the present, the might and light of the present fulfilment. So shall all earth's children at last come to acknowledge God, and be one; inhabit His holy hill, the God-crowned summit of divine Science; the church militant rise to the church triumphant, and Zion be glorified.
A Question Answered
My beloved church will not receive a Message from me this summer, for my annual Message is swallowed up in sundries already given out. These crumbs and monads will feed the hungry, and the fragments gathered therefrom should waken the sleeper, — “dead in trespasses and sins,” — set the captive sense free from self's sordid sequela; and one more round of old Sol give birth to the sowing of Solomon.
| Pleasant View, Concord, N. H., | |
| May 11, 1903. |
Letter of the Pastor Emeritus, June, 1903
My Beloved Brethren: — I have a secret to tell you and a question to ask. Do you know how much I love you and the nature of this love? No: then my sacred secret is incommunicable, and we live apart. But, yes: and this inmost something becomes articulate, and my book is not all you know of me. But your knowledge with its magnitude of meaning uncovers my life, even as your heart has discovered it. The spiritual bespeaks our temporal history. Difficulty, abnegation, constant battle against the world, the flesh, and evil, tell my long-kept secret — evidence a heart wholly in protest and unutterable in love.
The unprecedented progress of Christian Science is proverbial, and we cannot be too grateful nor too humble for this, inasmuch as our daily lives serve to enhance or to stay its glory. To triumph in truth, to keep the faith individually and collectively, conflicting elements must be mastered. Defeat need not follow victory. Joy over good achievements and work well done should not be eclipsed by some lost opportunity, some imperative demand not yet met.
Truth, Life, and Love will never lose their claim on us. And here let me add: —
| Truth happifies life in the hamlet or town; |
| Life lessens all pride — its pomp and its frown — |
| Love comes to our tears like a soft summer shower. |
| To beautify, bless, and inspire man's power. |
A Letter from Mrs. Eddy
At the Wednesday evening meeting of April 3, 1907, in The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, the First Reader, Mr. William D. McCrackan, read the following letter from Mrs. Eddy. In announcing this letter, he said: —
“Permission has been secured from our beloved Leader to read you a letter from her to me. This letter is in Mrs. Eddy's own handwriting, with which I have been familiar for several years, and it shows her usual mental and physical vigor.”
MRS. EDDY'S LETTER
Beloved Student: — The wise man has said, “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” That this passage of Scripture and its concluding declaration may be applied to old age, is a solace.
Perhaps you already know that I have heretofore personally attended to my secular affairs, — to my income, investments, deposits, expenditures, and to my employees. But the increasing demands upon my time and labor, and my yearning for more peace in my advancing years, have caused me to select a Board of Trustees to take the charge of my property; namely, the Hon. Henry M. Baker, Mr. Archibald McLellan, and Mr. Josiah E. Fernald.
As you are the First Reader of my church in Boston, of about forty thousand members, I inform you of this, the aforesaid transaction.
Lovingly yours in Christ,
| Pleasant View, Concord, N. H., | |
| March 22, 1907. |
Letter to The Mother Church
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston, Mass.
My Beloved Church: — Your love and fidelity cheer my advancing years. As Christian Scientists you understand the Scripture, “Fret not thyself because of evil-doers;” also you spiritually and scientifically understand that God is divine Love, omnipotent, omnipresent, infinite; hence it is enough for you and me to know that our “Redeemer liveth” and intercedeth for us.
At this period my demonstration of Christian Science cannot be fully understood, theoretically; therefore it is best explained by its fruits, and by the life of our Lord as depicted in the chapter Atonement and Eucharist, in “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.”
| Pleasant View, Concord, N. H., | |
| April 2, 1907. |
Card
I am pleased to say that the following members constitute the Board of Trustees who own my property: —
1. The Hon. Henry M. Baker, who won a suit at law in Washington, D. C., for which it is alleged he was paid the highest fee ever received by a native of New Hampshire.
2. Archibald McLellan, editor-in-chief of the Christian Science periodicals, circulating in the five grand divisions of our globe; also in Canada, Australia, etc.
3. Josiah E. Fernald, justice of the peace and president of the National State Capital Bank, Concord, N. H.
To my aforesaid Trustees I have committed the hard earnings of my pen, — the fruits of honest toil, the labor that is known by its fruits, — benefiting the human race; and I have so done that I may have more peace, and time for spiritual thought and the higher criticism.
| Pleasant View, Concord, N. H., | |
| April 3, 1907. |
Mrs. Eddy's Affidavit
The following affidavit, in the form of a letter from Mrs. Eddy to Judge Robert N. Chamberlin of the Superior Court, was filed in the office of the Clerk of the Court, Saturday, May 18. The Boston Globe, referring to this document, speaks of it as, “in the main, an example of crisp, clear, plain-speaking English.” The entire letter is in Mrs. Eddy's own handwriting and is characteristic in both substance and penmanship: —
Hon. Judge Chamberlin, Concord, N. H.
Respected Sir: — It is over forty years that I have attended personally to my secular affairs, to my income, investments, deposits, expenditures, and to my employees. I have personally selected all my investments, except in one or two instances, and have paid for the same.
The increasing demands upon my time, labors, and thought, and yearning for more peace and to have my property and affairs carefully taken care of for the persons and purposes I have designated by my last will, influenced me to select a Board of Trustees to take charge of my property; namely, the Hon. Henry M. Baker, Mr. Archibald McLellan, Mr. Josiah E. Fernald. I had contemplated doing this before the present proceedings were brought or I knew aught about them, and I had consulted Lawyer Streeter about the method.
I selected said Trustees because I had implicit confidence in each one of them as to honesty and business capacity. No person influenced me to make this selection. I find myself able to select the Trustees I need without the help of others. I gave them my property to take care of because I wanted it protected and myself relieved of the burden of doing this. They have agreed with me to take care of my property and I consider this agreement a great benefit to me already.
This suit was brought without my knowledge and is being carried on contrary to my wishes. I feel that it is not for my benefit in any way, but for my injury, and I know it was not needed to protect my person or property. The present proceedings test my trust in divine Love. My personal reputation is assailed and some of my students and trusted personal friends are cruelly, unjustly, and wrongfully accused.
Mr. Calvin A. Frye and other students often ask me to receive persons whom I desire to see but decline to receive solely because I find that I cannot “serve two masters.” I cannot be a Christian Scientist except I leave all for Christ.
Trusting that I have not exceeded the bounds of propriety in the statements herein made by me,
I remain most respectfully yours,
| Pleasant View, Concord, N. H., | |
| May 16, 1907. |
State of New Hampshire, Merrimack, ss.
On this sixteenth day of May, 1907, personally appeared Mary Baker Eddy and made oath that the statements contained in the annexed letter directed to Honorable Judge Chamberlin and dated May 16, 1907, are true.
- Before me:
Allen Hollis,
Nota Bene
Beloved Students: — Rest assured that your Leader is living, loving, acting, enjoying. She is neither dead nor plucked up by the roots, but she is keenly alive to the reality of living, and safely, soulfully founded upon the rock, Christ Jesus, even the spiritual idea of Life, with its abounding, increasing, advancing footsteps of progress, primeval faith, hope, love.
Like the verdure and evergreen that flourish when trampled upon, the Christian Scientist thrives in adversity; his is a life-lease of hope, home, heaven; his idea is nearing the Way, the Truth, and the Life, when misrepresented, belied, and trodden upon. Justice, honesty, cannot be abjured; their vitality involves Life, — calm, irresistible, eternal.
A Word to the Wise
My Beloved Brethren: — When I asked you to dispense with the Executive Members' meeting, the purpose of my request was sacred. It was to turn your sense of worship from the material to the spiritual, the personal to the impersonal, the denominational to the doctrinal, yea, from the human to the divine.
Already you have advanced from the audible to the inaudible prayer; from the material to the spiritual communion; from drugs to Deity; and you have been greatly recompensed. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for so doth the divine Love redeem your body from disease; your being from sensuality; your soul from sense; your life from death.
Of this abounding and abiding spiritual understanding the prophet Isaiah said, “And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.”
Chestnut Hill, Mass.
[Boston Globe]
Abolishing the Communion
In a letter addressed to Christian Scientists the Rev. Mary Baker Eddy explains that dropping the annual communion service of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, need not debar distant members from attending occasionally The Mother Church. The following is Mrs. Eddy's letter: —
Beloved Christian Scientists: — Take courage. God is leading you onward and upward. Relinquishing a material form of communion advances it spiritually. The material form is a “Suffer it to be so now,” and is abandoned so soon as God's Way-shower, Christ, points the advanced step. This instructs us how to be abased and how to abound.
Dropping the communion of The Mother Church does not prevent its distant members from occasionally attending this church.
| Chestnut Hill, Mass., | |
| June 21, 1908. |
[Boston Globe]
Communion Season is Abolished
The general communion service of the Christian Science denomination, held annually in The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in this city, has been abolished by order of Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy. The services attended last Sunday [June 14] by ten thousand persons were thus the last to be held. Of late years members of the church outside of Boston have not been encouraged to attend the communion seasons except on the triennial gatherings, the next of which would have been held next year.
The announcement in regard to the services was made last night [June 21] by Alfred Farlow of the publication committee as follows: —
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, has taken steps to abolish its famous communion seasons. In former years, the annual communion season of the Boston church has offered an occasion for the gathering of vast multitudes of Christian Scientists from all parts of the world. According to the following statement, which Mrs. Eddy has just given out to the press, these gatherings will be discontinued: —
“The house of The Mother Church seats only five thousand people, and its membership includes forty-eight thousand communicants, hence the following: —
“The branch churches continue their communion seasons, but there shall be no more communion season in The Mother Church that has blossomed into spiritual beauty, communion universal and divine. ‘For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.’ (1 Corinthians, 2 : 16.)”
[Mrs. Eddy has only abolished the disappointment of communicants who come long distances and then find no seats in The Mother Church. — Editor Sentinel.]
Mrs. Eddy's Reply
Judge Clifford P. Smith, LL.B., C.S.B.,
- First Reader, The Mother Church, Boston, Mass.
Beloved Christian Scientist: — Accept my thanks for your approval of abolishing the communion season of The Mother Church. I sought God's guidance in doing it, but the most important events are criticized.
The Mother Church communion season was literally a communion of branch church communicants which might in time lose its sacredness and merge into a meeting for greetings. My beloved brethren may some time learn this and rejoice with me, as they so often have done, over a step higher in their passage from sense to Soul.
Most truly yours,
| Box G, Brookline, Mass., | |
| June 24, 1908. |
The Christian Science Board of Directors
Beloved Students: — I thank you for your kind invitation to be present at the annual meeting of The Mother Church on June 7, 1909. I will attend the meeting, but not in propria persona. Watch and pray that God directs your meetings and your lives, and your Leader will then be sure that they are blessed in their results.
Lovingly yours,
| Brookline, Mass., | |
| June 5, 1909. |
Mrs. Eddy's Statements
To Whom It May Concern: — I have the pleasure to report to one and all of my beloved friends and followers that I exist in the flesh, and am seen daily by the members of my household and by those with whom I have appointments.
Above all this fustian of either denying or asserting the personality and presence of Mary Baker Eddy, stands the eternal fact of Christian Science and the honest history of its Discoverer and Founder. It is self-evident that the discoverer of an eternal truth cannot be a temporal fraud.
The Cause of Christian Science is prospering throughout the world and stands forever as an eternal and demonstrable Science, and I do not regard this attack upon me as a trial, for when these things cease to bless they will cease to occur.
“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. . . . What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?”
| Chestnut Hill, Mass., | |
| June 7, 1909. |
Mrs. Eddy also sent the following letter to the members of her church in Concord, N. H.: —
First Church of Christ, Scientist, Concord, N. H.
My Beloved Brethren: — Give yourselves no fear and spare not a moment's thought to lies afloat that I am sick, helpless, or an invalid. The public report that I am in either of the aforesaid conditions is utterly false.
With love, ever yours,
| Box G, Brookline, Mass., | |
| June 7, 1909. |