Class, Pulpit, Students' Students
When will you take a class in Christian Science or [6]
speak to your church in Boston? is often asked.
I shall speak to my dear church at Boston very seldom.
The Mother Church must be self-sustained by God.
The date of a class in Christian Science should depend [10]
on the fitness of things, the tide which flows heavenward,
the hour best for the student. Until minds become less
worldly-minded, and depart farther from the primitives
of the race, and have profited up to their present capac-
ity from the written word, they are not ready for the [15]
word spoken at this date.
My juniors can tell others what they know, and turn
them slowly toward the haven. Imperative, accumula-
tive, sweet demands rest on my retirement from life's
bustle. What, then, of continual recapitulation of tired [20]
aphorisms and disappointed ethics; of patching breaches
widened the next hour; of pounding wisdom and love
into sounding brass; of warming marble and quench-
ing volcanoes! Before entering the Massachusetts Meta-
physical College, had my students achieved the point [25]
whence they could have derived most benefit from their
pupilage, to-day there would be on earth paragons of
Christianity, patterns of humility, wisdom, and might
for the world.
To the students whom I have not seen that ask, “May [1]
I call you mother?” my heart replies, Yes, if you are
doing God's work. When born of Truth and Love, we
are all of one kindred.
The hour has struck for Christian Scientists to do their [5]
own work; to appreciate the signs of the times; to dem-
onstrate self-knowledge and self-government; and to
demonstrate, as this period demands, over all sin, disease,
and death. The dear ones whom I would have great
pleasure in instructing, know that the door to my teaching [10]
was shut when my College closed.
Again, it is not absolutely requisite for some people
to be taught in a class, for they can learn by spiritual
growth and by the study of what is written. Scarcely a
moiety, compared with the whole of the Scriptures and [15]
the Christian Science textbook, is yet assimilated spirit-
ually by the most faithful seekers; yet this assimilation is
indispensable to the progress of every Christian Scientist.
These considerations prompt my answers to the above
questions. Human desire is inadequate to adjust the [20]
balance on subjects of such earnest import. These
words of our Master explain this hour: “What I do
thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.”
My sympathies are deeply enlisted for the students
of students; having already seen in many instances their [25]
talents, culture, and singleness of purpose to uplift the
race. Such students should not pay the penalty for
other people's faults; and divine Love will open the
way for them. My soul abhors injustice, and loves
mercy. St. John writes: “Whom God hath sent speaketh [30]
the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by meas-
ure unto him.”