Christian Scientists, you have planted your standard on the Rock of Christ, the true, the spiritual idea,—the chief corner-stone in the house of our God. And our Master said: "The stone which the builders rejected the same is become the head of the corner." If you are less appreciated to-day than your forefathers, wait—for if you are as devout as they and more scientific, as progress certainly demands, your plant is immortal. Let us rejoice that chill vicissitudes have not withheld the timely shelter of this house, which descended like day spring from on high.
Divine Presence, breathe Thou thy blessing on every heart in this house. Speak out, oh, soul! This is the new-born of Spirit, this is His redeemed, this, His beloved. May the Kingdom of God within you—with you alway—re-ascending, bear you outward, upward, Heavenward. May the sweet song of silver-throated singers, making melody more real, and the organ's voice as the sound of many waters, and the Word spoken in this sacred Temple dedicated to the ever-present God—mingle with the joy of angels and rehearse your heart's holy intents. May all whose means, energies, and prayers helped erect the Mother Church, find within it home, and Heaven.
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE TEXT-BOOK.
The following selections from SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES, pages 560-563, were read from the platform. The impressive stillness of the audience indicated close attention.
Revelation xii, 10-12. And I heard a loud voice saying in Heaven: Now is come salvation, and strength, and the Kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ; for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the Devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.
For victory over a single sin we give thanks, and magnify the Lord of Hosts. Then what shall we say of the mighty conquest over all sin? A louder song, sweeter than has ever before reached high Heaven, now rises clearer and nearer to the great heart of Christ; for the accuser is not there, and Love sends forth her primal and everlasting strain. Self-abnegation—by which we lay down all for Christ, Truth, in our warfare against error—is a rule in Christian Science. This rule clearly interprets God as divine Principle,—as Life, represented by the Father; as Truth, represented by the Son; as Love, represented by the mother. Every mortal, at some period, here or hereafter, must grapple with and overcome the mortal belief in a power opposed to God.
The Scripture, "Thou hast been faithful over a few things; I will make thee ruler over many," is literally fulfilled, when we are conscious of the supremacy of Truth, whereby the nothingness of error is seen, and we know that its nothingness is in proportion to its wickedness. He that touches the hem of Christ's robe, and masters his mortal belief, animality and hate, rejoices in the proof of healing,—in a sweet and certain sense that God is Love. Alas for those who break faith with Divine Science, and fail to strangle the serpent of sin, as well as of sickness! They are dwellers still in the deep darkness of belief. They are in the surging sea of error, not struggling to lift their heads above the drowning wave.
What must the end be? They must eventually expiate their sin through suffering. The sin which one has made his bosom companion, comes back to him at last with accelerated force; for the evil knoweth its time is short. Here the Scriptures declare that evil is temporal, not eternal. The dragon is at last stung to death by his own malice; but how many periods of self-torture it may take to remove all sin and its effects, must depend upon its obduracy.
Revelation xii, 13. And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child.
The march of mind and honest investigation will bring the hour when the people will chain, with fetters of some sort, the growing occultism of this period. The present apathy as to the tendency of certain active yet unseen mental agencies will finally be shocked into another extreme mortal mood,—into human indignation; for one extreme follows another.