Articles

Were a woman to visit a foreign country, whose people not only spoke a language, but had habits of thought and ways of living dissimilar in every respect to her own, and she had in her possession, and desired to bring to the consideration of that nation, a great gift, of whose value, and their own need of it, they were entirely unconscious, how, indeed, could she explain it to them, or bestow it upon them, if, while she spoke, they understood no word of her language, and failed to comprehend her expressions? She must perforce employ an interpreter, and there must be a translation from one language into another. In this position, of a voyager into a far country, was the discoverer of Christian Science in the nineteenth century—possessing a rare and most precious gift, longing to confer it upon the weary inhabitants of that dreamland whose language and beliefs are material, while her country and ideas are spiritual,—and forced to wait until the interpretation was accomplished, while she herself became the interpreter, as well as discoverer and donor.

It often requires time to overcome a patient's faith in drastics and plasters; but once convinced of their uselessness, the conviction is for all time. It is a noticeable fact that in families where laws of health are strictly enforced, and great caution is observed in regard to the diet, and the conversation largely devoted to bodily ailments, there is the most sickness.

It is related of Justin Martyr that, hearing of a Pythagorean Professor of Ethics, he expressed the wish to become one of his disciples. "Very well," the Teacher replied; "but have you studied music, astronomy, and geometry, and do you think it possible for you to understand aught of that which leads to bliss, without having mastered the sciences that disengage the Soul from objects of sense, so rendering it a fit habitation for the intelligences?" On Justin's confessing that he had not studied those branches, he was dismissed by the Professor.

The advocates of novel opinions will always be met with more or less slander, but that is of little moment. What is gained by losing self-respect? What is lost by losing the homage of fools, or the praise of hypocrites, false to themselves as to others? Shakespeare is right:— This above all, to thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Ye bind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. Matthew xxiii.

The same difficulties arise in regard to the origin of Life, as in regard to the origin of Intelligence and of conscious existence; and the question naturally arises. How did Life first happen to exist? Can it be that Life, by its very nature, was self-existent; or was there an original self-existent Being, who, from His very nature, is the Father of all succeeding Life, or— figuratively speaking—the fountain, from which all succeeding streams of Life have flowed? Life.

Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well. John iv.

Christian Scientist Association. The regular monthly meeting of this Association was held on the afternoon of May 5, in the parlors of the Mass.

Thou art my hiding-place; Thou shalt preserve me from trouble. Psalm xxxii.

The crowning glory is Love. The supreme Being is Life, Truth, Love, Purity, Beauty, Harmony, Perfection, typified by the seven colors in the rainbow.