Like all great truths in unfamiliar garb, Christian Science, too, must pass through the trying ordeal of being forced to run the criticizing gauntlet of the worldly-wise and skeptical.
Though the struggle thus far has been one freighted with difficulties from within, as well as from without—for man is brought to accept plain truth and spiritual sight with great reluctance—we have much to encourage us, and be thankful for, in the knowledge that, through the sincerity and earnestness of many of its loving disciples, it has reached that point in the thoughts of the intelligent world,—from having made its influence felt,—where a discussion of its claims by unbelievers is no longer accompanied with scoff and ridicule. The desire for further light and information has taken firm hold, and the numbers of its investigators are largely and rapidly increasing.
While I do not believe that the advance of this great Metaphysical Truth can be seriously impeded by any barrier erected by mortal man against it, I can see that in this age of material beliefs and material worship, the rapidity of its wide' spread growth will depend much upon the firmness, sincerity, love, and earnestness of its believers ; every act of whose lives as affecting one another, and mankind at large, will be noted, and a record made thereof upon the tablets of the human memory ; there to remain as witnesses—for or against—to be called upon at will by the minds of an ever-doubting world.
