The need felt by students of their Teacher's counsel,— especially by those at a distance, working assiduously for our common cause,—and their constant petitions for the same, should be met in the most effectual way.
To be responsible for supplying this want, and poise the wavering balance on the right side, is impracticable, without a full knowledge of the environments. The educational system of Christian Science lacks the aid and protection of State laws. The Science is hampered by immature demonstrations, by the infancy of its discovery, by incorrect teaching, and especially by some unprincipled claimants, whose mad ambition drives them to appropriate my ideas and discovery, without credit, appreciation, or a single original conception, while they quote from other authors every random thought in line with mine.
This dishonesty—yea, fraud—is conspicuous in the verbose lectures of Mrs. Emma Hopkins. She adopts my ethics, or talks them freely, while departing from them. Her injustice to her Teacher and benefactor, to one who tenderly rescued her from unnamable conditions, and then, to spare vanity a blow, receipted in full the bill for her tuition, without ever receiving a cent,—this ingratitude is startling to those who know it all.
My noble students, who are loyal to their Teacher, loyal to Christ and human obligations, will not be disheartened in the midst of this seething sea of sin. They build for time and eternity. The others stumble over misdeeds, and their own unsubstantiality, without the groundwork of right. They will melt into darkness, like camera shadows thrown upon the mists of time.
Unity is the essential nature of Christian Science. Its Principle is One, and the demonstration of that One demands oneness of thought and action.
Many students enter the Normal Class of my college whom I have not fitted for it by the Primary Course. They are taught their first lessons by my students, and their aptness to assimilate pure and abstract Science is somewhat untested.
"As the twig is bent, the tree's inclined." As the mind is directed, it acts for a season. Some students leave my instructions before they are quite free from the bias of first impressions, whether those be correct or incorrect. Such students are more or less subject to the future mental influence of their former teacher. Their knowledge of Mind-healing may be right theoretically; but the moral and spiritual status of thought must be right also. The tone of the teacher's mind must be pure, grand, true, to aid the mental development of the student; for the tint of the instructor's mind is transmitted. A single mistake in metaphysics, or in ethics, is more fatal than a mistake in physics.
If a teacher, unwittingly or intentionally, offers his own thought, and gives me as authority for it; if he diverges from Science, and knows it not; or, knowing it, makes the venture from vanity, in order to be thought original, or wiser than somebody else,—this divergence widens. He grows dark, and can not regain, at will, an upright understanding. This error in the teacher also predisposes his students to make mistakes and lose their way. Diverse opinions in Science are stultifying. All must have one opinion and the same rule; and all who follow the rule have but one opinion of it.
Whosoever understands a single rule in Science, and demonstrates its Principle according to rule, is master of the situation. Nobody can gainsay this. The egotistical theorist or shallow moralist may presume to make innovations upon simple proof; but his mistake is visited upon himself and his students, whose minds are, must be, disturbed by this discord, which extends along the whole line of reciprocal thought. An error in premise can never bring forth the real fruits of Truth. After thoroughly explaining spiritual Truth and its ethics to a student, I am not morally responsible for the misstatements or misconduct of this student. My teachings are uniform. Those who abide by them do well. If others, who receive the same instruction, do ill, the fault is not in the culture, but the soil.
I am constantly called to settle questions and disaffections toward Christian Science, growing out of the departures from Science of self-satisfied students. If impatient of the Discoverer's loving rebuke, the student must stop at the foot of the grand ascent, and there remain until suffering compels the downfall of his self-conceit. Then that student may struggle up, with bleeding footprints, to the God-crowned summit of unselfish and pure aims and affections.
To be two-sided, when these sides are moral opposites, is neither politic nor Scientific; and to abridge a single human right or privilege is an error. Whoever does this may represent me as doing it; but he mistakes the subjective state of his own mind for mine.
The true leader of a true cause is the unacknowledged servant of mankind. Stationary in the background, this individual is doing the work nobody else can or will do. An erratic career is like the comet's course, dashing through space, headlong and alone. A clear-headed and honest Christian Scientist will demonstrate the Principle of Christian Science, and hold organization as inseparable from the unity of Good.
Duplicity is naturally prone to break the Hebrew Decalogue. It "steals the livery of Heaven to serve" sin in, and tickles vanity with the straw of conceit. It never counsels with experience, but rushes blindly on and is punished.
The following is my earnest advice to all whom it may concern. Let loyal Normal Class graduates from the Massachusetts Metaphysical College organize a body to be called the Christian Science Union, and hold regular meetings at intervals of not over two weeks. The object of this Union should be mutual aid and improvement. This organization may elect the usual officers; but it should be understood that no member is the leader of this body, though every member should strive to be the servant of God, and led by His Spirit. The history of a seed is its harvest. Fruitage shows the character of seed and soil. The only proof that we are right is the good we do. False claim to true Principle neither honors the Principle nor benefits mankind.
The advertised chartered colleges, institutions which have no State grants, are a disgrace to humanity, and bring reproach upon the title assumed for them. The Massachusetts Metaphysical College, whose charter was obtained January 31, 1881, is the only chartered college of Metaphysics, or Christian Science Mind-healing, known. The bill granting this charter, with the rights and privileges pertaining thereunto, was repealed in Massachusetts about the year 1882; and I know of no other State in the Union whose legislature has enacted a similar law to the one made, and afterward unmade, in Massachusetts.
Because of the growing need of thoroughly qualified teachers, I am compelled to say that hereafter I shall receive only those students into the Normal Class whom I have prepared by a Primary Course.
The object of my college is to benefit the race hygienically, ethically, spiritually. My aim is to qualify students to heal the sick and uplift the standard of humanity,—to honor themselves, their Leader, the State which conferred this right, the Cause they espouse, the God they worship.
