An Address delivered before the Christian Scientist Association of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, by Edward N. Harris C. S. D.
Mrs. President, and Members of the Association:
I gratefully appreciate the honor conferred upon me in being invited to address you on this occasion.
You will at once see that the subject I have chosen for our little talk this afternoon admits of a very wide range; for the Beauties and Benefits of Christian Science are without number, and in the brief period of time allotted me to speak, it will be possible for me to mention only a few of them; but you all know what they are, through the instructions you have received from Science and Health, and through your own experiences and demonstrations since you became Christian Scientists. To the immortal author of that original and wonderful book, as has been most truly said, the world owes a debt of gratitude.
As we enter upon the twelfth year in the history and progress of this Association, let us thank God and take courage; let us bow in humble gratitude and thanksgiving to the ever-adorable Being; let us raise nigh our thoughts in glorious recognition of our Saviour and Redeemer, Christ Jesus the Truth; let us salute with love and sweet affection our beloved Teacher and President, the Founder of this Association, who discovered and brought out to the world, in this nineteenth century, the great and sublime Principle of Christian healing, and has re-established on earth, through her teachings and demonstrations, the all-powerful Truth of Christian Science, "the faith once delivered to the saints."
We will never forget the long years of toil and persecution which she endured, that you and I, and the generations yet to come, might enjoy the eternal beauties and benefits of this great Science of Metaphysical Healing. Today let us pledge our loyalty anew to the Truth she has taught us, and to our blessed Master whose ambassador she is.
Let us who have been brought from darkness into light, and who have entered more into the understanding of God,—the omniscient, the omnipresent, the infinite Mind,—move forward with more earnest love and zeal, with more consecrated effort, in the great work before us, that through our prayers and labors, hundreds and thousands, over whom the shadows of belief in sin, sickness, and death have long held sway, may be brought into holiness, health, and harmony, and join with us in singing the new (old) song of Life, Truth, and Love; for unto them who know this Truth Christ is indeed born, and to them are revealed the hidden glories which he came to teach and to exemplify. They will ever cherish and practise the divinely inspired spirit of charity which he impressed upon his disciples, " Peace on earth, good-will toward men; " for if we are truly in Science, all ill-will and uncharitableness towards others has departed from our hearts, and from our thoughts and words, and we shall return good for evil. "Love worketh no ill to our neighbor."
Christian Science is built on a sure foundation; "for other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Christ Jesus." Some are trying to build on a material basis, some on philosophy, others on the ecclesiastical or priestly ideals of solitude and renunciation, on ritualistic ceremonies and long creeds; but Christ Jesus is the only name under Heaven or among men whereby we can be saved. The true Christian Scientist heals in the name of Christ; not in the name of Mesmer, Plato, or any philosopher; not with the power of one mortal mind over another, but through a Christian life, and a higher understanding of God, divine Mind. The only true basis of metaphysical healing is Christianity.
Forms and ceremonies, ritualism and dogmatic theology, are giving place to spiritual Truth. The Christian churches have done, and are still doing, a great work, but their ministers have not given us the whole Truth which our Master taught. They have given us Christianity so far as they understood it; but Christian Science has revealed to us much more. Many of you have withdrawn from the old churches in which you were brought up, and have taken membership in the Christian Science Church; and more will soon follow your example. You will always feel thankful for the many benefits you received during your connection with those churches, and the many pleasant associations and attachments you there formed will at times come up in your memories, like sweet reminiscences of the past; but you have found something better, and you only left the old because you had risen to a higher understanding of God, and entered upon a higher plane of health, happiness, and Christianity.
Instead of talking and thinking so much about sickness, death, and the tomb, as formerly, you now take the opposite thought in Science, and talk and think of Health, Life, and Immortality. You have come to a fuller knowledge of the Truth as it is in Jesus, and you know that God is Life, and that His children are made in His own image and likeness, and are not mortal sinners, or poor miserable worms of the dust, but "heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ," and that every good thought, every good word, helps to beautify the spirit, and mould and strengthen the body; and that we need not go through this world with sad faces, and with heads bowed down in sackcloth and ashes, but should "look up, for behold our redemption draweth nigh." "Lift up your heads, oh ye gates, be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in. Who is this King of Glory? The Lord strong and mighty." "He that believeth in me shall never die."
Longfellow was right in saying:
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Man is immortal; and we need not sing that old hymn any more, which I used to often hear when I was a boy,
Poor timorous mortals start and shrink;
but in its stead we will sing,
Why should the children of a King
Go mourning all their days?
We know, in Christian Science, that sorrow is not the master of joy, for joy is the real and eternal. This nineteenth century, more than any other, is one of change, constant and persistent change. Everything in science, religion, and art is being tested. Let us hope that the next century will dawn upon a race living in the unity and harmony of Christian Science. As Scientists we take Christ Jesus at his word, and have an unfaltering faith and trust in his promises, "Lo I am with you always, even unto the end.... If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." From the Old to the New Testament, these are our waymarks; "When I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light unto me;" "And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness, and all manner of diseases." Jesus commanded his disciples: " Go into all the world, preach the gospel and heal the sick. . . . He that believeth in me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto my Father. . . . After these things the Lord appointed other seventy also, and sent them two and two; and he said unto them, Into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you, heal the sick that are therein, and say unto them, The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you. . . . And these signs shall follow them that believe, in my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."
You are familiar with these passages, and these promises of our Master. I have read them many a time in my youth, but they never had half so significant, half so sweet and powerful a meaning to me, as they have since I came into Christian Science. Our views of life are very different from what they were in former years. We now hold a higher and better idea of existence; and when trials and temptations and disappointments come o'er our pathway, we are enabled to endure, and to rise above them, and persevere in the heavenly road, keeping our faces set towards God, and our thoughts in harmony and love.
Among the beautiful chapters in Science and Health there are many passages that somehow seemed peculiarly appropriate to my situation in life, and I have no doubt they have made a similar impression upon many of you. Let me quote a few of them. Although familiar to us all, they grow sweeter and sweeter every time we read them:
When the sharp experiences of this supposed life in matter, its disappointments and ceaseless woes, turn us as a tired child to the bosom of Love, then are we fit to begin Life in Divine Science; but without this weaning process, who, by searching can find out God?
When a personal and material sense of beauty fades, the radiance of Spirit dawns upon the enraptured sense with brighter glories. Love never loses sight of the halo of beauty that rests upon its object, and marvels that our friend can seem to others aught but beautiful.
Human affection is not poured forth vainly, even though it meet no return. Love enriches the being, enlarging, purifying, and elevating it. The wintry blasts of earth may uproot the flowers of affection, and scatter them to the winds; but this severance of fleshly ties serves to unite mortals more closely to God, for Love supports the struggling heart until it ceases to sigh over the world, and begins to unfold its wings for Heaven.
When speaking of age, or growing old, the author says:
The man and woman of riper years and larger lessons are growing into beauty and immortality, instead of age and ugliness. Mind is feeding their bodies with supernal freshness and fairness, supplying them with beautiful images of thought, and destroying the errors of sense that say, "Each day brings to a nearer tomb."
Truth marks the morning of Being. Its manhood is the eternal noon, undimmed by a declining sun. The days of our earthly pilgrimage should multiply instead of diminish. This travelling should be towards Life instead of death; and as we journey, we should develop more and more the infinite capacities of humanity, which endow it with the supreme control of earth.
I have sometimes wondered if the disciples of our Master, the primitive healers, had such ripe experiences with the machinations of sin as are open at this period, if the hidden arrows of the wicked were aimed at them as at Christian healers now; and yet one of them was able to say, "None of these things move me."
My brethren and sisters, you and I have been targets for those secret and malicious arrows through months and years past, since we espoused the cause of Christian Science, and their subtle and adverse influence has at times swayed some of us a little; but by adhering faithfully to the instructions of our Teacher, and abiding in Truth and Love, we have been enabled to withstand the wiles and assaults of the enemy, and have overcome the despoilers. All fear has vanished, and today we are able to say, with our Leader, " None of these things move me." We have grown so strong in Truth that now it has become to us an impregnable coat of mail, through which the arrows of the enemy can not penetrate; and they glance harmlessly off", to recoil upon the adversaries to their own confusion and destruction. Our cause is the cause of Truth, and it is invincible.
I must not permit this occasion to pass without speaking a word of kind remembrance for the absent members of this Association, who, on account of distance, seldom have the privilege of meeting with us in person, but who are working faithfully in their different fields of labor, in near and distant States. Although absent in body, yet they are present with us in thought at this very hour, and our hearts will today go out to them and their students in love and fraternal greeting, with our prayers that they may all continue true and steadfast in their labors for Christ. Recall the hymn:
Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love.
Let us all move forward in harmony, remembering that the world is looking on, and that God sees us as we are and as we live, and not as we talk. Occasionally some differences of opinion may arise upon some minor points or measures, among the members of this Association, as is the case in all other societies; but let us have kindness and consideration for those who may differ, and not make harsh or personal criticisms, which engender discord and hinder our progress in Truth. The more I progress in the understanding of Christian Science, the more I can see how much the world is in need of it, and how much the dissemination and adoption of this Truth among the people would improve their condition and happify their existence, removing from suffering humanity the causes of all their woes.
A recent writer, who has given considerable attention to the physical condition of the people in the United States, and to the statistics in reference to the same, speaking from the standpoint of mortal mind, says:
It has been estimated that there is only one really healthy person in every four thousand; that there are today over four millions, men, women, and children, in this country sick with what are turned incurable diseases, over one million who are helplessly sick,—eaten up with cancer and consumption, in danger of death hourly from heart-disease, ruined with dyspepsia, with nerves shattered, aching and diseased kidneys. They are oppressed with tumors, deformed by rheumatism, every drop of blood teeming with scrofulous poisons. They have morbid circulation, aching and decaying teeth, paralysis. They are depressed in spirits, deaf, blind, and dying. The number of healthy men and women is growing less every year, and the sick more numerous. In face of these facts, it might be noted that this country is full of doctors and full of drugstores; that these doctors and drugstores increase rapidly every year; that in heavy ratio sickness increases also; and the number of new graduates annually from the medical colleges is startling.
Under these circumstances even Truth arrests error and abates the list of mortality, and statistics give the aggregate of longevity as on the increase. It is well known that all physicians, of all the medical schools combined, are powerless to cure more than a moderate percentage of acute diseases, and a still smaller percentage of chronic diseases. This lamentable state of affairs only proves that there must be something wrong in medical science, and that something must be done to relieve suffering humanity and restore health in our land.
The great mistake of the medical practitioner is in starting on the basis of matter, instead of Mind, or Spirit. As Mrs. Eddy says, in Science and Health: "Materia Medica substitutes drugs for the power of God,—even the might of Mind,—to heal the body." They assume that man is matter, and therefore matter must heal him; that man, "made in the image and likeness of God," can be goverened by a drug or a plaster. So they have from time to time discovered and multiplied drugs and remedies, until a full list of them, closely printed, completely fills a book called the United States Dispensatory, which is nearly the size of Webster's Unabridged Dictionary; and the list is daily increasing. The numberless patent medicines and nostrums would, if catalogued, fill another volume as large as the United States Dispensatory. What will be the fate of the human race, if this miserable condition of affairs is permitted to continue, and they keep on drugging and physicking the people at this rate? Surely there could be but a shadow of them left after two or three more generations, were it not that Christian Science has come to the rescue.
We can thus form some idea of the stupendous work before us, to rid humanity of such a huge amount of sin and sickness; but be not dismayed, for Truth is mighty, and will eventually prevail. We can aid very much in the advancement and progress of our cause by associated, as well as by individual effort. Associations like this can accomplish a mighty work for Christian Science. Through our National and State associations we must push the work into every State and Territory in America, and into foreign countries. I can foresee, in the near future, the glorious march of the Science. It has already taken a great start, and it will continue to spread far and wide, in a way similar to that in which other reforms, professions, and churches have spread, from east to west, from north to south.
I can well remember when Homœopathy first started in our country. It met with nearly the same amount of opposition, ridicule, and jeers as Christian Science; but see what progress it has made during thirty-five years. It has been said of the infinitessimal doses, that "the attenuation of medicine has worked so well, it may end in its annihilation." So may it be!
Let us take fresh courage; for God and Truth are on our side, and the signs of the times are conspicuous and promising. Let us work on with the patience and perseverance of our Leader, and in due time "we shall reap, if we faint not."
