The National Christian Scientist Association has brought us together to minister and to be ministered unto, to mutually aid one another in finding ways and means for helping the whole human family, to quicken and extend the interest already felt in a higher mode of medicine, to watch with eager joy the individual growth of Christian Scientists, and the progress of our common cause in Chicago, — this miracle of the Occident. We come to strengthen and perpetuate our organizations and institutions, and to find strength in union, — strength to build up, through God's right hand, that pure and undefiled religion whose Science demonstrates God and the perfectibility of man. This "consummation devoutly to be wished" must begin with individual growth. The lives of all reformers must attest the authenticity of their mission, and call the world to acknowledge its divine Principle. Truly is it written:
Thou must be true thyself, if thou the Truth wouldst teach;
Thy heart must overflow, if thou another's heart wouldst reach.
Science is absolute and final. It is revolutionary in its very nature, for it upsets all that is not upright. It annuls false evidence, and saith to the five material senses, "Having eyes ye see not, and ears ye hear not; neither can you understand." To weave one thread of Science through the looms of time is an omen of miracles. The risk is stupendous. It cost Galileo what? This awful price, the temporary loss of his self-respect. His fear overcame his loyalty; the courage of his convictions fell before it. Fear is the weapon in the hands of tyrants.
