At the Cleveland meeting, the note of the church organization was sounded, as a call for separation of the new thought from the old. It was the word for the hour; though it was but partially, and too sensually, expressed. The wise action in de-organizing both the College Association and the Boston Church, checked the tendency to materialization, and gave wiser direction to aspiration. As thus corrected, the movement towards unification (rather than organization) has been on ascending spiritual lines.
The Dispensary movement was inspired by the desire to lift Christian Science practice out of the rut of mere disease-healing for a livelihood,—as it is counted in mortal thought—into the preaching of the Gospel. The past year has witnessed a great advance, in this direction. Comparison of results and communion in Spirit at the coming meeting, will result in more perfect perception and higher manifestation in both these activities, which must be regarded as the leading ones—those that resume or epitomize all activities—in the unfolding of Science.
The sense of the Cleveland meeting was unmistakably in favor of restricting—virtually forbidding—students of one Normal teacher from studying with another. The tendency in practice, since the meeting, has been as unmistakably towards removal of restrictions; towards adoption of changes in the relation of teacher and student that necessarily follow. The subject of teachers' associations, and the relations of all those affected by them have been earnestly canvassed in private, during the last months.
