Two remarkable things signalized the advent of the year 1895. One was the dedication of the Mother Church edifice in Boston. The other was the substituting of a new Pastor for that Church. And now the order has become general, so that henceforth we are to have in all our churches or societies, the Bible, with its illuminated Key, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, for our preacher and pastor. Many Scientists supposed that it would be made universal at once, or at the time it was appointed for the Mother Church. They regretted that such was not the case. But there must be method or order in all true Science growth.
All may not perceive why, yet there is a peculiar fitness in beginning at our Jerusalem; then extending or reaching out to the branches of the universal church.
I believe it to be true that all genuine Scientists expected that some time said text-books would be appointed the universal pastor and preacher. Doubtless we did not all look for it to come as soon as it did. It might not be correct to say that at first all Scientists desired it for their pastor. Doubtless many did. But we must make allowance for the inertia of the material senses. It is expecting too much to ask that mortal mind, drilled for ages under the dominion of the five personal senses, and which has heard or thought it heard, so many entrancing chords in the mammon-worship of the centuries, should at a single bound, be willing to relinquish, without a murmur of dissent, its long established order of service, and adopt one that is so radically at variance with all that is familiar to personal sense. It denotes the prodigious growth that Science has made, and the powerful hold it has on men, that such an order could be adopted with so little chemicalization—with so few notes of discord. Really it is one of the marvels of the age. It shows that we stand near the threshold of the latter day glory.
