"BEHOLD, I bring you glad tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people," —words of hope, health, and Life, to those in greatest need, to the sick or injured one, vainly opposing the verdict of death as the only remedy for suffering, to the helpless victim of evil habit, to the sin-sick outcast, to the disheartened and sorrowing one who "has nothing left to live for," to him, who, having no sure foundation of Truth to stand on, sees with dismay the ravages of contagion, crime, and disaster, sees the growing contempt for law, chastity and human rights, sees the failure of man's inventions, material, legislative and doctrinal, to make men truly healthy, honest, good and pure
No thinker can fail to see that these discordant conditions but emphasize the demand for a higher and better understanding of Good; a foundation Principle, absolute, universal, unchangeable, establishing in the heart the law of Love, that of itself destroys all evil. Impossible! Yes, manifestly so,— of mortals; but the eternal fact of God, who is Life, Truth and Love,— this is the glad message that Christian Science brings, revealing the "perfect God and His perfect creation," and enabling its followers to practically teach and demonstrate in this age, "man's dominion over all the earth," materiality, sin, sickness, and ultimately, death; and this shall be done through fulfilling the two great commandments, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," and "Love thy neighbor as thyself."
But this is nothing new! Yes, and no. It always was, and always will be the divine Way of Life, but men have only believed in God as Almighty; instead of understanding Him to be so. They believe more in a power of evil, able to destroy what God has made, than in God as the only power. Nor have they bettered things by trying to serve two masters, Spirit, and matter, as results show. Believing that microbes and contagion are more potent and present than Good or God, will one do other than try to "save his own life," by refusing to visit his consumptive neighbor, and demanding individual communion cups? Judged by these works, what better off are they in believing, but not understanding, that God is omnipotent and omnipresent, than were the false prophets, whose false sense of God Elijah rebuked, in 1 Kings 18.: 27?
