Dear Journal:—In connection with your editorial in November Journal regarding the false and unjust charges of mercenary motives attributed to our Leader, Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, I wish to tell how the fact that she was able to demonstrate houses and lands, was one of the strongest arguments that came to me of the Truth of her teachings. When these insinuations were made, the absolute statement of Jesus came to answer them, Luke 18: 29, 30: "And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God's sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting."
One of my greatest problems before coming to know of Christian Science was, Why do not the righteous receive the rewards promised all through the Bible? Those who appealed to me as living nearest the Christ life according to their highest human idea of Bible teaching, were the ones I found sick, or in trouble, physically, mentally, or financially.
Of course I was always told, "Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." If then through chastening and scourging he received them—being received, why should they not have the comfort and the promises? The answer was, But we must wait until we die to get our reward. Death was to be the liberator—the door through which we must pass to be happy and blessed; and yet among those who talked most of future rewards, I met no one, when put to the point, who did not prefer to suffer on as they were, rather than go on to what must have been to them an uncertainty, otherwise they would have rejoiced to die and be blest.
