The February and March numbers of the Journal seem especially good. First came the message from "the mother." I say message, for I cannot separate the Communion Sermon from Questions Answered; and particularly the last paragraph of the latter. The word of love that has cheered so many hearts of those who, while speaking of our dear Leader as "the mother," may have still had a thought that she might not be quite as near one not her own student. Surely any such suggestion is put to flight on receiving the assurance we have in those tender words of encouragement. This we see in the thank-offerings we find in the March number. Can we know how many hungering heart-chords have vibrated to the touch of this loving hand, discoursing the harmony of universal love? hungering, not necessarily from any lack on the part of the one who has taught them, but for this very assurance of the mother's thought. Yet why do we seem to need the spoken word? Surely we knew this was true before. Had we not known it could we now be worthy?
Some years ago in a letter of encouragement to a small church-band of students' students, the mother addressed us, "My dear grandchildren." As from a child the thought of grandmother had been very dear to me. these three words, and the love accompanying them, took deep root in my consciousness. This seed has been constantly watered in faithful fulfilment of the charge referred to on page xi, preface of Science and Health, to "plant and water His vineyard." And so gently have descended the raindrops of patience, kindness, "justice, mercy, wisdom and goodness, and so on" (attributes of God) from the heaven of her realization, keeping moist the soil of desire for pure affection in "His vineyard," that we find the fruition to us in the "sympathies so deeply enlisted for the students of students." And right here, dear fellow students, is renewedly whispered to me the apostle Paul's words, —"Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith prove your own selves."
In our thanksgiving let us watch that no mists of human judgment gather from our thought about any who are the mother's students, darkening our perception, obscuring our view, blinding us to the eternal fact that we are indeed all of one household. We must have not only love for the mother —this love need not be urged upon us, we believe we have it— but love for her students, love "pure and undefiled," "laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies and envies and all evil speaking" (see 1 Peter 2: 1— 3). We cannot come nearer the mother thought by holding any prejudice towards her students.
