SOMETIMES we hear people say, "You Christian Scientists are bigoted and narrow. From the way you quote Mrs. Eddy one would think her the repository of all wisdom; that she has the gift of prophecy, and understands all mysteries." And, again we hear them say, "The author of Science and Health arrogates to herself unwarranted authority; her rulings are arbitrary and despotic." But those who are best acquainted with Mrs. Eddy's teachings know that there is not the slightest suggestion in any sentence of hers from which such an inference could be legitimately drawn. Everyone who speaks a truth, speaks with authority. Truth, and truth alone, has authority to speak. There is no mystery in truth. Mrs. Eddy has not written simply for to-day, nor for a limited number of readers, but for every age and for all humanity. She is teaching a Principle, founding a philosophy, based upon a new interpretation of the one pure Cause and its effects. She has shown the utter fallacy of prevalent theories about God, and about man and his spiritual origin and relation to Deity. She has searched the Scriptures with the lighted candle of Science, and with that divine understanding which enables her to spiritually grasp the Christ-thought, the Christ-power, and bring to human comprehension that which had, theretofore been wrapped in deep and difficult mystery. She has pierced that dark shadow, the home of the mysterious and unknown God, in which all seeds of ignorance germinate, and taught us its unreality. She has shown us that in its place shines the Reality of the light of Love — the ineffable brightness of a Divinity who is no dread mystery whom we are to approach shrinkingly and with awe, but who is Love itself, and in whose infinite perfection we may intelligently and unstintedly participate. There is no mystery, no veil, no concealment; but only the marvellous wonder which fills the finite mind as it contemplates the measurelessness, the absolute infinity and sufficiency,of God's goodness and love.
The way of salvation, as interpreted by Mrs. Eddy, is so far above and beyond the popular ethical and religious thought of the day; her teaching is so profound in its explanations of the Science of Being. of the nature of the Christ, and the light which it sheds upon heaven and humanity, that it startles a sleeping world and even seems a blasphemy to professing Christians. That it should not, at first glance, be understood by those who examine it only from the standpoint of material sense is not to be wondered at. Not all are ready yet to bear witness of the true light. We have so long looked upon the inverted and distorted pictures of mortal mind, so long followed a shimmering marsh-light which, scarcely sufficient to make visible the vaguest outlines, has disclosed only apparent ugliness and dark deformity, that our eyes are blinded by the "light of the knowledge of the glory of God" which bursts upon us in Divine Science, chases away the ghost-haunted shadows of material sense, and reveals Him whom the world "ignorantly worships."
Those of us who have demonstrated the pure truths of Christian Science, and have also looked upon the sad wreakage of so many who were borne upon the flood of spurious teaching, know too well the necessity of strict obedience to the Mother's admonitions. Her text-book, ''Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," should be the daily companion of every one engaged in the investigation of Truth. And one sees in studying the new book, "Miscellaneous Writings," as never before, the breadth and depth of character, the far-reaching sagacity, the prolific intellectuality, the inexhaustible sweetness and spirituality, forming the soil in which Science and Health took its roots. To fully comprehend the grandeur and magnitude of that work, to judge it fairly, we must be to some extent in sympathy with the author. To fully appreciate her labors, we must know and appreciate her temperament and character. The new book furnishes this perfect mirror of the multiform phases of her innermost self. Her thoughts smile upon us from every page, though oftentimes through tears. Yet even these bring out and make more vivid the varied beauteous tints, as light is reflected and refracted from drops of rain.
