For over four years I have owed a very large debt of gratitude to Christian Science, and aside from having spoken several times at testimonial meetings, I have made no public acknowledgment of my indebtedness. Ruskin says that "every duty omitted obscures some truth we should know." Therefore, by this neglect of duty, I may be shutting out from my own consciousness a portion of the blessed light of Truth, and this, no one can afford to do.
Before making an investigation of Christian Science I never found any philosophy or religion that satisfied me, either intellectually or practically. The great beauty, to me, of Christian Science is its simplicity and its momentary utility. That passage in the Bible which declares that "the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God," is very comforting to me, and I rejoice in anticipation of the time when "the wisdom of this world [error]" shall be put down; when "the weapons of our warfare" shall have been victorious over human intellectuality, and "every high thing that exalteth itself." Scepticism and infidelity are always intellectual, and are the penalties which mortal man pays for claiming a mind separate and apart from the one infinite Intelligence. "For there is no power but of God:" neither is there any strength, beauty, grace, or ability that is not God-bestowed; but oh, how often mortal man forgets this fact and gives all the credit to his petty little false self for any great achievement which may be accomplished through his instrumentality. The most colossal intellect, it seems to me, is grossly prostituted if not used in the humble service of man, and to the glory of God.
Philip Gilbert Hamerton, in his "Intellectual Life." maintains that a man's aim in life is sufficiently high if he simply aims to be a cultivated man, but Herbert Spencer, I think, says, in substance, in his "Data of Ethics," that the only legitimate end of education is defeated if it is not put to an altruistic use. Also, that the supreme end of education should be to enable a man to live a better and more useful life. Christian Science is eminently altruistic, and it has been proved to be an education in itself —an education fitting one for the highest and best service, since it teaches, not "the wisdom of this world," but the simple Truth of God.
