In thinking over certain themes, it has occurred to me, how infant-like has been the birth of liberty in our country, how far yet it is from the growth it is destined to attain.
Our nation has led all others in enacting statutory laws to insure and enforce liberty, but have we learned the glorious spiritual laws, knowing and living which can alone make men free? No nation has so exalted the name of liberty, or made more sacrifices for its attainment, and yet have we not been attempting to reach it thus far under the laws and practices of "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth"? And is not God's liberty-insuring law of universal Love, generally perverted to-day into a self-love, which only enslaves? And when we consider how many among us are engaged in this mortal strife of selfishness, daily striving in the name of "liberty" and "competition" to take from the liberties and substance of others, in the blind belief that we are thus adding to our own, is it surprising that our first liberty bell has cracked under the strain?
Our nation as a whole has not yet learned that there is an immutable spiritual law, above human beliefs and codes, which says, "With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." What we take from another, we deprive ourselves of, and it is really only what is given to him, that can come to ourselves. The Science of Christianity makes this clear, and its practice demonstrates it, as it does also that sincere love for God and our fellowman is the only fulfilling of the law which perfectly liberates, and brings peace, rest, and heaven on earth to-day. In this light it is seen that something more than human, liberty-giving law and government is required to reach the highest liberty. The hearts of men must be turned from the enslaving strife of selfishness and evil, to the life and liberty-giving works of unity and love, supported by the heaven-born, honest desire to build each other up in character, health, and prosperity in all ways. The one is a "Union" in name only—an attempted one of selfishness—a house divided against itself; while the other is a union in Spirit and in Truth, joyous in its strength, permanence, and freedom.
But how are we to reach this desideratum? God's messengers have already gone forth pointing with loving care and sacrifice the way. The Christ Truth and Love still comes with the authoritative tones of conscious proof and understanding, proclaiming and proving, "I am the way the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."
The meek and mighty Nazarene brought the liberty-giving, life-saving message, in its purity and wholeness, to a sin-sick world, and demonstrated its divine power to save from the thraldom of sin, disease, and death. Thus amply equipping mortals, he left them to work out their own salvation, saying, "If ye love me, keep my commandments." These were briefly stated: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it," Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." He also said, "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father." But it is not possible so sincerely to love God and man, without knowing more of what they are than the general teaching our nation is receiving today, and the life of error we are leading, can reveal to us; for it is not emotional love, it is love born of an understanding of Truth, of a proof and revealment of what God is, and what man is, and of God and man's worthiness of such love. Jesus taught and revealed all this, and clearly showed and proved how to live so as to satisfy the longings of the perfect man within each and all, and thus attain harmony and heaven here to-day. But have any of the nations of Christianity understood the full report of the Christ-life and message? Have they kept these commandments, and enjoyed this life of love and freedom? Or have they accepted and believed only parts of the Word, and adulterated even these with the unproved doctrines and creeds of men? And have they thus missed "the way, the truth, and the life," and are we still a sin-sick world? But "God's mercy endureth forever." And as Jesus said, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." The spiritual ear of a woman turned from the unsatisfying clamor of earth, near enough to God to hear and discern again the full import of His precious Word. Illumined, guided, and sustained in its eternal Light, she has given the glad message so plainly, that little children can hear and rejoice, and older ones, clouded with the cultivated wisdom, false traditions, and sins of men. gradually give way in its clear Light and Love, and yield to its mathematical-like demonstration and invincible logic, and rest in its higher proof of what God and man is. This book, born to our nation and the world under the title of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker G. Eddy, is proclaiming and proving God's Word "with signs following," and freeing those who hear and live its teachings. This book is the first to take the fragmentary spiritual crumbs on which a creed-cramped, hungry world has been starving, and unite them into a satisfying loaf.
It unites Christianity in its fulness with demonstrable Science, and thus restores and forever establishes this most precious Truth to a needy world, beyond any possible future hiding by misguided, or intentional traducers, and parters of the whole garment. The divine Principle it reveals enables the God-seeking man scientifically to build, on the basis of clear demonstration and proof; at once satisfying, sin-destroying, health-giving, and uplifting. It takes the spiritual from the grave in which superstition, speculation, and dogma would confine it, and resurrects it into the living, absolute, demonstrable, Scientific Truth; furnishing a foundation for the eternal structure which can be perpetually added to, and never taken from. And in this marvelous "new Heaven" and "new earth," the ills which have appeared to bind humanity, are seen to be illusive, and man is awakened from their seeming bondage to the full consciousness of untold liberty and dominion as a child of God; recognizing and receiving his heritage of life, freedom, and joy, in the realization of God as Love, and as All-in-all. Its mission does not end in words: indeed it now makes the good lives, works, and deeds that words inspire, attest their only right to place and power, in man's affections.
The fruits of this loving message from God are already in evidence all over our land, in many thousands of lives saved from the bondage of illusion, false belief, sin, sickness, disease, accident, and death; many of these are also proclaiming in their new lives, words, and works the same heavenly tidings, with the same saving results; and it is evident that the leaven so actively begun, will continue until the whole is leavened.
On that glad day, when the tongue of our new liberty bell shall faithfully express the enlightened tongue of our nation, in its inscribed motto, and shall ring forth its heartfelt song of, "A new commandment I give unto you. That ye love one another," then shall our "country know that "Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty," and that of "His government and peace there shall be no end."
Then too shall we become "an ensign for the nations" and the prophecy foretold in Isaiah (Chapter II) be nationally and joyously realized.
