THE history of human progress is inevitably linked with that of the great thinkers who have roused mankind from the enslaving lethargy of stereotyped material modes in religion, education, or the government of nations; but in no single instance did the thinker escape the antagonism of his contemporaries, even though they were compelled to admit that the reforms for which he contended were needed. The task of arousing a sleeper is usually a thankless one, but when the sleeper is thoroughly awake he begins to appreciate what has been done for him. The Hebrew people were in the depth of misery when Moses was sent to call them to freedom, a task from which he shrank, but one which he could not evade, since it came from the Mind that rules the universe, the infinite "I AM," whose throne rests upon justice and judgment. It was Moses' spirituality which fitted him to become the messenger of Truth to his people, but it was only as they themselves were spiritually aroused that they recognized and obeyed the laws of Truth and understood and loved the messenger.
It seemed as if the Israelites were by no means ready for a purely spiritual religion, for an elaborate ritual was established which resembled not a little that of the Egyptians, who had held them in cruel bondage. We find Isaiah and other prophets speaking of this ritual as "vain oblations," even as "an abomination" unto God, because it did not lead its votaries to "cease to do evil; learn to do well." It is true that all through the ages there were those who cried out for the living God, and who left as an imperishable record their protests against the great wrong of attempting to approach God by aught less than a purely spiritual worship, and yet what was their fate? Christ Jesus said. "Some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city." In Hebrews we read that the prophets "were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword,"—those "of whom the world was not worthy."
Of these prophets it may be said that they aroused men without being able to show the way of deliverance from evil through spiritual understanding. It remained for Christ Jesus to do this, and he did it because of his pure spirituality and his clear vision of the Father's ever-presence and all-power. Mrs. Eddy says (Science and Health, p. 29), "Jesus was the offspring of Mary's self-conscious communion with God. Hence he could give a more spiritual idea of life than other men, and could demonstrate the Science of Love—his Father or divine Principle." The wonder and grandeur of his achievements in overcoming sin, disease, and death hold us in awe today, and yet we read that after the crucifixion his own disciples lost their faith in his teachings to the extent that they forsook the healing work to which he had called them and went back to their material vocations. This, according to the Scriptures, was because they had not yet received the Holy Ghost, the divine influence spoken of in John's Gospel as the Comforter that should bring to their remembrance all that Christ Jesus had taught them. At this crucial point in their career, when it seemed as if his teachings would be forever lost to the world (for we must remember that not a word of the New Testament had then been written), "our Master reappeared to his students,—to their apprehension he rose from the grave,—on the third day of his ascending thought, and so presented to them the certain sense of eternal Life" (Ibid., p. 509) Then they resumed the healing work which he had commanded them to do, and gave to the world the deathless record of his life and work, also of many of their own demonstrations throughout long years, the record closing with St. John's vision of the kingdom of God, wherein is neither sin, disease, nor death.
